Day 86!

Adventures in Pennsylvania! My stepsister, Blake lives in Whitehall, PA. She's always telling me about these places she goes to with her friends, places you're really not suppose to trespass, but no one follows those rules anyways. They sounded ridiculously interesting, so Dan and I decided that we were going to meet her in Pennsylvania so she could show us and then we would take her back to Jersey.

Our first stop was the Trestle. An old abandoned bridge, with train tracks, that cross the Lehigh River.

Here were our tour guides. Blake and her friend Christina. I think they enjoyed my expression when I realized where we were.

Photos do no justice sometimes. I wish it were possible to actually show how high up we were. We were crazy high up. This was probably the most dangerous thing I have ever done. One, this thing was ridiculously high as I said. Two, we were over a river, a very shallow river with rocks. Three, a lot of the wood was rotted and breaking, I was ready to step on a board and fall right through. Four, I'm almost certain I have vertigo and goodness did this make me dizzy.

I never realized it until now, but I might be afraid of heights. Or maybe just dangerous heights. Because the ten foot ladder at work, yeah no problem, not to mention I used to be a flyer in cheerleading, heights = no problem. However, dangerous heights = heart beating to a point I have never witnessed before.

Most of my photos came out like a mess, I think I was more worried about not falling then if my hair was blowing in the shot, as you can see below. Oh shoot, number five on the list of why it was dangerous, it was a bit windy too.


















I wanted so much to walk to the other side, follow the tracks to where they curved into the woods which was so cool. But being there were huge gaps in the tracks with missing wood, I couldn't make it over.

I love how if it weren't for this little bit of track showing, you wouldn't even know a train once went through here. 

This was outside the entrance of the trestle. I love this old sign, though it might be best to get a new one.

So after the trestle we went to the ruins. It's a very interesting place of old concrete building, that are dilapidated and covered in greenery. It's extremely cool, and you know totally safe. I researched this play slightly and anything I find about it doesn't explain much of what it was. I have my own ideas by the shape of the buildings and some of the strange tunnels, but I keep finding things online about trolleys and cement factories, but to me it totally looks like an old army base. So if anyone knows of this area, please inform me. 

Like what was this octagon looking building? 

From what I gather now, this is where people go to play paintball/airsoft, as well as party/drink/do drugs and pretend they are artists by graffitiing. Though I will admit some of the graffiti was kinda cool, some not so much. I'll post about that later. This was inside the octagon building, it had hallways and rooms, and a few skylights, some small and some huge.

Like this one. Part of the roof on this building was completely gone, you could see straight down to below floor level. Like I said, totally safe!

These stairs reminded me of Labyrinth, except you couldn't walk them upside down...sadly.
















Creepy! Random stool in one of the rooms.

Whoa, I totally get it now, this was place was the first Taco Bell!

Okay, so not really.

While exploring we were sorta chased by a homeless man. Kinda scary, but sorta used to it, I go to school in the city. To be prepared if we were attacked, Dan carried a large rock as a weapon, Blake and Christina opted for sticks, while I went with this weird/cool cat selfdefense keychain. Luckily we weren't attacked. 

I feel this is easier to identify than the octagon building. I imagine this was a church, right?

I mean, look at the windows. I could totally picture them to once hold stain glass. 

However if not, it's the place from the movie the Secret Garden. Being inside four brick walls, it really does look like a secret garden.

This was another structure in the area. The structures were so cool. Not the way they were covered in graffiti and litter, but how mother nature was taking over them. There was one structure that when you walked up the steps of it, there were trees and shrubs growing on the roof. How crazy.

So....what was this place exactly? I'm so interested! I'm going to have to buy a book about the town and see if that helps, or possibly contact the owner of the land. I found out who he is, but possibly contacting him isn't the best thing. I was trespassing on his property, sure he wouldn't appreciate that. lol.

I hope to find out soon because I'd like to go back and take better photos. I didn't really get photos of the full structure, nor did I even try to get pretty shots. Hopefully, if Blake and Christina are willing to be tour guides once more, I can try again. I'd like to wait for the fall though. Being it was about 95 degrees out, I thought I was going to pass out from heatstroke. Also the less grass/weeds, the easier to navigate around, see things, as well as not take home ticks this time.

"As I recall, they hadn't mentioned this at all. My heart was racing like a sprinter. That tripped and fell."