Our good friend Bob sent us an email about this awesome prison near his home. Months later, we heard through the grapevine that it was actually accessable. Armed with confidence and no other knowledge other than a town name and some second-hand information, we went off.

We parked close by and walked around outside. The first thing I noticed was that the sidewalks were littered with more syringes than cigarette butts. So when a white van was parked outside the building, I figured if we went inside we might have to fear not arrest, but death.

But hey, maybe we'll find a forgotten shiv and take 'em out ourselves.

Umm... anyway.... we decided to find a way in, no matter what. We made a big loop to the back of the building, in an area fenced off for the railroad tracks that ran along the exterior wall. Thinking no one else would be back there, we poked around for an entrance and didn't find much. Just when we were getting to the other end of the building, a guy climbed up onto a small concrete wall about 4 feet away from us, and we discreetly turned back and apparently, had all decided to pretend he wasn't there.

When we finally found an entrance, we continued to pretend the guy wasn't there, and made our way inside.

Once we were convinced we were alone, we had a great time. The courtyard was beautiful; two sets of gigantic gothic doors sat at either end, and really pulled everything together nicely.

We saw a few offices first, full of old stuff. While we could have spent days just looking through files, there was still so much left to see.

Crossing over one of the gothic doors, we came to the first cell block.

It had to be the most amazing sight I have ever seen. If I ever feel like exploring is not worth it's many risks, I just need to remember what it was like to step into this room. Absolutely out of this world.

All conversation ceased, and it felt like I had to force myself to get pictures, I was just to taken aback by it all.

Four floors of cells sat on top of eachother facing massive frosted windows through which we could just faintly make out the courtyard.

I don't now remember the exact order or layout of the building, as it sometimes felt like I was going in circles. But I can say there were at least 2 different cell blocks, all pretty unique. One was painted in blocks of pastel green, blue, and peach and one was a rather dirty-looking brown-ish/cream color. The brown-ish cell block had a warning written in mailbox lettering: "Isolation. High Risk. Danger"

The lobby gave me a similar feeling to the first cell block. The room was huge. discarded keys covered most of the floor, and two walls were lined with metal stairs and catwalks. The highest catwalk had a dirtied view to the pastel cell block, framed by steel bars.

We really wore ourselves out in here. We spent hours just walking around, mostly alone, and occasionally taking pictures.

The sun was starting to set, and it was finally time to leave.

After packing up our stuff, Travis led the way out. Confident after a successful trip, we did not expect what happened next. Travis turned the corner around one of the huge gothic doors, Matt and I at his tail, when he quickly spun around and ushered us back inside. "What what what?!" we asked as we climbed back over some brush that had collected at the doors. "Just go!" Travis said. We ran into the nearest door, down some stairs, around a few corners, and stopped in a pitch black room. When we had regained our breath, Travis said a huge guy was standing just on the other side of the hole in the fence we had used to get inside, and he just happened to be looking the other way when he turned the corner.

Thinking back to the white van, the random guy, and syringe-littered sidewalks, we waited a bit.

Realizing that there was no way in hell a guy of his size could fit through that hole, we made another run at it.

Big Fence Guy had left, so we did too.

We took the same loop-around we did when we got there, and thankfully so: As we walked past the fence next to a newer section of the building (that we had not ventured into) a group of men were walking out of a side door and down a ramp towards the white van. While Matt and I pretended we didn't see them staring at us, Travis smiled, and Big Fence Guy smiled back and winked.

While our adventure was amazing - to say the least - I think it was our first and our last.

~Keti Fallout