It is not unusual in the least to come across a trove of items when rural exploring. 'Rural-Ex' is just like Urban Exploration without the Urban and takes place in the far-flung countryside. Although one would assume little or no risk is involved in these de-populated areas, they are not their without unique challenges; namely grow-ops or buck-tooth Hilly-Billy MoonShiners. The former being less desirable to meet as they are usually accesorised with Uzi 9-mm Sub Machine Guns.
All these taken into consideration and stride, the avid Rural Explorer is richly rewarded with a glimpse of Antiquities, Rarities & Odd Stuff, usually housed within the cathedral-like structure of the Barn. These items provide silent cipher of labours during the last days the property was in use.
Following is a collection of some of the unique items of note discovered during our pastoral pleasures . . .
This vessel, obviously owned by a big Dio fan was named the 'Holy Diver'. Being many kilometres from the nearest body of water, all I could think about were those poor dry seamen.
This farm implement from the forges of the painful-sounding Cockshutt (yes spelled correctly) farm machinery company. This image provided by fav UrbEx Chick JuicyFruitKisses.
This piece of equipment is an Underwood Typewriter (tīp'rī'tər) and was the bane of clerical staff world-wide. This once was a very widely used writing machine that produced typeset print by means of a manually operated keyboard. The raised type would strike the paper through an inked ribbon and text would appear on a sheet of paper. Please note the distressing absense of any monitor.
A somewhat wrinkled but otherwise pristine edition of Family Circle magazine dated November, 1968. This once-wholesome publication was pollulted by an article regarding sex by Ann Landers.
This here is the Sparkomatic Equaliser / Booster as modelled by UrbEx Buddy 'Dark Shadow'. Once properly installed on the farm truck, greater rates of acceleration are soon realised. If used correctly on the weekend run into town, the operator of this system would be noticed by all manner of comely-looking cow-girls.
Music way back in the day were recorded on round pieces of plastic called 'vinyl' or 'LP's' and were only available through a company called K-tel. These analog (!) audio recordings were pressed in vinyl that rotated at 33.3 RPM or faster if thrown at a zombie (see Sean of the Dead, Act II, Scene II). This music 'LP' featured Della Reese & Gloria Lynne singing Jazz in 1962.
Push Tab pop cans hark back to an era where Fanta, Fresca, and Tab ran down the throats of healthy young North Americans. These malicious metal monsters would slice through soft thumb tissue and then eject its contents onto your Sunday best. Our colleague 'HairyTheTaco' had this sage observation; "Kinda makes you wonder how much more obese the general population is due to the fact that pop cans are now 355-ml instead of the old 280-ml". Man! - Has anyone seen the gallon-sized big-a$$ beverages they retail at convenience stores lately!
Colleague 'Wiccan' could not understand why the owners did not "adore their 64' anymore". The Commodore VIC-20 was a home computer that boasted an 8-bit data bus. Once you entered the byzantine command string memorised by explorer 'strike300' for some odd reason) LOAD "$" , 8, 1 one would be able to load the program directory from the dattasette tape drive.
Milton Bradley's "Sweet Valley High". This 1988 board game had young girls move around the game board trying to find their boyfriends and the items they need for their date (spermicide, prophylactics, etc). Various spaces on the board and card draws cause random effects to shake things up (i.e. - the 'Teen Pregnancy Card' was a beotch to get).
We found this barn inside the barn - the ironies never end. This Fisher-Price winner was mass produced from 1968 to 1985. You most likely will remember playing with the one at Juvy Hall. I completely forgot about the 'cow moo' (!) when the barn door is opened . . . I had to clean my drawers.
I indicated my very extreme relief to fellow explorers 'LostInTheWoods' and 'Slippery Pete' that these were not plugged in at the time over some large weeds. Thank-you Debbie Boon.
In conclusion, get out ther and explore that countryside before they put up them condos.
