Nights Like These

Living in the city is great but sometimes it can feel like you have no privacy, like there's always someone around, like there's nowhere to hide. Even in my apartment with the windows closed and the blinds drawn, I can still hear traffic, trains, and people walking down the street. That's one of the reasons that I love spending time on rooftops and bridges. You can can still hear the cars, and you can still see all the people below going about their business; but you're detached. You're fifteen stories above their heads but they're completely oblivious to your existence. It's such a peaceful feeling. 

Tonight Jason and I drove around a bit while we talked and looked a few possible places to climb. We decided to start the night with a rooftop downtown.

Watching you walk through the alley.

The next place we went was one of my favorite lift bridges.

Photos taken with a Canon Mark III, and Canon 60D, with a Canon 20mm f/2.8, and Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye lens.

Abandonment Issues vol. 004

Some days I wake up and all I want to do is explore and photograph as many places as I can. This was one of those days. We didn't end up exploring as many places as I would have liked, and to be honest I was somewhat disappointed with my photos; but it was still a great day.

First stop was an old foundry building on the East side. This place is pretty well wrecked. The stairs that I had used last year when I explored the building for the first time were now soft and felt like they were ready to collapse. There was also evidence that someone had recently tried to seal up the building, but they did a terrible job.

The next place we looked at was new to me. I had been wanting to check it out for a while but just never got around to it. It actually proved to be sort of interesting, at least a lot more so than I thought it would be.

The first floor was pretty well torched, as well as parts of the second floor. I remember when this fire happened a few years ago. I think the building was somewhat still in use prior to the fire.

An entire floor full of chairs.

And an entire floor full of decks.

The last place we went was the ruins of an old power plant at the base of a water fall. There isn't much to explore here but walking along the river is really nice and there are plenty of small cliffs and boulders to climb around on.

Photos taken with a Canon Mark III, and a Canon 20mm f/2.8 lens.

Camping in Pennsylvania

As much as I love the outdoors and adventures, I'm not much of a sleep in a tent and be dirty and gross for a few days on end, kind of guy. It's just not me. However that's not enough to stop me from doing it. I love bonfires, and hiking, but most of all I love gear; so after investing in a new hiking backpack, and a super cool hammock, I was feeling pretty excited to camp, or at least to use my new stuff. 

Klaus loves camping, except when there's really loud thunder.

Sunlight catching the smoke from our fire as it shines through the trees.

On Saturday Kaylah and I went to Laurel Caverns and did some rappelling.

Lots of critters.

Saturday evening it started to rain, and immediately went from a little bit of rain to an all out thunderstorm. It went on all night long. The rain and thunder sounded so loud inside of our tent. As someone who absolutely loves storms, this night actually kind of made the trip for me, even though our tent wasn't so water proof. 

Photos taken with Canon Mark III, with a Canon 35mm f/1.4, Canon 20mm f/2.8 and Canon 100mm f/2.8 lenses.

Unexpected Adventures

Like most days, I started out by sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee with the intensions of getting a lot of work done. Things went as planned for a couple hours but then Jason text me to see if I wanted to break out the mountain bikes and bike down the train tracks. It sounded pretty good to me so after putting new grips on my bike and doing a little routine maintenance, we headed out along some tracks and then spent a little bit of time under a bridge riding some of the jumps at a DIY bike park. On our way to another line of train tracks we were stopped at a lift bridge while a freighter passed, and then we stopped to check out a small abandoned building. 

Jason taking a load off while watching the ship pass.

The abandoned building was actually a lot cooler than I'd imagined it would be.

I have no idea.

After the bike ride I took my car to get new tires. Thankfully the tire shop was near a bridge.

A view like this is much better than sitting in a tiny waiting room.

I didn't plan on having such an eventful day but I guess that just goes to show that no matter where you are, you can always find an adventure if you're open minded enough.

Photos taken with a Canon Mark III, with a Canon 20mm f/2.8

Kayaking the Cuyahoga River

This is going to be an image heavy post, but not without justification. I've been wanting to kayak the Cuyahoga River but I don't own a kayak and I don't like water. Thankfully I have friends like Mike, who is always up for an adventure whether it's exploring abandoned buildings, or climbing a frozen waterfall, or of course kayaking through the steel mills. Mike had a couple extra kayaks for Brandon and I and so I faced my fears and floated down the Cuyahoga in hopes of getting some great photos of Cleveland's mighty steel industry.

Preparing to launch our boats.

Found a small abandoned building along the river.

So of course Mike had to investigate.

Those strange train cars are kettles full of molten steel.

Brandon shooting photos of me shooting photos.

One of Cleveland's many lift bridges. Views of and from this bridge here.

Taking a quick break because six foot seven Brandon doesn't fit in a kayak very well.

It was difficult to take photos from a rocky little boat that seemed to have a mind of it's own but overall I'm really happy with the photos that I took. It was a lot different from the type of stuff that I normally do and I'm looking forward to getting a kayak of my own and going on more adventures like this.

Photos taken with a Canon Mark III, with a Canon 20mm f/2.8 and Canon 135mm f/2.0 lens.