I have always said that I only need three things before deciding to take a turn off of a familiar road and onto one I have never been on before. Those things are a full tank of gas, a GPS, and the good Lord watching out for me.
I am, by definition, not a thrill seeker in the usual context and definition of the word. I do not enjoy leaping from great heights, riding a roller coaster down massive free falls, or racing a car at a 100 miles an hour. Okay, maybe that last one is kind of fun, but my definition of thrill is the unknown. I am not morbid when I say this. I simply mean that I love not knowing what I'm about to find. The anticipation is almost enough to send my senses into overload! People take for granted now a days the release of just taking a drive. Not knowing where you are going to turn up, what you will see along the way, who you may meet, the new experiences you may add to your life....how could the human spirit resist? The most amazing trips I have taken in my life have always been the unplanned ones.
Just the other day I was heading to Ashville to pet sit for the night and decided I had a rough idea of the direction I needed to go, so I took some roads I had never been on before. An Ohio girl by birth, I have forever loved the wide open spaces of fields and sky. Yesterday's detour was no disappointment. As I looked out over the miles of fields, I got chills. This was my home. I am a forever Buckeye. A bonus to this side trip was driving by an abandoned farm house, which I made note of to stop back by again, a burnt out one room brick schoolhouse, which I cried a little inside at seeing, and a construction machine graveyard of sorts, which I almost slammed on the brakes to go back and see. All these things would have to wait till another day. But just knowing they were there and I had happened upon them made my day!
On the way to work this morning, I even passed another one room brick schoolhouse which I made note of to come back to. A short distance up the road was another old looking church. Perhaps it was even a replacement for the one room structure. A farming town to my left gave me great curiosity and if it had been any other day but a work day, I would have hung a left and gone to explore further.
Life gets in the way sometimes, but sometimes you have to get away in order to add to that life.
This Saturday, my friend Jane and I are heading down to the Hocking Hills for a day long adventure of abandoned places searching. This is a first trip of many for us. We are friends through another common friend and I am most pleased to have her as my exploration partner. You will see her photography on here regularly as she does have a better piece of equipment than my own iPhone camera. We share a common love of travel, photography, history, and abandon places. While I know the Hocking Hills well, I have no problem turning down a road I am less familiar with to discover what it has.
On the list of places we do most certainly want to see are:
Logan Drive-In Theater
Old Nelsonville High Schools
Nelsonville Train Graveyard
Nelsonville Pig Iron Furnaces
Ruins of the Buchtel High School
The Ridge, formerly the Athens Aslyum
Moonville Tunnel
The Chapel Ridge Road church and log cabin
Come back this weekend for pictures and stories of our adventure!
I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference.
ReplyDelete