The Big One (pt.2)

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←Trip 2

←Trip 3 (pt.1)

After stopping for a much-needed meal, we headed to C2X’s place to crash for the night. We got there pretty late as it is, but we end up hanging out, talking, and listening to music until like 1-2am anyway. By then, everyone is tired and retreated to their bedrooms for the night. I stayed up an extra hour or two editing photos, take a quick nap, and before you know it, we’re up and on our way to Gary, IN. On the way, we stopped by an abandoned plastic factory and shot a few pics. We also passed a couple other spots nearby, but we continued to Gary. Here are a couple pics from the plastic place…

I’ve been to Gary to explore before, a few years back, but since then, the roof of the popular church in town had caved in and I remembered there being way more to see. The church is a well known spot, so we decide to make that the place to meet up with a couple that I’ve been following on Instagram since the early days, Nick and Ashley. We didn’t realize they were already there, so we go in and start shooting. After a few minutes, we saw someone on the upper level, and then Nick comes walking down to introduce himself. We chat for a second, then head upstairs to meet Ashley, and to our surprise, Renee and Deanna were there from Detroit too! No other surprises at the church though. Everything was pretty similar to my last visit, besides the missing roof, which I’d already seen amazing pictures of.

We head out to go to the next spot and end up seeing Ahmad pulling up too! We’re now a couple ‘grammers short of a full-blown instameet, but undeterred, we head to a nearby factory. This was a place I’d actually never even heard of, but apparently it’s a pretty popular location. It was a huge spot, filled with giant bags of clothes, and a lot of graffiti. We spent a lot of time (maybe too much?) there and ended up getting left by our friends. Hate that we missed them for the rest of the trip, but I got one of my favorite shots of the trip there, right before we left (the cover photo).

We were getting hungry and everyone else was gone, so we go to grab food at 18th Street Brewery. Pretty good stuff. I don’t think we had a ton of choices in Gary though. Apparently the Act of Defiance beer there is good too. Sergio grabs a six-pack and we head to a school to continue exploring. We were certain we’d run into the rest of the group once we got inside, but that place was pretty big and we saw no trace of anyone else at all. We decide to stay there until it gets dark and we’ll come back to Gary the following day. I’ll post the rest of this trip on a following day/post as well…

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