The same weekend we explored the abandoned mine in Springfield, we also managed to explore the legendary Heer's building and climb the MFA mill yet again.

Sertile, Anne, Willard, DeeDee, Underdog, Hiccup and myself all met up at our usual place that afternoon. Willard and Underdog had managed to find a way into Heer's, and we were all dying to get the grand tour. We had originally intended to wait for the cover of darkness to enter the building, but we were all eager to check it out. So, we slipped inside as stealthily as we could in broad daylight.

Inside, we started out in a few sections that weren't all that spectacular. We quickly moved to the basement, which was pretty cool. It was mostly gutted, but it was enormous and there were still plenty of evidence of the department store that it had once been. When we stumbled upon a conveyor belt that went from the basement up to the ground floor, a few of us decided to walk up it while the rest took the stairs around to meet us.

The ground floor was amazing, and bright enough from the windows that we didn't need our flashlights. There were mirrored columns set throughout the room, along with a non-working escalator that went from the basement to the ground floor up to a large mezzanine that overlooked the ground floor. According to Willard, there used to be a pretty ritzy restaurant up there.

From that point on, we kept going up floor to floor. Hiccup and I went off by ourselves at some point, since we were moving a little faster than the others. We were just anxious to see the roof and the tower. However, we still made sure to explore every floor thoroughly and to get plenty of pictures in case we didn't get a chance to come back.

Eventually, we did reach the roof, or at least the lower one. This section of it was large and covered with gravel, and it was where one of the Heer's signs had sat overlooking the city, although the H had fallen off. A tower-like building also stretched up from that roof a few more stories.

Hiccup and I, still by ourselves, went on up the tower building. At the top floor, there was a giant tank with a ladder laying nearby that was apparently for climbing on top of it. I wrestled the ladder in place and went up on the tank, and there was another ladder leading down inside it, although I didn't use it.

After that, I moved the ladder up to a square hatch in the ceiling, but the ladder ended up being about six feet too short. There were some pipes mounted to the wall near it that looked sturdy enough to hold me, so I decided to try it anyway.

Somehow I managed to wiggle my way up through the hatch and flop out onto the roof, with Hiccup watching nervously below me. The view was, of course, amazing up there. But something that stood out even more was the flagpole. The rope for the flag had several pairs of underwear tied into it at the bottom. But this makeshift flag apparently hadn't been flown for sometime, as the underwear were rotting and falling apart.

After that, I climbed back down, and Hiccup and I went down to the lower roof to wait on the others. When everyone found their way to us, we wandered around there a bit before heading up the tower again. Everyone pretty much decided against trying to haul themself up through the hatch like I had, although Anne did give it a shot before deciding it was a little too insane.

But when Anne decided to try it, I went up through the hatch again to try and help her. While I was up there again, I decided, with a little urging from below, that the underwear flag needed to fly again. So, I spent a few minutes screwing with the rat's nest of rope, and I was able to get the flag raised to about half mast. Looking back, I really should've put my own underwear on there as well.

We decided to head out after that, and we made our way back down the floors. We really didn't get in any hurry about getting out of there, because we kept seeing more things to check out on the way. But as we were leaving the building for real, we looked up and saw that the underwear flag was gone. Apparently it had been so rotten that it had just broken apart and blown away.

We milled around in the parking lot for a bit, figuring out what to explore next. Sertile decided he couldn't resist seeing Land of the Dead any longer, so he bailed to go see that with his roommate. The rest of us decided to go climb the MFA mill, since Sertile and I were the only ones that had climbed it. But since it wasn't dark enough to enter the mill yet, we headed over to Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwich Shop to get a bite to eat.

When it was nearer to dark, we walked on over to the mill and snuck inside. Because there were no stairs, the only way to the roof was a ladder about fifteen stories tall. DeeDee and Willard decided to hang out at the bottom while Underdog, Hiccup, Anne and I started climbing.

It turned out to take a lot longer to climb to the roof than we thought it would. We stopped at almost every floor to rest and to check out the stuff that was there since no one had seen it all but me. Plus, everyone was having fun battling the mass of spiderwebs that were all over the ladder shaft.

Eventually, we made it to the roof, and we stayed up there for probably an hour just hanging out. Willard and DeeDee were heading out at this point, and we couldn't help but try and nail them with a few loogies, which they greatly appreciated. We also took some of the best night shots of the city yet, most of which included us sitting with our legs dangling over the edge of the roof.

When everyone was ready, we made the long climb back down the ladder and headed home. It was a pretty good end to a full weekend of exploring.

A few weekends back, we did a little caving and also returned to an abandoned mine that everyone had been itching to see.

Anne, Sertile, and myself all met up that afternoon at our usual place. Since I was the only person with a vehicle that had gas and would hold us all, everyone piled into my car, although they may have regretted it after they saw all the junk in my car (including a large piece of posterboard with "PENIS" written on it left over from a joke I played during our missile base exploration). We went and picked up one of Sertile's friends, then he directed us to a place near the edge of town where a jogging trail snaked through the woods. We parked there, and Sertile led us down the trail a ways and, after a little searching, located the cave he was looking for.

The entrance to the cave sloped down harshly, and we all slid down into it. Inside, we had a crampled crawl along several uneven muddy slopes. There were almost no places where you could stand or even raise upright, but it did have a few cool formations inside.

Toward the end, we reached a point where it became too small to continue on except for a large drop into about a foot of water. Sertile and I decided to go down into the water and see if it went anywhere. Once we were in it, we could see that it might go on a bit farther, but it would require swimming in a couple feet of water with only a foot or so of airspace above your head. I was hesitant about taking a cold bath, even though I was wet from the waist down already, but Sertile gave it a shot and laid down in the water before deciding not to go on.

Afterwards, the four of us headed out of the cave, covered in mud from head to toe. We got to enjoy some strange looks from the other joggers on the hiking trail as we were walking back. When we reached the car, we decided to leave the "PENIS" posterboard under the windshield of a neighboring vehicle to get it out of our way. I'm sure the people that owned the car are still scratching their heads over that one.

We all headed to Anne's house after that, although I don't really remember why. I think some of us wanted to put on dry clothes or something. Either way, we talked to Anne's parents for a while, and we decided, since the night was still young, to drive out to an abandoned underground quarry that we knew about.

I had been to this particular mine three times before. Kid Sparkle and I had first located it by accident several months earlier. Then, Raven, Sewer Shinobi and I had come back and briefly visited it again, although we had to leave because we were nearly caught. I came back a third time by myself to take some nice long exposure shots of the mine.

This time we parked nearby and snuck down into the area. I made a wrong turn as I was leading everyone to the area, and we ended up walking way out of our way and having to backtrack. Finally, we ended up at the mine and started wandering around inside. It was everyone else's first trip to this particular one, so we took a little time to wander around aimlessly. It was just your typical underground quarry. Huge rock columns supporting a two-story ceiling laid out in a grid pattern, with roads in between them big enough for dump trucks and heavy equipment to drive through. It was no different from all the others ones I'd seen, but each one always amazed me.

At some point down in the mine, I showed everyone some papers and maps that I knew were down there. Upon inspecting them, I realized something that I'd missed the first few times I'd been there: the mine had two levels! Apparently, I'd only ever been in the lower level of the mine. It was confusing, too, because there didn't seem to be room above us for another level. But, according to the maps, it was there and it was even bigger than the level we were on.

When we were just about getting tired of walking around, Anne and I decided to wander over to a section where we could hear running water. It was the only section of the level that I hadn't explored, because it had been pretty wet every time I'd been there. This time was no exception, but since Anne and I were already soaked from caving, we just started walking out into the water.

We stopped briefly in the middle of the water while I caught a crawdad that was somehow living inside the mine. I took a few pictures of him and tossed him back. We trodded on after that, but we stopped when the water reached about waist high because it was freezing cold. Plus, we could see that the water got much deeper just a little farther on, possibly even over our heads.

After that, we made the long walk back to our cars, vowing to come back with a raft to explore both the flooded section and the mysterious second level.

I played a little prank on a few of my friends out at the Albino Farm yesterday.

I knew that Anne had organized a meetup to go out to the Albino Farm and look for a cemetery that was supposed to be out there, but Hiccup and I had previous plans at the same time to go out with her sister. As we were leaving the house that morning, we saw that Hiccup's neighbor had thrown away two gigantic teddy bears. I said jokingly, "We should take those out to the Albino Farm and hang them from the trees." Hiccup laughed and said we should. Then I thought, why not?

We went and snagged some duct tape, a couple black markers, and ran out to the Albino Farm. We walked around until we found two good trees near the old buildings where they'd be sure to see them, then I bound the bears' hands and mouths with duct tape hostage-style. Once that was done, we taped them about chest-high to the trees and broke out the markers. I wasn't sure who all was going to the meetup, but I knew that Willard and Anne would be there for sure. So, I wrote ANNE on the forehead of the girl bear and WILLARD on the boy bear. When we were finished laughing at the whole thing, we got the hell out of there, wishing we could stay and hide to see their reaction.

Yes, I'm a sick bastard.

Welcome Springfield News-Leader readers!

This blog, along with several other local ones, was featured in the July 7th edition of the News-Leader in an article about local bloggers. There wasn't anything said about us, but a screenshot of our blog was used as the picture on the second page. If we'd known about the article beforehand, we would've given all our readers a heads up. Very awesome!

You can view the article online here.