The sound of water droplets crashing against the concrete floor echoed throughout the empty shell of a building. Colorfully painted steam pipes stretched out like vines, growing up from the cement ground, and climbing up the walls then to the ceiling, where they exited up to the sunlight on the roof, like plants making their way up the canopy in a rain-forest. The pipes grew so dense in sections, one might think they were in a jungle; an industrial jungle that is. To make things more surreal, birds had flown into the building, making their nests in the maze of pipes. Stepping to close would startle the birds, and they would fly around in a mass panic, screeching intensely, until the intruder left.

The top floor of the structure, with all the windows smashed out, and a leaky roof, provided a constant breeze and allowed for adequate sunlight to filter in, much like a tropical forest. Water dripped down from the roof forming stagnant puddles of oily asbestos tainted water. As I ventured deeper into the jungle, the natural light faded until it was completely dark in sections. The pipes now crawled across the floor, like giant tree roots, making navigation a bit difficult, under the low-light conditions.

The basement of the building was full of great sights, including two behemoth water boilers that provided steam for the pipes. All the gages, instruments, and pressure valves that controlled the boiler were perplexing to look at. A cafeteria sat rotting away in the middle of the basement, but instead of food; rusty water soup now filled the serving line. The main employee and visitor entrance to the structure posed a striking resemblance to the building in the original Jurassic Park movie. Everything was destroyed, as if a prehistoric beast had ripped through moments ago. I rounded each corner half expecting a Raptor to come charging out. Vines engulfed the glass windows, dispersing the sunlight and casting a yellow-green shade of light. The light led to a large open room with a huge iron bucket suspended from a cargo crane. Who knows how long it had been hanging, but it was definitely a neat sight. With the day wearing down, and myself becoming hungry (but not in the mood for the soup served at the cafeteria), I exited the industrial jungle.