Urban Exploration

I never knew there was an official name for an interest in this. I've always been into exploration. Growing up I'd spend hours at the beach in the tide pools, and in the winter I'd go to the beach to collect shells, glass, and other odds and ends that washed up from Japan. I went on hikes on ancient trails where I had to leave offerings for Hawaiian gods or else be cursed or haunted (and I'm not talking about Diamond Head). My dad knew where the cliffs hit the golf course between the beach in Kaneohe and we'd climb the fences and hunt for golf balls in the thickets in the evening (so he didn't have to buy any). In San Diego, there was always new poetry spray painted on the walls at Scripps by the pier, and Jenna and I found Skull Island a deserted construction site/sanctuary under the I-15. Brandon and I explored a deserted factory in Delaware he found while he was skating, where he actually had to hoist me through one of the windows. We climbed something so huge we could see for miles, but we were in the middle of an industrial area, so no one cared. The walls inside had tags and poetry about life and love all over. I've enjoyed walking the trails in The Odyssey, a forest close to my cousin's childhood house in the outskirts of Columbus. It's beautiful to see how the place changes every season, something I am unaccustomed to. On the way there, there are abandoned houses and farms that I have stopped to explore full of tires, rusted vehicles, and kitchen cabinets full of pills and a few old photographs. I've had to be careful going to the 2nd story, as a lot of the floor boards are breaking, or all together missing. One house had a huge hole in the second story floor. I could stick my legs through it so that Derek could see them from the first floor in the living room. Anyways, my friend Chris recently visited Chippewa Lake Park where a carnival in Medina County, Ohio lingers on. I might have to make a trip out there, maybe with Derek. I've also looked around the world wide web a bit about this topic and there are lots of sites posted to visit all across the United States. I'd love to see some old California motels, and dead Las Vegas neon signs. Some of the sites on Ohio provide a lot of creepy places like burial grounds, and haunted children's homes, penitentiaries, and insane asylums. I'm not really interested in that. Those were made recently popular by those ghost hunter shows. I saw that there was an old luxury hotel downtown Columbus that's abandoned, I thought, it would be great to watch the fireworks on the roof, until I read on to see that there were squatters and homeless people living in rooms on certain floors. Why do I keep thinking of The Shining? Oh yeah, and I have had encounters with the police two or three times now.

Marina, Riley, remember that creepy estate sale this summer with all the owls? The house smelled so bad, and the ceilings were falling in. so weird and fun.

Derek and I, 2007