Teleion Holon - Manchester, VT

Last night Albert came over and asked The Logger and I to go with him to an inn that had closed a few months ago, to pick up a few things. From what I've been told, the inn was having financial troubles and it closed. They were unable to pay electric bills, or have someone drain the pipes, so they froze and burst and the building flooded. It is now condemned, but no longer flooded. The Logger insisted that Albert did not need anything from the inn and did not want to go, but I was eager to see the place and poke around a little, as I am prone to doing, so The Logger agreed, reluctantly, to go. Also, his car was at Albert's place and Albert wouldn't take him to go get it until after we went to the old inn to "loot."

Albert asked me if I had any flashlights, because there is no power in the building. I suggested we go during the day when we would be able to see, but Albert insisted that he didn't want to. I called him a criminal and then went upstairs to get all of my flashlights (electricians need these things!), because good criminals need backup and getting arrested would make for good blogging.

I've always been fascinated with abandoned places, even though abandoned places like hotels and hospitals, which are never dark or empty under normal circumstances, kind of freaks me out. While Albert was going through the kitchen with The Logger, I wandered into the dining room. The ceiling was falling apart and the floor was all wavy. It was easy to see that it used to be a great-looking place.


Dining room fireplace

There was also a snazzy little bar attached to the dining room. I went through the cabinets behind the bar and was surprised to see that there were still untouched bottles of alcohol. I had to remind myself that I was not in New York and that people in small towns in Vermont probably don't make a habit of breaking into buildings just to look for alcohol. Nor were there squatters, who would have probably drank the alcohol and then trashed the place even more, for whatever reason. No, the place was left pretty much untouched except for the flood. Even the final menu was written on the dry erase board in the kitchen, along with a shopping list.


A pretty little bar

I then moved out to the lobby area and picked through a bunch of computer parts and piles of office supplies. Again, this was a good-looking room with a cute front desk. It even had a snazzy little telephone booth.


I'm quite fond of this picture because it shows how straight I hold my camera. Precision and grace, I'm all about it.

I went up the stairs to look at some of the rooms, but didn't do much exploring. I admit I was a little freaked out sneaking around in the dark place alone. I didn't even take any pictures up there because the thought of looking into my camera and seeing something that wasn't actually there maybe terrifies me a little. IRRATIONAL FEARS! I'm good at those.

When I went back downstairs Albert was looking through the box of computer stuff in the front lobby. He asked me what several things were and asked me if he needed them, to which my reply was always, "No. If you don't know what it is, then you'll never use it." Albert seemed to have the intention of taking anything that wasn't nailed down. As someone who can't stand excess junk I only considered taking things that I thought would be useful: some tape and notepads for the house, a few old keys for my friend Lisa who makes shadow boxes, sheets of stamps, smoke detectors, and 4 reams of paper. Albert tried to talk me into taking some crap-tastic old desk chairs for my own desk (which I don't have by the way).

We loaded everything into the Jeep and minivan (except for an open thing of corn oil which Albert wanted us to take, but I hid from him because who knows how old that was and really, is corn oil that expensive anyway?) Albert asked us if we wanted to go out to eat, and I considered it for a moment because I hadn't eaten yet, until Albert said, "We'll go to Friendly's" and I suddenly realized I wasn't hungry. Not to mention I would not have let him buy me food anyway, because for some reason I've always found that awkward.

The Logger scored us a can of kidney beans and black beans, and also got two cans of refried beans for the chickens (because no one else will eat anything with lard). The chickens had an all-out feast.

Just to mention, Albert did give money to owner of the Inn, and she knew we were there. We weren't really breaking and entering, and then looting, and then rolling around in the profits like the filthy pigs that we are.