Did I tell you I have a weird phobia of old places/things?

I'm the Anti-Daisy in this respect. I love old stuff - old buildings, old ruins, old abandoned airplanes, old cars.

Anyone here been to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay? They have old army barracks from the Civil War era, old gun emplacements from the late 1800s, a WWII prisoner of war camp, an abandoned Nike anti-missile-missile site... I spent a whole day there, almost missed the last ferry back and I still wanted to stay a lot longer....

This one creeped me out. Some Russian's motorcycle tour of the Chernobyl area.

That kinda creeped me out, but I was fascinated by the images more than creeped out.

Our farm used to have a lot of old rusted junk farm machinery. I used to play with the machinery and pretend they were old crashed military airplanes....

There are a lot of little parks scattered throughout Europe that were once mass graves. I find that both creepy and beautiful.

Kind of like how the town of Hercules has a lot of green space because no one could build too close to the dynamite works. On the one hand, yay green space, but on the other...it's just odd.

Eta: Angel Island is one of my favoritest places. My great great grandfather was the resident mechanic (for the Navy? I don't remember who) for a while and my great-grandmother would row all the way around it on pretty much a daily basis. And I think that's where my father was processed when the immigrated.

I like old places, but I can't go into old asylums or jails or places where people (or animals) were... well, tortured. I'm happy in old churches and libraries and halls and villages, places where generations have met and talked and thought. It's nice, to feel that continuity.

Earlier today I was looking at pictures of the wreck of the USS Yorktown (a Navy carrier that was sunk at the battle of Midway.) The guy who found the Titanic (Ballard?) found it. It's in remarkably good condition for its age (except for all the torpedo damage it suffered). It has none of the weird rustcicles the Titanic has and is all in one piece. It's eerie - its anti-aircraft guns still point skyward from the last air attack it suffered....

Gettysburg is one of many places for me, some with violent histories, others not, where the ground almost thrums with the past. I feel like I if I concentrate hard enough I should be able to part the veil of time and step through. My rational mind knows that's just my history buff's imagination at work, but it's creepy-in-a-good-way for me to get that sense of communion with the dead.

why is it hitting the refresh button on the Message Center doesn't make the conversations happen faster in the individual areas of b.org? Hmm, maybe a question for the tech section.

Oops, work to do.

Susan, that's exactly it. It's so close in a way that's hard to articulate.

How much do they cost?

A lot less than screwing up buying a house.

(i.e. You should deffinately see one)

I get it in a small way from the Peninsular War campaign token DH found on ebay and gave me for my birthday last year. I hold it and think about what its original owner must've seen and experienced, and it gives me chills.

I've felt it in the stone circles I've visited--all two of them, Avebury and Castlerigg. We know so little about them and who made them, but when you're standing right there in them, they're so heavy with the past and ancient sacredness that it doesn't matter what you know.

Which is something you'll almost never hear me say. I'm normally all about the knowledge and mattering thereof.