nacho and tyson are fellow urban explorers like me. So, between the three of us, we should be able to come up with some entertaining stories, right?
I'll start.
Kent Ohio, before it became a college town, was a stopover for trains criscrossing the midwest. There are tons of train tracks all around, and many of them are abandoned. The bold tradition of "walking the tracks" was handed down to me and my roommate, the Great Ernesto, by some other guys in our first dorm.
Oh, the terror! For 18 year old freshmen who are still trying to get ahold of the whole "being on your own and responsible for your own safety and well-being" thing, this experience was terrifying...walking across the darkned town well after midnight, sneakthiefing through the quiet blocks of homes away from campus and jumping the guardrail of a bridge that traveled over one pair of tracks. We walked, being led by the older students, aiming nowhere, stumbling over the ties.
Imagine pitch black. Ohio seems to manage this above all other states. There are sounds in the woods on either side of you, skittering gravel, growling rodents, shrieking owls and...what's that rustling in the bushes!?
But it's worth all the fear when, far off in the distance you can see the beaming headlight of a freight train and start to hear the rumble. You slide down the gravel slope into the woods, cowering there in the darkness, because engineers have been known to stop fifty-car trains and shoot rifles into the dark if they see trespassers, but when the engine has shot past, you know you're safe, so you come out of hiding, stagger up to the track again and hold your arms out as this metal behemoth flies past you at forty-five miles per hour, chang-chang, ching-chang. The wind is incredible and the smell of pure racing metal is enticing.
We went out at least once a month, including one stint where we went three times a week, guaging the different phases of the moon. There are abandoned tracks that are falling apart and lead to rundown old water tanks, underpasses filled with graffitti, evidence of campfires and winos' beds. And the tunnels...always a threat to be caught in one when a train comes. One time Ernesto and I had no choice...we stood leaning flat against the concrete wall, pressing ourselves as thin as we could, and the train flew by six inches from our faces, and all we could think about was some stray bulkhead or loose door swinging wide and decapitating us. But after it was over....well, our souls were never the same.
I'll take anybody that wants to go sometime. I've got the whole map in my head. It's one of the only true ways to face your fear of the dark.
woo!
