a few things from the past hour of my life before i start the trip rundown
1. i don’t normally listen to the radio, but i had the edge on cuz i didn’t want to listen to whatever mom left in the cd player…they had a commercial for WB49. the premise of the commercial was that a weird guy made some kind of remote control that would make his neighbors want to watch the ryan seacrest show, simpsons, king of the hill, and will and grace. it’s a skit between the inventor and someone else, demonstrating the device. the “someone else” tells the inventor to make his neighbors want to watch treasure island. the inventor says it only works on 4 shows. when asked why, he replies “Because there’s nothing else worth watching” ROFLMAO that struck me as so incredibly funny that they’re dissing their own network like that
2. another commercial…this time for the Quote bar down on delaware and chippewa. it is asking people what they want in a bar…one of the girls, the one who says “hot people” sounds like kristy from high school. then at the end of the commercial they have a contest, if you can identify this movie quote you will win a party for you and 10 friends. the quote was: “happy anniversary wayne…don’t you want to open your present…if it’s a severed head i’m going to be very upset”…..now maybe it’s just me and the fact that i know every word of that movie, but how does anyone NOT know it’s wayne’s world…especially after hearing Wayne talk…?!?!?! too bad i don’t like to party and don’t have 10 friends
3. niagara falls has smelled like alot of things..chemicals, trash, landfill…but just now was a new one..fruit loops.
And the trip…
Mom and I left around 10 am on tuesday and headed out for our first destination, Sharon Springs. Sharon Springs is an old sulpher spring resort town. It’s boom days were in the mid/late 1800s, but survived into the 1900s too. Even tho my mom read outloud a book she had borrowed from someone about Sharon Springs, I’m not really sure when it went into decay. I know about this place because my parents used to always stop there enroute to visit friends in Albany. Yet another place they dragged me as a child where I never thought I’d appreciate it. This was the place where the hassidic (horribly spelled wrong) jews thought I was jewish and started speaking to me in hebrew. All I remembered about the place was the overpowering smell of sulphur (rotten eggs, if you’re not familiar with it), broken sidewalks, and institutional green paint. Quite possibly my first exposure to instutitional green paint ever. Well it didn’t disappoint, in the paint department at least.
We rolled into Sharon Springs around 2:30 and drove a few streets at first. It looked alot like my little 4 year old mind remembers it looking. White, and green, and broken sidewalks, and decay…and sulphur. The smell wasn’t really all that bad. Overall I mean…There is lots and lots of decaying things here. Houses, one major hotel, and the baths just along the main street. Up on the other streets were more empty homes. First stop was the major abandoned hotel. It was sealed up pretty well, despite the fact I know people have been inside. We cased the joint, and when rounding the 4th side, cops… haha. I say “cops” my mom goes “WHAT?!” i go “cops” haha. Mom made up a story that I was taking photos for an art exhibit. They told us not to go inside. My mom said it looked sealed up pretty good. The cop said they get people inside somehow. Mom said we’re not the kind of people interested in going on roofs and things like young kids HA! So the cops left, but they stayed parked in the driveway though – stayed there even after we left. There were a few windows in front that had no boards on them anymore, and probably could have given us access…damn cops.
So from there we headed down the main street to the bath house and gazebo thing. I definitely remember these 2 things, and that’s where the smell is at its worst. Still wasn’t SO bad because it wasn’t all that warm out, but it was bad enough to make you gag if you got close to the water. This is when I started giving my mother a heart attack…by going in the various entryways of the various buildings in the area. But she survived. Some really beautiful things in the buildings, pretty pretty.
Finished up in town, and headed out for Woodstock. Uneventful ride to the town, found a place to stay the night, took my film to CVS and got dinner. Mom was freaked out by the hippies…and HELLO you WERE a hippy! After dinner, drove around the mountain looking for the trail head for Overlook Mountain House the next day….didn’t find it. It reminded me of driving around Achtung Mountain with Leighanne, looking for a sign to steal haha.
Got up early, mom talked to the hippy in the sitting room of the hotel thing. Headed to the trail. Wow. I hurt so bad. I can hardly walk. Especially if I’ve been stationary for a while. It was an approximately 2 mile hike, I don’t know the incline, but it was pretty rough at times for a weakling like me. We were resting (because of me) every 100 feet it seemed. But it was more than worth it, and once you’re at the hotel, the hike doesn’t seem so bad hahah. Beautiful place. I’m not sure who or when it happened, but all the inside of the hotel was taken out…so it’s basically just the shell of the building, and some walls on the bottom floor. Same with the smaller building near by. Which is sort of odd, but yeah…it’s a very clasical ruin…sorta like the parthenon, but sitting in the catskill woods haha. Very very pretty place.
After finishing at Overlook, we stopped breifly at the Tibettan Buddhist Monastery across from the trail head. Very pretty as well. And since I’m asian and all….haha funny thing. I told mom that some chinese guy at work asked me if i was chinese, cuz i have black hair, she said she’s going to start telling people that i was adopted and that i’m a half breed hahah.
Headed out to Saugerties to hit the thruway up north. Since we were in Saugerties I figured it’d be worth it to try and find the Woodstock site/memorial. So we tried and didn’t find it. Oh well. While on the highway we passed an “oversized load” truck. I didn’t pay much attention til I was passing it and realized it was hauling a TANK! LOL That must be how my relatives got their tank delivered to the woods in Bradford hahaha.
So we had alot more daylight time than I had figured, so I decided I wanted to try to find Frontier Town in North Hudson when we got off the interstate in the Adirondacks. If we didn’t find it, no big deal, but we had time. And boy did we find it. It’s kinda hard to miss as it’s right next to the exit. Mom was like, there’s nothing there. Yeah right, there was a train depot…and following the tracks into the woods, the entire frontier town. Oh my Bowie it was wonderful. It made my entire trip. It was so friggen creepy (but for reasons only brian and james will understand…to be explained when i have the photo). Spent a bunch of time wandering around there. Lucky for us, there was road work being done around the exit, so all the work people parked in the Frontier Town lot, and my car didn’t stick out and attract police attention. But yeah…wonderful place. Mom’s a thief haha. Or well I am, but only cuz she suggested it, she wanted the thing. shhhh
After we walked back to the train depot and got the car, we drove it up the hill to where the Frontier Town restaurant and hotel were. The hotel was still fully furnished, with some rad 70s chairs in the rooms. One of the rooms windows was open, could have crawled in but there was no reason to. We couldn’t have taken the chair, we had my car, not the station wagon hahah. Creepy again, for a Bates Motel reason haha.
Drove from there towards Tahawus, very much in the middle of nowhere. We weren’t sure how to get to the mine once in the general area, but we experimented on the few roads, and did find the place. By this time it was around 7 and mom didn’t want to go in with “failing light” – but in retrospect we should have….more to come. Left the site and drove towards a somewhat populated area to find a place to stay, get gas, and eat. Did the 3 and went back to the bed and breakfast.
Thursday now, we got up and headed for Tahawus. I was excited. Got there, the gate was open…bad sign. Walked in anyway, and halfway to the site, the caretaker/whatever drove out and found us. He nicely told us we couldn’t go in to take pictures, but we could take some from there as we left…As soon as he was out of sight in went back towards the site, but not too far…he had said he was coming back after checking on “the other side”. Disappointed. Should have gone in the night before.
I remembered that there were some of the employee houses in the area still, so we went out in search of those. We came upon the blast furnace which is burried very far offsite in the woods, and we did find the houses – completely falling apart dangerously. There is one shot I took that I desperately want to come out. We’ll see soon…
After that, it was 11:30 and we had nothing to do. So we left…headed back home. Of course, there was one more stop. We happened to drive by some wonderfully decayed building along the highway. Detoured to that and explored that a bit. I can’t figure out what it was. Mom thinks maybe a small power house, since it was along a river, but I really have no clue.
That’s about it. Off to scan. and develop….9 rolls of color, 4 of b&w. and tho i’m totally sick of b&w, i hate color.