Another incredibly busy day for Mrs. Ulcer, BeauBeau The Dog and myself. Today we decided to head east. As usual the day started off completely overcast. We were supposed to have clear weather for this trip and it's been cold and rainy, making lighting horrible. To make matters worse, Mrs. Ulcer seemed to be completely over the Urbex thing after two full days of it.
With that, I figured it was best to let her get her "touristy" stuff out of the way so we drove through a couple of small towns on our way to a place Ive had on my Bucket List for years. I made phone calls to the owners and the husband was sick and the wife didnt want to talk to me...
After a couple of hours driving around looking at small towns and oohhhing and aaaahhinng over boutiques on main street she finally said, "Ok where are we going". I managed to get my bearings after a few minutes of switching back and forth from google earth and google maps and we began our journey to an old abandoned school. Just before we get there and I see something between a couple of houses. "STOP!" I yelled. She slams on the breaks, sending poor BeauBeau head first into the dashboard from the back seat...
We make the block and I discover this:
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I got out and spoke with one of the indigenous population asking what the structure was. Google Translator didnt understand, "Man, that was some kind of tabernacle yo". I can only presume that he meant it was a religious establishment at some time in the past. I then asked him about the school and again I believe he said that people were living there but the accent and dialect were such that I couldnt be sure so I thanked him in proper english which he seemed to understand and I made my way down the street to my original destination.
The gentleman was indeed correct. There were 3 apartments that had been created on the back side of the school, one on each floor, connected by a very rusty fire escape as well as a trailer with a doorbell of all things! When I rang the door bell a black fluffy cat jumped out from underneath a car meowing as loud as he could, and rubbed on my leg. After drying the urine off of my leg and no answer from the door, I made nice with the cat and decided that there was no getting inside this place. The cat managed to make it in the last photo:
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Just a few blocks away was another place on my maps labeled "Sherman Tanks" Not very exciting but this place was HUGE. Unfortunately it was also locked up pretty well. As it was cold as hell I was going to skip it until I saw the contrast of the rust and the green grass so I decided to snap a few pics:
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It was at this point that disaster struck - my laptop gave out on me. I'm freaking out. All of my pins are on my computer on google earth and all I see is a black screen but the power's on. It wont turn off and Mrs. Ulcer is asking where next? Shit! I've got tons of stuff but cant locate any of it! To make matters worse she has to pee again (my protestations against drinking so much tea of course were ignored...). I decided that the day was pretty much over at that point so I told her to head for a place that I knew the directions to as its on my Urbex Bucket List. On the way we stopped and peed and I somehow got the laptop up and running again. Success! She gets in the car and says, "Much better. Ok I'm done. Lets go see this and then I'm finished looking at abandoned stuff".
We head for the next destination and as we approached and found a place just off the road to park she say, "Holy shit! Now I would risk arrest to see this place!" I took a couple of photos from the fence and said, "Fuck it. I'm coming back and getting in".
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When I got back into the car Mrs. Ulcer asks, "What are you doing? Arent you going in?" I explain that its a good few hundred yards across open ground and that I'm scheduling another trip up just to see it. There seemed to be at least a good 3 hours worth of exploring and I didnt want to be rushed. She said that she would come with me on that one!
We were both getting hungry so we saw a nearby park in a ritzy neighborhood and went and had lunch by a pond with the Beau Dog.
After lunch Mrs. Ulcer decided that it would be funny to text one of her employees that she was in Oklahoma so we headed north to see a railroad bridge she thought was "pretty" and to take a selfie just across the border. When we got there we see a sign that said there was a dam nearby and we were off to the races to go check that out! We got there with the intention of letting BeauBeau The Dog run around but it was cold and windy as shit so her time was short outside. I on the other hand had other plans....
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That was pretty much it for the day we decided. Mrs. Ulcer had a conference call to make and had to pee again... We headed back to get some shots of the bridge (we missed the exit the first time) and on the way I discovered what I named in my head, "The Bates Motel" and asked her to stop so I could get a quick couple of shots. I did a few external shots and was ready to leave but decided to take a quick peak into one of the rooms figuring it would be the regular trashed out motel rooms we've all seen a thousand times. I was shocked to find video games inside! This piqued my curiosity so I looked in them all. Every one contained gutted out video or gambling games except for one which appeared to be an active bum nest! I then went across the small courtyard into the main building and saw an entire room filled with junk and dozens of these same games! I can only surmise that this place was a "rent by the hour" motel on one side and a video gambling room on the other. How gambling AND prostitution in one place can fail is anyone's guess...
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It was now 15 minutes until the conference call and the "Great Flood of 2017" still hadnt ocurred. We raced back across to the Texas border, into a rest stop where no doubt people will be talking for years to come about the lady that came in to pee and completely flooded the entire town. By the time the call and the "business" was done she didnt care about the bridge. I asked her to make one more stop at an old POW camp that was only 13 minutes away.
When we got there I knew that there was a nearby oil well from Google earth so I played "gate bitch", opened the gate and we drove about 1/2 a mile down the lease road where the two sites split up. When we got there we were so close I could almost smell it. Unfortunately there was another gate leading to the location which read, "No Trespassing Pistol Range". I laughed, thought it was funny and was getting my gear together to walk in. Mrs. Ulcer then freaks out and says that I'll get shot! I explain to her that the sign is probably a joke, its the middle afternoon in the middle of nowhere on a Monday, we're fine. She refuses and begins to turn the car around. That was the end of that discussion I guess...
"Lets get back to the ranch. I want to pet the horses and see the pig". Before we arrived home we picked up some "White trash snacks" consisting of beer, corn nuts, moon pies, a few slim jim's (BeauBeau The Dog helped with those as well as the beer), some candy and a bottle of Big Red.
After petting the critters I decided to change the pins on my map from locations to been there done that. As I was doing so, I noticed that the military base that I had seen the previous day had two pins. Motherfucker! We went to the wrong place! The guy yesterday said that there was nothing left since 2015 but the map was dated late 2016 and I still saw structures. It had been a really long day, I was tired and wanted to jump into the beer and corn nuts but decided they could wait. When else was I going to be up here?
I headed to the site and began to get kinda nervous when I saw that there was a TXDOT office two miles from the location that the local DPS used as well. To top it off, the road was two lane, and directly across the location was a farm house. I had to be fast and the buildings were out in the middle of the field. I snapped a few photos as quickly as I could and returned to get out before the cops arrived.
It was one of the strangest things I have ever seen before. All that has survived were these long hallways and hallway intersections. The brick was still in great shape (including that laying on the ground), and relatively untouched by vandalism. But these hallways were about 5 feet wide and ran for hundreds of yards. Most have collapsed but a couple still stood. There were also some concrete footings remaining and I figured that these were the buildings that these long hallways connected to but again they too were just wide enough for the hallways. If anyone has any info on this I would love to hear about it!
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We're headed back home tomorrow so stay tuned for the final installment of Road Trip!
