2006 01 NV CA

2006 01 29 Toulon

A week after getting permission to go into Toulon the weather was decent enough to justify the drive. I spent all day here and could go back again. (I will go back again, but more about that later.)

The first two shots here are general views of the mill. It has not been in operation since the 60s, much of the equipment has been removed, and it is slowly collapsing. The bottom two shots show some of the milling machinery and the brick enclosure it was all in.

The current owner has a tremendous collection of junk stored in one of the open areas of the mill. I have no idea where this all came from or why it is here.

Open bays, storage tanks being cut up slowly for re-use.

More exterior shots. I spent a lot of time inside the mill and shot a lot of film. Very cool spooky interior.

I want to go back to this site for a couple of reasons. First is that I want to be back on a truly sunny day, and not just a "bright" day. The inside of the mill is dark and it was hard to shoot everything, even with long exposures. The second reason I want to go back is that FedEx lost the 50 or so rolls of film I shot on this day and the last two. Lost it. Gone. The tracking information shows it getting from Reno to Cleveland and then vanishing.

I have FedEx looking for it, and they claim that they will find it, but this is a real lesson. I was already sending film in small batches to the lab I use, in part to guard against just this. I would not want all the film for an entire trip to vanish. I have also now learned the hard way to make it extremely obvious what is in your packages, and where it is going. I will now be labeling the outside of my boxes as "exposed film" in bright lettering, and putting a flourescent orange sheet of paper in the box stating where the film is going and where it came from. The key is to have something noticeable and unusual in the box so the FedEx people that open "wayward" boxes will note that in the computer records they allegedly make of such shipments.