I had the afternoon off a few days ago, and it was such a beautiful day I decided to get in my car and enjoy the weather. I grabbed my camera and made a few stops to take some photos, and ended up driving by a site that I had passed numerous times but had never checked out. I think one of the reasons that I had always passed it up is that as recently as a year ago, it appeared that there was some kind of activity still occuring there. On this day, however, it was clear that it was completely abandoned. I walked around the main building and noted the posted bankruptcy notices on the windows. They were dated July of 2006, so my belief that it was only recently abandoned seemed correct. It was apparent as I began to walk around that while it may have been abandoned recently, the complex began its decay long ago.

I am going to call this place "Terry-Tech" because it seems like it used to house one or more technology companies, and because I saw a sign with those words posted inside one of the buildings. I feel that I should not give any more specific information about it, though, because this place is still FULL of leftover crap, and I don't want it to fall into grubby little hands and disappear.

I walked around the outside taking photos and ducked through a hole in one of the fences. It would become apparent later that this was unnecessary since the other side of the complex is completely open and fence-less. The first thing was made my jaw drop was the amount of garbage/really cool and interesting stuff to look at just lying in piles everywhere. I would say that it looked like everyone just up and left one day leaving everything there, but it looked more like everyone just up and left making sure to throw all their shit around in a haphazard manner first. I could have spent the entire day just digging through all the piles of leftover stuff, some of it that seemed to be totally out of place (like the spanish-language children's books).

The interior of the buildings were even more interesting, with large open warehouse style areas, and beautiful (or, once beautiful) carpeted office areas that looked like they could've served as one of the sets for the movie Office Space.

The part of the complex that really blew my mind, though, was the storage/warehouse area that was the last area I visited. I found crap that made me jump up and down it was so exciting! There were piles of old computers and computer parts, pallets of freight still shrinkwrapped, a ton of old Converse shoes (some of which were steel-toed....I didn't know those exsisted!), and a bunch of orange twisty straws......for those of you who like to drink their cool-aid all crazy like! In a back corner, there was a large animal that almost made me crap my pants when I turned and saw it. It looked like fuzzy-material over a chicken wire frame in the shape of what I assumed was a bull, like it was being built for a parade float or something. When you're not expecting a six foot tall bull, it's enough to make you jump.

Yes, that was a huge bottle of some chemical sitting on top of a piano. Weird, right? I need to do some more research, because I have found no way to piece together all the clues of what this place was in any way that makes sense. I don't know many tech companies that manufacture pianos AND steel-toes Converse sneakers. And that, in my opinion, is what's really wrong with this country.