urbex || the rural mansion

Sometimes adventures don't always go as planned.

My bestie Niesho and I checked out an abandoned mansion the other day. It's a beautiful building from the outside. It sits right on the highway which made getting a nice picture from the front a no-go, so here's the back. As you can see, the entire building was completely surrounded by pretty thick vegetation, ranging from knee- to waist-high. There were some cute little critters hiding in all that mess, including tons of baby grasshoppers! I love my camera. Every time I use it is a learning experience. I almost got the little guy in focus, but not quite, hahah.

I'm honestly not sure what kind of bug this is! It had some neat markings on its back, wish I'd managed to get a good shot of them!

It was a hot day out, so Niesho and I had worn shorts.... baaaaad idea. My legs were bright red by the time we reached the house- scratches from burrs and other such prickly things, which my stupidly-delicate skin waaaay overreacts to. Eventually, the marks faded enough that I could see all the mosquito bites I'd received, hahah. I read an article once that claimed that some people are yummier to mosquitos than others, just based on their body chemistry, and I am inclined to believe it! When Josh and I did yardwork in our previous residence, I would get at least a dozen bites and the little buggers would completely ignore him! Lucky jerk. I love ivy. We lived in a house when I was 3-8 that was cooooooovered in ivy. It was so gorgeous. I've driven past that house a time or two in recent years, and, sadly, the ivy has since been completely removed. It honestly added a lot to the beauty of that house, because it went particularly well with the house's design, style, architecture, whatever the right word is. I hear that ivy can actually cause a fair amount of damage, though, so I guess I can't blame whoever pulled it down.

All the entrances on the back are boarded up, so Niesho and I worried that we'd braved Grass Hell for nothing, but some kind soul had propped open a side door for easy access. The inside of the building is pretty barren. The story goes that the owners went through a messy divorce in the 80's, before construction was finished, and couldn't agree on who would keep the mansion, so they just kind of let it... sit there. Niesho being a goofball. I wanted to get a photo of both of us in the fireplace, but I couldn't figure out how to enable the timer function... which is weird, because I've used the timer function before! I felt particularly stupid but I honestly searched through all the menu options three or four times. I think I need to play around with my camera more at home, where the instruction manual is, hahah.

The most (and possibly only?) interesting feature was the spiral staircase. The second floor was just as featureless as the first. Creepy doorway hidden in a corner. No, we did not go in, because we're babies. There was very little graffiti, probably because there were so few complete walls. Third verse, same as the first... There were a number of names carved into a particular support pole (column? strut?). I neglected to take a photo of this for some reason (???) but I did snap a pic of our addition (in my horrible key-wielding handwriting, haha). ("Ell & Niesho were here 5/31/14")

Overall, it was a bit of a bust. We'd brought lunch (DQ!), but we didn't even want to eat there. The little dark piles you see in a lot of photos are exactly what you think they are- piles of poop. I'm not an expert, but I doubt wildlife does much stair-climbing, so the fact that the 2nd and 3rd floors had more little "presents" than the 1st floor kinda says to me that this place has seen some nasty-ass squatters.

Niesho thought it only appropriate to quote Titanic while walking down that admittedly cool staircase. And that was it! Much less enjoyable than our previous explorations, unfortunately, but hey, had to cross this one off the list at some point, right? We managed to salvage our outing with a trip to the theatre to see Maleficent, though, which we thoroughly enjoyed, and then Niesho let me paint her nails (Harley Quinn-themed), so it wasn't a complete waste of a day.

Hope you're having more successful adventures than this one!
❤︎