We pulled off another big one the weekend before last. We checked out an abandoned Nike missile site near Pleasant Hill, Missouri.

We all met up at one of the local Wal-marts late in the morning. Hiccup and I showed up first, followed by David Keetz and Anne, then Willard and Dee Dee. Anne, Willard and his girlfriend got into David's vehicle, while Hiccup and I had decided to follow along in our own vehicle so that we could do some exploring in Kansas City afterward (although we didn't end up doing that).

Once we'd made the drive up to Pleasant Hill, we went out by the missile site to scope it out. We decided that it might be better go in teams, with one set of three dropping off the other three. That way, there wouldn't be any vehicles sitting conspicuously outside the building.

David, Hiccup and I went first. We found a place where we could scale the chain link fence surrounding the site and climbed on over it. We wandered around for a bit, taking pictures of the buildings and all the random junk lying around.

Eventually, we wandered over to a huge flat area where the missiles were launched from. There seemed to be three different underground areas underneath us, with large bay doors on the ground that opened into them. We were able to peer through an opening down into one of the chambers and saw that there was a massive elevator that rose up through those doors. Also, curiously, we could see an old car down inside.

Without getting specific, we found a non-damaging way to get down into one of the underground chambers, but we needed something from my car. However, when we tried to call Willard for them to come get us, it wouldn't go through. We didn't have Anne's number, and we realized that none of them had David's cell number. So, we went out front and sat by the road to wait.

We were just about to start walking back to town when, to our relief, they came along. It turned out we had the wrong number for Willard. We told them the deal, and we all drove back to my vehicle to get what we needed. Once that was done, we decided to all go in at once this time and just ditch our vehicle out of sight nearby.

Once we were all inside the site, I went down into the chamber first to scope things out. We were pretty sure the site still had power, because we'd heard some sort of compressor running down in the chamber. I quickly found that it was true and turned on the lights. I also had the half-baked idea of bringing everyone else down on the elevator, but I couldn't figure out how to work the thing. Eventually, everyone just came down the way I'd come.

We all wandered around the chamber taking pictures for a while. It wasn't super huge, but it was still amazing, and there were lots of little side rooms full of old junk. One door even had stuff painted on about the explosives that used to be inside the room behind it. We also found a diagram that showed that the missile would've been laid out on the elevator, which was about two car lengths long. From there, it would've been raised up in its magazine for launch.

After a little while down there, while everyone was milling around doing their own thing, I figured out the elevator, although I didn't immediately know it. I was playing with the controls and noticed that some lights that hadn't been on before were now activated. So, not knowing if it would really work, I hit the button to open the launch bay doors.

The doors came SCREAMING open with a sound somewhat akin to the gates of Hell opening. Everyone jumped back in shock and then turned to me with looks that said: Holy shit. We all started laughing and I just shrugged and said, "I didn't know it was gonna work."

Since we had just about seen all we cared to see of the chamber, everyone decided to ride the elevator out. I stayed below and ran the controls while I videotaped them ascending out of the chamber. It was pretty amazing, too. Not many people can say they've ridden an elevator built for an atomic weapon. I just wish I'd thought to ride the elevator once before I sent them up.

While the elevator was up, I looked around the area below it, but there wasn't much there. So, I brought the elevator back down and shut the bay doors. Then I decided I wanted some video of the doors opening, so I opened them up again, but when I tried to close them a second time, they wouldn't budge. I hit the button several times, but nothing happened. I was starting to get a little freaked out, and I could tell from the looks on everyone's faces up top that they were, too. Then it occurred to me that you might not to be able to close the doors after opening them without raising and lowering the elevator. So, I did that, and sure enough the doors closed when I tried them.

After that, I left the way we'd all come in. We rested for a few minutes up on the surface, then we packed up our stuff and headed on out. We all agreed that the place had turned out to be ten times more amazing than we'd imagined. We expected to find a few abandoned buildings to explore, and we ended up riding a piece of history.