I recently became a full member, and saw this place in the UE database. As soon as I saw the pictures I knew I had to check it out. So I did my research, plugged the coordinates into my GPS and off we went. We pretty much knew where we were going (we had an idea ;)) as we've all lived about 20 minutes away our entire lives, but it was our first time in this exact area. We drove past after spotting the place and parked in the apartment complex down the road a ways. Once we started walking we realized how fucking cold it was. I swear I could not feel my face. For anyone that's been here you probably know how long a walk it is from the apartments to the labs. Realistically it's not that far, but drop the temperature to about 30* and you have three UE popsicles.

The only worry we really had was the security in the building next door. The building was far enough off the road, however, that it really didn't make a difference. We walked past the active building, and start thinking "piece of cake."

WRONG. I've never seen more rose bushes in one place in my life. We walked around the back of the building looking for some sort of path way to this place. We ended up crawling on our hands and knees, ripping through thorn bushes for probably close to 100 meters. We get to the building thinking "finally, we're here." Well, we couldn't find a damn entrance. So we had to go through even more thorn bushes to find the side door.

Let me tell you something. If you ever need to protect your house from a zombie attack, an invading country, or aliens, plant some fucking rose bushes around your house. Those things are the single most annoying natural defense any plant can have.

So we get in, and we seem to start warming up. I had stared at this place from the air on live.com for hours, but I didn't realize how large it was until we actually got inside. We walked around the entire complex for two hours, and we found out after that we missed an entire wing. Oh well, next time. I digress.

The place was damn cool. It was abandoned in the 70's. There wasn't much left, as it's been abandoned for over 30 years, but what we did find was very interesting. Besides the 6 pairs of shoes in the locker rooms, we found a book lying on the ground in what appeared to be the waiting room. I don't quite recall the title exactly, but it was a book outlining the legalities of bankruptcy. We found some invoices and some VERY old mail, and we after a little digging at home we found out the place closed because they were being sued out their ass. Why you ask? They were marketing lead paint to children (don't ask me how, but that's what they were doing apparently). We snapped a few pictures, but it was so cold our fingers were growing number by the minute. We thought we had checked out the entire complex, so we decided to head down the stairs to see what we could see.

We walk down the stairwell, not knowing what to expect. It already had an ominous feeling to it, what with the anti-semetic and nazi writings all over the wall. We get to the bottom of the stairs and get hit right in the face with a pitch blackness farther than any eye could see. We shined all three of our lights down the hall, and the shadow just kept going. We walked around down in the cellar for a bit, but it was just so fucking creepy we (mostly I ;)) couldn't take it anymore. There was just no end to this cellar. It must have spanned the entire complex. So we skedaddled.

We decided to get back upstairs and take a few pictures. We snapped as many as we could before our fingers snapped off themselves. This place was very cool. Even though it didn't have much scientific stuff left, the feel of the place was enough for me. It's so old that the roof is falling in. Every light fixture in this place has collapsed and fallen onto the floor or dangles from the ceiling. Since there are so many holes in the roof, there is moss growing in just about every room in this place. Every piece of furniture is rotting away. You can tell it has a very, VERY old soul.