Yesterday was one to write about. Oh right, I am writing about it. I know what we do is "weird", "odd", and certainly not the norm, but when we drove home yesterday, we were thrilled beyond belief. and shockingly, little angel face was as stoked as we were about our find. Are we brainwashing her? Maybe...maybe just bringing out a new found interest. Either way, let me just tell you about the Overholt Whiskey Distillery in Broad Ford, PA.
After a short drive east, we pull up to the distillery. I could see it looming overhead, old, broken windows, foreboding. AWESOMENESS!!! We drove to the tracks and were super lucky to witness a train coming right by. We live near tracks, so the sound of trains is nothing to us, but as we parked right up on the tracks to see entry, a train came horn blasted and the excitement of a train was the perfect start of the day.
The path to the actual buildings was quiet and serene, and then bam, these tall, looming buildings. All sweetness wanted to do was go in and explore. I will preface all of the explanation of what we saw by saying this: I do not know anything about this place and I do not know anything about what we saw, so I am only guessing at what it was that we saw. So take it all with a grain of salt. The first building we saw had very little roofing left and was full of these amazing lubricant cans and hoses. Must have had something to do with keeping all the machinery in tip top shape. The roof had foliage sticking through, bursts of the most vivid green against the grey and black of oils, solvents and decay. It was so appealing. Little girl walked fallen planks, always near one of us (not by our request but maybe just because this was so out of the normal element), She admired, never touching, the various broken glass designs and asked so many questions. We didn't have a whole lot of answers, but made honest speculation which pleased her.
We then entered the first tallest building. This was exciting for two reasons: 1. I have never been in a truly abandoned place like this before and 2. we went in through a window because that was the closest to us. There were these HUGE steel funnels (maybe for grain, maybe for whiskey). They were massive, imposing and oddly beautiful. The graffiti was amazing and the windows were picture perfect. We ventured up steel steps to this other room, looked up through what was once a spiral staircase and so desired going up. There was no avenue, so we continued to explore. Funny thing about this whole time, peanut summertime always stayed right in between the two of us, usually me in the back, hubs in the front guiding and reassuring safety. It worked out perfectly.
Next stop was this other building. Again, no idea what it was for , but it was almost all empty with these gigantic round openings in the ceiling. I saw other images on the Internet and at some point these circles were covered with wood. All that wood was now on the ground, making for a balance beam like feel while we walked to the back corner. There we saw this huge walled off circle vat in the ground. It was amazing. Although filled with wood, pallets, beer cans and such, it evoked so many questions. The tiniest adventurer in our group found this other room to enter. This must have been more for the electrical as it had fuse boxes and the remains of other machines stuck to the walls. Numbers still adorned the switches and we marveled at how time and the elements had ravaged this once beautiful plant.
Our walk back to the car consisted of walking sticks, giggles and a little whining about not being able to take the non existent steps up to the second floor (the steps were worn through from rust - not safe at all). All signs of a great time. As we got in the car, a little hot, sweaty and dirty, the back seat raised a question, "Can we find another factory to go see?" "Sure, did you like it?" " I didn't like it, I loved it!" I guess I will be scouring the Internet this week to come up with something new. So although many of you think, "Hm, really, an abandoned whiskey distillery", we are thinking, "where can we go next?"
After a short drive east, we pull up to the distillery. I could see it looming overhead, old, broken windows, foreboding. AWESOMENESS!!! We drove to the tracks and were super lucky to witness a train coming right by. We live near tracks, so the sound of trains is nothing to us, but as we parked right up on the tracks to see entry, a train came horn blasted and the excitement of a train was the perfect start of the day.
The path to the actual buildings was quiet and serene, and then bam, these tall, looming buildings. All sweetness wanted to do was go in and explore. I will preface all of the explanation of what we saw by saying this: I do not know anything about this place and I do not know anything about what we saw, so I am only guessing at what it was that we saw. So take it all with a grain of salt. The first building we saw had very little roofing left and was full of these amazing lubricant cans and hoses. Must have had something to do with keeping all the machinery in tip top shape. The roof had foliage sticking through, bursts of the most vivid green against the grey and black of oils, solvents and decay. It was so appealing. Little girl walked fallen planks, always near one of us (not by our request but maybe just because this was so out of the normal element), She admired, never touching, the various broken glass designs and asked so many questions. We didn't have a whole lot of answers, but made honest speculation which pleased her.
We then entered the first tallest building. This was exciting for two reasons: 1. I have never been in a truly abandoned place like this before and 2. we went in through a window because that was the closest to us. There were these HUGE steel funnels (maybe for grain, maybe for whiskey). They were massive, imposing and oddly beautiful. The graffiti was amazing and the windows were picture perfect. We ventured up steel steps to this other room, looked up through what was once a spiral staircase and so desired going up. There was no avenue, so we continued to explore. Funny thing about this whole time, peanut summertime always stayed right in between the two of us, usually me in the back, hubs in the front guiding and reassuring safety. It worked out perfectly.
Next stop was this other building. Again, no idea what it was for , but it was almost all empty with these gigantic round openings in the ceiling. I saw other images on the Internet and at some point these circles were covered with wood. All that wood was now on the ground, making for a balance beam like feel while we walked to the back corner. There we saw this huge walled off circle vat in the ground. It was amazing. Although filled with wood, pallets, beer cans and such, it evoked so many questions. The tiniest adventurer in our group found this other room to enter. This must have been more for the electrical as it had fuse boxes and the remains of other machines stuck to the walls. Numbers still adorned the switches and we marveled at how time and the elements had ravaged this once beautiful plant.
Our walk back to the car consisted of walking sticks, giggles and a little whining about not being able to take the non existent steps up to the second floor (the steps were worn through from rust - not safe at all). All signs of a great time. As we got in the car, a little hot, sweaty and dirty, the back seat raised a question, "Can we find another factory to go see?" "Sure, did you like it?" " I didn't like it, I loved it!" I guess I will be scouring the Internet this week to come up with something new. So although many of you think, "Hm, really, an abandoned whiskey distillery", we are thinking, "where can we go next?"