Hey guys! So recently, Jes and I went on yet another adventure. We ventured into an area of San Diego, called San Pasqual. I've always been in love with this area. There is a lot of farm land and gorgeous views, plus, there's abandoned things!! This post will mainly be pictures. Enjoy! We came across an abandoned house with two other structures on the property. We didn't go into these two buildings, but we went in their "warehouse". Seemed to be abandoned for quite some time. Before we left, we decided to take a stroll down the dirt road. Jumpy pic time!! The picture of the day just so happened to work out nicely, and be my favorite picture! I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Thanks for reading! Until next time, Ciao
0 Comments
Hey there! So it seems that we have one last post from our Arizona trip! It's the craziest, creepiest one of them all! The area this weird community was in, is called Desert Center. On our way home, before we reached Desert Center, we stopped by the "shoe tree" and left some shoes in our name :). We also found a few other cool things. Many miles later, we finally reached Desert Center. We didn't exactly know what we were going to find here, but we knew it was a deserted town. I have passed it many times, and always wanted to stop and check things out! We stopped at the Cafe, along the highway, and soon found an entire abandoned community near it! We took a dirt road and eventually came upon what we found to be the creepiest "town" we'd ever been in. The dirt road led us to pass a huge warehouse, drive-up loading docks, sheds, over 65 "houses", many more abandoned buildings, a barn, a big building and a few trailers. We also came across a pool and tons of strange cement basin-type things. This place was so unexplainable, not even the photos do it justice! We drove all the way to the end, and worked our way to the exit. Surprisingly, this entire "community" was mostly untouched! It was incredible to finally come across something abandoned, without it being completely tagged and vandalized. The inside of this building was super dark and eerie. We used the built-in flash on my Canon to take the pictures. Is it weird that I expected to look back at these pictures and see a dead body or a ghost or something?? We couldn't see anything, so I didn't really know what the inside looked like, until I looked back at the pictures later. The first small building we came across was one with barred windows and a single chair inside. We called this "the punishment room". Seemed appropriate. We then moved along to the 65-some "houses" that were beyond strange to us. I still, to this day, feel creeped out by them. What in the world were these odd structures for? We think someone had stacked all the beds in one house and then all the rest of the items from each house into another. So for literally the last 10 days I have been researching this area and could not find anything!!! I was getting so frustrated and was about to give up, when I finally figured something out. I decided to drop a pin on one of the buildings, via cell phone. I searched the address and nothing but real estate websites came up. Most of them said this, "Flat 318.95 acre parcel. Great location -flat parcel with great potential. Easily farm crops and fish - previously used to farm asparagus, jojoba, grapefruit and tilapia. Utilities and facilities in place. Gas, electrical, phone and septic system on property. Water provided by well and easily distributed to irrigation system (over 22 miles), faucets and hydrants throughout property, in addition to the 27 concrete, in-ground fish tanks and 3 levee ponds. Commercial scale packing and shipping operation possible with sizeable covered packing area and large walk-in refrigerator with drive-up loading docks. Easy freeway access, minutes from I-10. Property includes single-family residence. Potential uses: nurseries, orchards field crops, grazing farm animals, packaging plants, guest ranches, tennis clubs, golf courses, relay towers, distribution center, etc." This place is still extremely strange to me, and I want to know more! What are those 65+ "houses" used for? What large materials were they bringing in to the loading area? I found that it may have been called FBI Farms, or Jatropha Plantation. I believe it closed around 2009. I also found that the Jatropha seeds were used to produce biodiesel. The large cement basins were part of their aquaponic system. Water was pumped from their well into the fish tanks. From there, the water went into the nursery field and then into the dirt ponds. From the dirt ponds, it stayed until they needed it in the main fields. The system allowed them to make an organic fertilizer. I just want to know more!! Some things may forever remain unanswered. Oh well. Want to see our jumpy pics? My picture of the day is one that I feel explains this bizarre place. It just gives the vibe of how strange it was to see nearly 70 "houses" lined up. These houses were tiny, too! Thanks for reading! Until next time, Ciao
Throughout our trip to Arizona, our plan was to be as adventurous as we could, do as much as possible, spend time with family, and visit any/all abandoned things in Kingman (and along the way). I'd have to say, we were very successful! I am so pleased with how the trip went, and the fact that we got to spend some great time with my sis, her husband and their baby! The day I'm writing about today, is one of our favorite days, in Kingman. We started out the day trying to first find an abandoned community of houses. We couldn't find it, but we found a cool house along the way. We continued on to find what we had heard was called Luana's Canyon AKA Slaughterhouse Canyon. The story goes something like this... During the 1800's and the gold rush days, a gold miner and family lived in the canyon; in a small wooden shack. The husband would venture out, via mule, into the mountains to search for gold and gather food for him and his family. His wife Luana stayed home to care for their children. One month, the husband never returned. Soon, the family began to starve. Luana lost her mind, unable to watch her children continue to starve. After murdering her children, Luana put on her wedding dress, during a rainstorm, and chopped up her children. She chopped them into several piece, went to the river and tossed their remains in the stream. The next morning she returned and died while mourning the loss of her children. Tales are still told that some days you can hear her crying within the canyon. Sadly, the wooden house is no longer there. We were very disappointed after spending literally hours trying to find it. Hmph, on to the next adventure! Jesse and I, my sis, her two friends, my niece, and my brother-in-law took my brother-in-law's big truck and went off roading. We were in search of finding an abandoned mansion we had heard about. We were dying to go ever since we heard of it!! We didn't have perfect directions, and barely had cell service! It took us about an hour to get to a point where we had to stop because the truck couldn't go any further. The trail was too narrow and too rocky. We all ended up walking (except baby Charlotte) about 2 miles, until we found the mansion. Even though it was 90+ degrees, we still enjoyed our hike. Our first encounter was with this cow, in the middle of the road! He eventually moved. LOL. I will include the directions, at the bottom of this post. Like I said, we parked the truck under a shady tree and started our hike. We all found it so neat that there was water, as we got closer to the mansion! The sun was beating down and shining so brightly! Some pictures, unfortunately, have sun spots. :( And finally....THE MANSION!!!.. I fell in love with the arched doorways, the vines leading up the mansion; and how well preserved the building was! History lesson: In 1929, during the Great Depression, the two-story mansion was built. Built by the Gold King Corporation, the structure is made up of 6-inch reinforced concrete, high arched windows and doors, and some beautiful wall decor (that still exists). The mansion was built to entertain wealthy investors as well as the mine foreman. The Gold King Mine produced gold, silver, copper, and lead. Sadly, production never reached the level the miners had hoped for. In October 1929, the stock market crashed and brought an end to the mine and beautiful mansion. The Hualapai 4 Wheelers have since adopted the mansion, in order to keep it vandal- and trash-free. We walked over to explore the mine and found a few rusty sheds, spread out, and several large holes (about 15 feet?) There is no longer any glass left, but the building was surprisingly very well preserved! The Moss Mansion and Gold King MineThe mine was actually quite difficult to get to. It was up a very steep hill, full of slippery sand and rocks. That is what is left of the main mine. Like I said earlier, there were multiple, but this was the larger one. Now, here is the only picture (I think in existence) of the mansion and mine, in working use. (Sorry for the poor quality!) Directions to The Gold King Mansion and Mine: [Please note: This route to the mansion must be done in either a 4-wheeler truck or jeep,or some type of quad/desert vehicle.] Head East on the I-40, from Kingman Take the Blake Ranch Road exit, and drive roughly 10 miles, until you reach this sign.. Once you reach this sign, turn right onto the dirt trail road. Drive as far as you can, and hike the rest of the way. There are definitely some tricky parts to get through. Good luck! The picture of the day is one that is quite special! It is our very first jumpy picture together!!! YAY! Thanks for reading!! We have one more post from our Arizona trip. Until next time, Ciao Hey there! So, this is going to be a quick post of an abandoned house Jesse and I found off of Hualapai, in Kingman AZ. This house isn't very old, and no one ever lived in it. The house wasn't quite finished when it was deserted. I love this style and the cool rustic shed, in the backyard. Enjoy! So we first drove on Hualapai Mountain Road to see what the beautiful mountains had to offer. During the winter, these mountains are beautifully covered in white snow! We brought along my niece, Audi, so she could ride in the car and stick her head out the window to enjoy the scenery too! :) (She's a German Short-Haired Pointer!) Is she not the cutest?!! I love her so much!!! Cutest, sweetest dog ever! After we enjoyed the view, we headed to an abandoned house we saw along the way. So this house has been abandoned for a few years now, and as you can see, people have destroyed it a bit. The biggest vandals in this house? Birds. Birds have taken over and moved into this house. Never have I ever seen this many bird feathers, in my life! Even though the house was unfinished, I loved the wrought iron throughout, with horse shoes on it! Although the house wasn't old, creepy and was infested with birds, it was still quite neat!! Picture of the day.... Thanks for reading!! Until next time! Ciao Today was such an eventful day! On top of what I'm about to tell you we did, we also drove in 3 states AND went to Calico Ghost Town! So awesome, though. So after Calico, we kept on truckin' and made our way to what I call Lake Dolores and Rock-A-Hoola. This is an abandoned water park that has been abandoned since 2004. It used to be so awesome when it was first abandoned, because it wasn't so destroyed and tagged up. It made me so sad walking through the park because I hate that people are so destructive. Anyway, I hope these pictures can give you insight on just how cool this water park used to be! I'll include a few original photos from when it was at its prime. For a quick history lesson on Rock-A-Hoola... The waterpark is located in Newberry Springs, just off the 15; in the Mohave Desert. In the '50's, a man named Bob Byers purchased the land and built a man-made lake, which he named Lake Dolores; after his wife. Within a decade, a small camp ground near the lake was opened to the public. The site evolved into a waterpark within the next 25 years. Many rides and attractions were added in order to lure in people traveling between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. In the late 1980's the park closed, due to a downturn in the popularity. Byer's sold the then deserted waterpark in 1990 to a business trio, who had plans to grow the park. In 1998 the park was renamed "Rock-A-Hoola" and was known for the constant playing of rock and roll music. In only three seasons of the park re-opening, the trio were already three million dollars in debt! In 2000, they filed for bankrupsy. The property was then returned to Dolores Byers (Bob Byers died in '96). A month before her death, Dolores sold the property, in 2001, to an investment group. The park was renamed "Discovery Park" and had $400,000 in renovations. After cutting back hours and only being open on weekends, the park closed in 2004. So, we found a huge piece of glass, propped it up on a wall in the "Locker Room", and took a selfie! Now, I want you to see a few old pictures of the park, when it was in its prime! And now for the jumpy pictures! Directions: I took the 15 toward Vegas, exited Harvard Road and turned left onto Harvard Road, crossed over the freeway and turned left onto Hacienda Road. Take that road all the way until you see the water park on your right. Arne's Royal Hawaiian MotelArne's Royal Hawaiian Motel opened in 1957 as a motel for people to stay in, when passing through a town called Baker. Baker is just off the interstate 15. The hotel had 43 rooms in multiple buildings, two-stories, a pool and a game room. According to reviews, this hotel was a 1-2 star motel and was in horrible staying conditions. The motel was abandoned in 2009. Despite how apparently disgusting this motel was, what remains is pretty cool. If you are familiar with Bates Motel, this motel definitely resembles it quite well. The hotel was known for having a tropical tiki theme throughout, with retro furniture. Address: 7940 West Baker Boulevard, Baker, CA 92309 What an eventful day it was!!!
Thanks for reading!! Until next time, Ciao Hey there! Jesse and I have been so busy lately, we haven't had time to hike. He randomly had 2 days off, so, naturally, we jam packed those days with fun activities! We had been dying to go out to Jacumba and hike to all the abandoned trains out there! Tuesday was beyond perfect to go! Jesse packed his giant "survival backpack" (as usual) and we headed to Jacumba. We drove to DeAnza Springs Resort (a clothing optional community), paid $5 to park all day, and started our hike! We honestly walked through bushes to get to the railroad tracks, and then walked along them the entire time. It's not too difficult to find. We chose to bring along one bike, since I have bad knees and was slightly worried about the 14 mile round trip hike. We ended up only hiking about 7 miles total; choosing not to go all the way. Less than a mile in, you'll come across the first abandoned train. We spent a good amount of time inside and on top of this train. So awesome and fun!! Some of the seats had tiny mattresses. LOL. I love all the spirals, though!! We found several bird's nests. Jesse shrieked when he realized the birds were alive and inside one of them! I'm not sure why I found it so cool that it was a two story train! He's always such a gentleman!! All of the hues were muted and gave off an 80's vibe. It was a tad eerie, but fascinating more than anything. We made our way to the front of the train and found all of the control panels. The textures and colors of the entire train came across as a form of art to my eyes. So engaging and fascinating. We searched everywhere to find a date to figure out how old this train is. We finally found one stamped on a window in the control room, dated '81. Jes was dying to go on top of the train so we made our way up, before we continued on the hike. [Please note: I am terrified of heights!!] Please excuse my hair. To say it was a windy day is an understatement. And now for our goofy-adventurous side, if you will. Am I allowed to have bragging rights? ;) I do call him "Mr. Perfect" for a reason! On to the rest of our train journey. There are many bridges, but it is extremely peaceful out there! Never count me out. We enjoyed the beautiful patterns in the mountains. An alluring mountainous view. Jesse wanted to 'capture my face' when I saw where we were heading next.. By the looks of this one, it was definitely older than the last, and possibly from Mexico. We sat for a little while, on the train, ate a snack, and played music on Jesse's phone. We saw a bird's nest above the door, by where we were sitting, and suddenly the birds woke up. I sat on Jesse's shoulders to get a picture of them! So cute, yet creepy lookin'!! Don't worry, I just used spit to write our name on the train. Left me with a few blue-stained fingers, LOL. We both wanted to continue on, but the wind was at least over 80 mph. It was not only cold, but pushing us over..even Jesse!! At times it was hard to walk and even ride the bike. We made it back to the first train and took more jumpy pictures. We most definitely want to come back and do the entire hike! There is much more to this hike that we did not see. After leaving, we knew we would drive passed the Golden Acorn Casino, so we stopped in. They didn't have any deals for signing up, so we decided to walk over to a restaurant and check out the $7.77 Prime Rib Dinner. Sounds unappealing to me, but we just had to. It's funny how minor things entertain us, and draw us in. The dinner came with either soup or salad (we chose the sausage soup) and the sides we got were mashed potatoes and "veggies". The mashed potatoes were actually quite good. My meat was super dry, the soup was good, and the green beans were soaked in butter. Oh well, at least we can say we ate the $7.77 dinner, right? HAHA! Picture of the day? Our prime rib dinner...LOL! Thanks for reading!! Until next time! Ciao
The flowers on my back deck are so beautiful right now!! I get distracted by them daily! Back to the topic of the day. I've always had a serious fascination for all things abandoned. It's so eerie and intriguing. I grew up watching tons of scary movies with my dad, so infatuated with mystery. I received my BS in fashion business marketing, almost a year ago, and was fortunate enough to do an abandoned-themed photoshoot. This photoshoot was maybe two years ago and I found this abandoned bus, while searching for interesting abandoned locations, in SD. Here are a few pictures from my photoshoot. Photo credit: Kerstin Winter Back to 2014. So, I've been wanting to come out here again, and yesterday we made that happen! The area is Sycamore Canyon Test Facility. It's actually restricted government property. My bad. But it's just so cool, how can I not? Anyway, the day was fairly warm weather! Probably in the low 80's. It's a few miles to hike out to it, and super creepy the whole time. Since it's government property, I feared the entire time that they would either come out with guns and warn us off the property, or a helicopter would land near us. Neither happened, thankfully. [Please note: When we are on property that is considered "risky", like this, we are not destructive nor are we disrespectful. Again, please keep in mind nature can be fragile.] My curious George. We couldn't figure out exactly what it was. Still so cool, though! We continued on the trail, with our destination in site: building 4 and the abandoned bus. The last time I was here, this building was open. You were able to go inside. I didn't go inside, which now I'm sad, since it's bolted shut. Awwwww :) This structure is so strange. We weren't sure what it was for, since there was no door to go inside it. Jesse found this melted glass down there, that we thought was pretty neat. Building 4 also has a "7" on it, along with an alarm. We guessed that a lot of this property was used as a shooting range, hence these "tables", that went on a path, for a while. oh, hello...ironic There were bee hives everywhere, in the broken pipes!!! Luckily, I had my EpiPen, just in case! It ended up being quite peaceful to just sit and chat; although, the whole time I was a bit paranoid. And now, time for our jumpy pics! We started heading back, and stopped at a rusty old water tower. My monkey had to climb. Climbing a water tower was something he always had on his bucket list! We were hungry, so, we decided to head back to the car. We ended up grabbing Chinese food and eating it at Mira Mar lake. A wonderful end to the day!! Picture of the day is rusty barbed wire. We had to walk through it on our way out. I've always had an attraction to anything rusty, as well as barbed wire. Call me weird. Thanks for reading! Until next time. Ciao
|
AuthorA passionate lover of food, adventure, traveling, and enjoying life! Archives
October 2017
Categories
All
|