Holiday Nostalgia (Where Were You?)

Holidays are fun because they're a great launching point from which to leap back into memory and see where you've been, how far you've come, so on and so forth. Sometimes it's just fun to sit and think back on what you were doing that day. And, being a holiday, it's usually a tad easier to remember than, say, some random day in the middle of September.

I remember Halloween last year pretty clearly. Helps that I enjoyed a bit of photography and exploration to ignite the synapses. It was a mostly cloudy say, chilly but not bitter, and I was horribly bored. Ventured to Starbucks for a change of scenery and had myself an Americano, quad shot, 3 packets of Splenda and a heap of creamer. Ran into my friend Autumn who was also bored that day and opted to enjoy some fresh air over a good book. I sat down with her for a short while and we chatted about this and that, but then we got the crazy idea of indulging in a bit of urbex to mark the holiday proper. At the time, there was only really one place worth going (and I will forever miss it), so we ventured to our spot and proceeded to inhale the stale air and enjoy ourselves, immersed in the history around us.

We landed ourselves in the offices of abundant filing cabinets and patient files, record books and incident reports. Most of our time that evening we spent absorbing the lost textual record of the goings on of the place. It was Autumn's first time being there and words had always held her attention better than lonely chairs and peeling paint. We sat in a room full of student desks, sunlight just barely pressing over the concrete wall outside and pouring through the long shattered bay window. She read from the records and reports, telling me stories of violence and delinquency, all while I snapped photos of the various relics collecting dust and cobwebs in the room. It was a good time.

Lately I've actually been rather sad that this particular locale has recently outweighed its risk/reward balance. A definite shame, I feel as if a great potential had yet to be unlocked with all of my visits there. But that's another story entirely. Besides, I'm quite happy I had the chance to enjoy the place at all.

So where did you folks spend your Halloween?