Photo walks, missing purses, crystals, bones.

I finally got the Saab registered to ME. Which means the driving commences NOW. I've been driving around for the past few days with the sunroof open, and got my second sunburn of '08....though it's already faded nicely to a tan. Something tells me I'm going to get quite a tan this summer :D

So the day after the Saab was registered, I went for a desperately needed DRIVE. Yes, even with the price of gas the way it is. Actually I didn't go that far, didn't leave the state. Hardly left Plainfield, actually.

And I had a mission, anyway. Look for bottles. Didn't find any. lol

So I stopped at this abandoned church that Zack and I visited on August 8, 2003 around 11:00 at night after we'd gone to Dominos and ran into Ryan O'Day and his brother Kevin, sitting in a truck. Sad thinking back on it because Ryan died almost a year ago now and this week has oddly been full of reminders (I got my emissions test done at Plainfield Shell, where he worked and there's still a picture of him on the wall and the remembrance his boss wrote in the Turnpike Buyer).

If you want to see pics of the church the night Zack and I went, they're not posted anymore. lol.

So I took pictures of the church during the day. I don't know why it took me almost 5 years to do so, but here they are. I can't imagine the building is in too great shape because the door on the side was missing even when Zack and I were there.

I drove to Moosup in search of bottles. Didn't find any. Of course it doesn't help that I can't get my bike rack on my car and if I could take my bike places the car can't go, I could cover much more ground that much faster. Anyway, I took these pictures from an old railroad bridge, which has since been turned into a walkway, near Baker's Dozen. And Baker's Dozen reminds me of my last week of senior year, when Lindsey and I would go there after graduation practice.

Well, something I never noticed before was how the old mill here (now a rubber plant) still has this wooden walkway over the Moosup River. I wonder three things: 1. Does anyone really use it? 2. What's in there, anyway? Looks like storage. 3. Is it safe? lol

Turning back to where my car is parked, I caught a glimpse of the price of gas. $3.57. I don't think you can see it in this pic, but in the original you can.

Moosup was full of 19th century bridges. One of the bridges was relocated to Sterling as part of their town pedestrian path, and it used to look just like this one. Now it doesn't look anything like this bridge, which was a disappointment when I saw it finished in 2004. This bridge used to be unsafe & fenced off, or at least it was the last time I saw it up close in 1999. I was happy to see that now it's a safe walkway instead of a skeletal thing in danger of collapse.

View of the Moosup River.

This was the Brunswick Mill an abandoned mill that caught fire in 2000. Some kind of demolition/quarrying is going on here now.

When I was 13, one of my old friends and his stepmother used to collect crystals from here, but when my mom and I went to check it out then, we only found a couple and they weren't the fantastic ones that my friend had found. But that was 11 years ago, so I decided to poke around. I was still hunting for bottles, but all I found was a piece of a broken insulator under that modern bridge you can see in the background of one of the pictures. And I found these lovely crystals, right in the path. (They are smaller than they appear...in real life, the tiniest crystal is only about 3/8-1/2 of an inch. ) Still lovely though :)
And that was it Thursday. Yesterday I had my second interview at the post office (yes!) and they sent me for a drug test, which I did right after the interview because...well, with the price of gas, it just makes sense. Come to find out, the Norwich postmaster and I have the same birthday (what's the chances of that???). When I got home, I spent an hour an a half looking for one sandal (never found it) and decided to throw on some sneakers and head out to the woods in search of bottles.
The first place I went was the location of a mill which burned in 1809 in Sterling. Once this mill burned, the former Revere Mill was constructed in a different location on a different river around 1810. The Revere Mill burned in a spectacular fire in 1980 (the owner set it on fire to collect insurance, he later went to jail), and even though I missed that fire, my bus used to drive by the ruins until the whole site was cleaned up around 1994. Anyway, that first mill in Sterling is one that most people don't know about, and it was located here.
(Obligatory car shot, lol). There's not much at the site, though I am dying to get my hands on a metal detector and poke around. I didn't find a bottle or a single shard of glass...unless it was new...as in "tossed out the car window last week". I know there has to be SOMETHING here...I'll just have to poke around some more.
Did I mention this spot is the most beautiful in all of my hometown? One of the least-developed roads, and the only road full of cedar trees like this.
BONES. OMG. Actually it's a deer or a cow. I'm thinking deer.
And the last find of the day, a purse. It was about 100 feet from the deer/cow, tossed down the embankment (most likely tossed out a car window). You know that's what purse-snatchers do, right? My mom had found another purse similar to this near the bridge that was on our old property in Sterling, but whoever tossed it out the window missed the river and it landed on the bank. I dropped the purse off at Troop D in Danielson. It was just full of makeup, car keys, and some photos that you couldn't discern at all because they were wet and it looked like this purse was down here for a couple years. No ID. No wallet, actually. lol So creepy that it was near a bunch of bones but YES, THEY WERE DEFINITELY AN ANIMAL. And I've seen lots of dead deer skeletons (Cedar Swamp Rd. in south Sterling had 6 of them when I was in high school) and these rib bones look about right, from what I remember. That said, any etsians need bones for any projects? Is it sick that I'm thinking of heading out there to collect the bones to sell as supplies to artisans? Just creepy? Answers appreciated. :)

Oh, and for those of you who were reading when I found that jawbone at the beach, it's disintegrating quickly and now it smells fishy so bad I don't want to go anywhere near it. I think it needs to be sealed with something.

Well, it's Saturday. I'd say it's time for some yardsales :D.