May 312011
 

Well it’s been a slow spring for exploring.  We had a very heavy snow pack and some fairly severe spring flooding that really slowed us down.  It’s been tough to get out and explore with all the flooded and muddy roads.

Arilem and I have gotten out quite a few times in the past few weeks and I should have some posts up soon.  We have done a couple evening trips lately now that we have the long spring days that I love.  With sunset close to 10:00PM right now it is ideal for evening trips after work.

We recently competed in the Deggi5 Great Race as well.  More information about the great race can be found here.  We came in fourth place which sounds good till you learn that 10 teams registered; 4 never raced at all; 2 teams got so drunk that they stopped racing or forgot to submit results; and 4 teams finished so we were last place of all the teams that finished.  However we had fun and did well considering we were underdogs racing against teams in the North Eastern United States for the most part.  In the history of the Deggi5 Great Race there have only been a handful of Canadian teams and they are mostly been in Ontario.  We were the first team to ever compete in Saskatchewan.  I plan to post some photos of our results in a future update.

 Posted by at 14:37
May 312011
 

On one of our trips to the north western United States in summer 2010 we were exploring an old Air Force base when we happened to find a church on the base.  I knew that Arilem would insist on seeing it as she absolutely loves abandoned churches.  I don’t quite have the same love of churches but I do enjoy exploring anything abandoned or historical so churches fall into that category.

This church is very unique compared to most I have seen.  This is the first United States Military church that I have seen.  I have seen a few Canadian Military churches and they are all built with the same plan and I expect it was the same in the US.

This is a Catholic church and it was interesting to see the mix of religion and military – especially in some of the literature.  It consisted of a large sanctuary along with a whole wing of multi-use rooms.  It appears to have not been used since 1996 and is still in surprisingly good condition.  Time is starting to take its toll now as water damage is starting to destroy the place.  

Church 1
The Main Entrance

Church 6
Sanctuary – one of the most intact abandoned churches i have ever seen

Church 7
Scramble lights for the pilots and flight crews

Church 8
Another look at the sanctuary – I love how there is virtually no vandalism at all

Church 5

Church 3
In the corner of one of the multi-use rooms – the left shows dividers that can be used to partition the room off.

Church 4
Religious propoganda

Church 2
I can’t recall what this was but it caught my eye because of the USAF logo on it.

 Posted by at 14:11