Monday, March 30, 2009

Western Utah

Western Utah is vast. I guess eastern Utah is too, but I'm not here to talk about eastern Utah. Legend has it that Galileo once said "Boy-Howdy, western Utah is neat!" And he's right. It is neat. Well stated Mr. 'Lileo.

Here's what makes Western Utah so great-neat.

Mines! All sorts of 'em! And they are all still open to invite the fool-hearty inside to see their mine-rich glory! So in I went. Wanna know what it looked like inside the mine?


To be honest, this particular tunnel turned out to not be a mine at all. More of a big storm drain. But what a storm drain! Also it smelled bad.


Anyway, I was wandering around looking for whatever came my way and I found some sort of crazy building. It was unlike most of the other buildings that you see during the day. More.... fallen down than most buildings. Also it seems to have one of these things....

What was this, you ask? The wall of a mighty palace? A landing pod for alien folks? Another storm drain? We may never know. Actually, I looked it up and it turns out it was a smokestack. A smokestack that once belched mighty industry all over western Utah.

It was part of a refinery that was built in the 1900's but then in 1930 it got abandoned like me at prom. Maybe that's why I felt such a connection to this place. Or maybe it was because I stepped on a nail. Either way it felt haunted. In fact, this is the only picture I could find of the place on the internet.

I can honestly say that is about 8 more ghosts than I ever saw out there. But ghosts are tricky little devils, and this place offered a lot of places to hide. Also I think ghosts can turn invisible, or at least run really fast. I dunno. I'm no ghostologist.







I'm assuming that last one was some sort of ghost McDonalds. Anyway, depending on how interesting you find this stuff those are either pictures of a forgotten past, filled with mystery and wonder! Or maybe they are pictures of concrete blocks scattered around a field that may or may not be haunted by 8 ghosts. Either way, let's agree that stepping on nails sucks.


That's me with a gross beard. Note the lack of ghosts in that picture. I have to conclude that ghosts hate gross beards and that's why they left me alone.


A little further down the road I found this.....
I got out and explored it for a little while, but then someone yelled at me so I ran off. People in Western Utah are highly protective of their crappy-crap shacks. A little further down the road was one of these...

I don't know if ghosts have a red-neck culture, but if they do I bet they meet there.


Another thing western Utah has plenty of is stairways that don't seem to go anywhere.
It would appear that at one time half the state was populated by ambitous young stair-makers looking to make a name for themselves. Sadly, they forgot that stairs are only useful if they lead somewhere that people want to go. That's a lesson for us all.

Right next to the stairs was this house. It had a really recent address plate (598!) attached next to the front door, so I guess someone still cares that it's there. Maybe it gets a lot of mail.

I guess you don't have to keep up appearances out there cus land values are pretty much as low as they are going to get. Plus it's not hard to look impressive when your neighbor's house is just a set of concrete steps leading off into space. I looked inside that broken window on the left and saw this....


Hey mysterious house owner! You should budget a little more money on roof maintenance and less on fire extinguishers!
This poor sucker also blew all his money on fire extinguishers, and look where it got him!Anyway, someone else started yelling at me again, so I picked up my hobo stick and headed for home.

And thus ended my western Utah adventure. Ooooo, wait, there was also this!

That's a real mine. And that big building next to it is some sort of real mine building. I just thought that I should put a picture of a mine in this post. This mine used to produce silver, gold, copper and lead. Now it produces bats. And probably wolfmen. Wolfmen like caves, don't they? I dunno.





6 comments:

Mrs. B. Roth said...

Fascinating.

Cheetah said...

Isn't it! People didn't seem to be all that interested in this, but I thought it was pretty great.

Bonnie the Boss said...

WHere is this located?

Unknown said...

I think the 'ghost McDonalds' is more likely a stone rainbow. Ghosts do that right, turn stuff into stone?

Also, the stairs clearly lead to a ghost dimension.

Lostinthought said...

Did you go into that mine in the last picture? I love old stuff like this. Post more picture of this. Which since I'm years late, you probably have.

Cheetah said...

That is the Mammoth Mine. I've been in there, but you have to ask permission from the property owner. And he is....tricky to work with. Sometimes he will let you in and sometimes he will chase you off with a gun. Which is his right I suppose. I will post more pictures of the Mammoth Mine.