The Weight (by The Band)

Music to set the mood...
This particular adventure was kind of spooky. Throughout the journey, I felt an odd weight looming over us, possibly with bad intentions! But who really knows?

July 3rd, 2019
4:30am...the sky was still dark and a fog of dreams remained swirling around my mind as I forced myself out of bed. Waking up this early has always been a favorite of mine, the days seem endless. On this particular day, we planned a long, and distant journey. Four hours in the car would later turn into one of the best road trips we'd ever been on. I dressed quickly, woke Evan up, and waited for my friend Brianna to arrive.
As I mentioned, our destination was a total of four hours south of us. This place happened to be an abandoned town that we'd been researching for a while leading up to this. Actually, let me rephrase, its population in 2010 was a mere 16!!!! So, I guess technically, the whole town isn't abandoned, just very, very large portions of it.
This town, formally known as Walpack Township, dates all the way back to 1731, and from what I've read, has a total area of about 25 square miles. And, dig this, in 1955 a proposal was made to reduce flooding of the Delaware river by constructing a dam on Tocks Island. 72,000 acres of land, including Walpack, were claimed by the government for this project. This unfortunately led to thousands of residents having to move out, and the severe drop in population. The dam was never even built! Now, 90% of Walpack sits abandoned because of a dam that has ceased to exist.
We left my house around 5:00am, and began our journey. Lucky for us, the sun was still asleep, and the horizon glittered with deep blues and greens.
Our very first stop was in Beacon, New York. We pulled up to a beautiful church that stood tall against the newly blue sky. However, it's what was behind the church that we went searching for.
The town's cemetery, dating all the way back to the Victorian era, lies behind this house of worship. With trees forming a barrier around the graves that litter the ground like crooked teeth, "No Trespassing" signs attempt to keep out those still alive. Hollow crypts form mounds in the ancient dirt, and vines wriggle their way around tombstones. The land is dark, and the shadows from the trees make it feel as if you stepped into another realm of consciousness. Dead leaves and branches cover the once grassy ground, proving that death can be an excuse to forget. Those buried here do not get visited by loved ones, and instead watch their names, carved into stone, get washed away as years drag on. None of these graves were legible, and it was hard to believe that these people were once walking the same earth as us. I'd read stories that human skeletons in open vaults were exposed from the neglect of this cemetery, but during our time there, we did not go searching for any.
We didn't stay long, due to the fact that there were a multitude of "No Trespassing" signs nailed into the trees.

A crypt in the cemetery.

Look at how dark the cemetery was!

We hopped back into the car, and zoomed on over to Walpack.
The main road into Walpack was empty, and within a minute of arriving, we found our very first abandoned home. Tall grass covered its front yard, and shingles from the roof hung on for dear life. The house was painted white, and very weathered. The back door was wide open, and years of decay lay before us. The town is really in the middle of nowhere, so most of the damage wasn't caused by reckless teenagers. Animals, weather, and neglect aged the house, and the memories once shared within its walls were distant and hazy. Old photos, beds, and cutlery littered the floor, but the house was beautiful. It had dark, wooden walls, and a lovely little set of stairs. A stone fireplace decorated a wall with knick knacks still standing on its mantle and I imagined all the nights the family would cozy up to it. Upstairs, small green plants grew out of the carpeted floor, nature attempting to reclaim what once was hers. Age is one of the most elegant things in this world, whether it claims nature or man, it has always helped me appreciate the fragility of life.

Nature in a man-made world. 

After this house, we drove further down the roads that eventually turned to dirt. The car kicked up clouds of dust and pebbles and potholes formed craters that I had to dodge every couple feet. We eventually pulled into a clearing that seemed to have been the start of a driveway many years ago. Dead trees and vines overtook the old driveway and we parked the car so we could follow it on foot. However, after a few minutes of getting tangled in thorns, and tripping over branches, we realized that the rest of the way was flooded and we'd have to go around. On either side of the long-forgotten driveway were fields that stretched on for miles. The grass and weeds stood taller than any of us, and we questioned if it was even worth it.
Of course it was!
Innocently, we began trekking through the jungle, not knowing what lay ahead, hidden from the world. We never even thought about what could've been hiding underneath the sandals on our feet!

You can see how dense the brush was! It wasn't even a field anymore. 

For about 20 minutes, we trudged through the dense brush, noticing a giant farmhouse looming in the distance behind the trees. We had to hop over a pretty deep river, and climb through some old, splintered fencing that had been decaying nearby. As soon as we crossed the river, however, I got a very strange feeling. I don't really know how to describe the way it washed over me, but I know that it wasn't good. I believe I mentioned it quickly, but kind of brushed it off, assuming it was just my nerves. Abandoned places never, EVER scare me, so this was kind of off-putting.
A few feet away, the large, unsettling stone farmhouse finally greeted us. With sweat covering our faces, and the summer sun beating down, we looked forward to climbing inside the home.

The odd, stone home in the middle of nowhere. 

All the windows were boarded up, except for one, which you can kind of see in the photo above. Brianna hopped in first, then Evan, and then me. As soon as I set foot inside, that negative feeling grew stronger. The carpeted floor was mushy and caving in, and I feared falling straight through. The room we had entered was mostly empty, except for an odd amount of horse magazines scattered about. Bats flew across the ceiling and eventually were swallowed by the darkness that protected the ancient hallways. At this point, my gut was begging me to listen. Something bad loomed here, and I didn't want to figure out what it was. There was a blue/grey staircase to the right and for some reason it scared me. I've never been scared by a simple set of stairs, but for a reason I cannot say, I did not want to go near it. It was as if something was waiting at the top, and its intentions were far from good. Even today, I have no idea what could've been in the rest of that house and frankly, I don't want to know. I can confidently say that this was the first abandoned place that has ever truly frightened me, and I've been inside insane asylums at midnight! Something evil lurked here, without a doubt. 

I took a small step away from the window as Evan and Brianna studied the magazines. As we all moved around, I noticed something else terrifying. The floor was peeling from the wall, ready to collapse at any given second. I demanded that we all get out immediately and we did just that. Who knows what would've happened if we had gone deeper into the house?

The room with the collapsing floor. The staircase is to the right, just out of view of this photo. 

Trying to forget about the fear we all shared, we explored the land surrounding the building. The remnants of barns lay all around, and we went to go searching. However, after just a few seconds of walking, we heard an odd sound to the left. A large, black snake was coiled up on a piece of wood, intensely watching us. I believe in omens, and I 100% think that this was one. The snake hissed and its empty eyes stared straight into our souls. Even snakes don't scare me, but this one was different. 

He looks smaller in this photo, but stretched out, we all agreed that he was more than half my height. (I'm about 5'7")!

After a few seconds of this strange staring contest, the snake turned and slithered off into the tall grass, never to be seen again.
At this point, we all shared that same bad feeling, and agreed that we would head back to the car. We followed the path we made through the field and within 10 minutes, we could see the car through the trees and brush. A sense of relief came over us and all we wanted was to leave this property. We couldn't get out that easy, though.
Suddenly, Brianna started exclaiming that she couldn't find her phone. She had put it in her pocket when we left the house, and it wasn't there anymore. I figured it had just fallen out, so we looked through the grass that surrounded us, but it wasn't anywhere. We realized that we'd have to trace our steps all the way back to that evil house. It was as if the house was forcing us to stay.
It took us 20 minutes to search the grass on our hands and knees. We had gone all the way back to the house, and then crawled back towards the car to find it. When we arrived at the initial spot Brianna had realized it was gone, we came up empty handed. The phone was nowhere, and we had searched the grass as intently as we possibly could. Thorns tore apart our legs, and bugs crawled all around. We were starting to lose hope that we'd ever find it.
The oddest part however, was when we looked down one last time, the phone was right there. It appeared to have been perfectly placed in the middle of our trail, and for a second we all just dumbly stared at it. How on earth could we have missed the phone when we started searching? It was right there! There's no way we could've skipped over it, and even today we still question this incident.
We got as far away as we could from that land, and haven't gone back since. I don't know if we ever will.

A few miles up the road was an old kids camp right beside a house, and we eagerly stopped to explore it. The property had a few different buildings and there were a ton of bunk beds still intact inside one of them. The camp appeared to be an art camp, as there were a ton of different little projects everywhere. This place was very lighthearted, and all of those bad feelings had diminished.

One of the buildings. This one held a ton of art supplies and even letters from the kids dating back to the 1970's. 

Some writing from a child. 

Strange, yet tragic headline to a newspaper. 

Right next to the camp, there was a large white farmhouse with a detached garage. This house was just about empty with only one giant yellow chair sitting in the middle of the kitchen. Bees were in every single window, and there were odd hallways and staircases inside. The house was old, yet beautiful and regal. I felt that it held so many secrets and memories from past lives.
The detached garage held knick knacks and some cans of paint. There was a small room inside, with a delicate quilt spread out over a twin sized bed. It seemed like a strange place for someone to sleep, and the fact that the bed was still made was intriguing.

The detached garage/shed. You can see the bed through the windows.

A neat, clean bed in an abandoned garage. Look at how white that pillow is.

After these little finds, we drove over to some more parts of the town. We even ended up walking almost a mile into the woods to find yet another creepy stone farmhouse! We couldn't get inside this one, due to it being heavily locked up and protected. The overgrown driveway to it was covered in centipedes longer than my hand! Just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.

Here's the second farmhouse, located much deeper in the woods than the first.

Walpack's cemetery, almost as creepy as Beacon's!

Walpack took up most of our day. We explored as much as we possibly could, and the cemetery was one of my favorite stops. I still believe that certain parts of this town have some strange energy that can't be explained. I wish I knew why I felt this way, but maybe it's best that I don't! Who knows?
While still in New Jersey, we visited the blue hole which was such a magical place!!! The blue hole is a body of water with surrounding small rocks that you can jump off of. The water is so deep that you'd never be able to touch the bottom, and we took advantage of this. We jumped and swam for about an hour in the hot july heat, and the water numbed us until our lips turned purple. Nothing will ever compare to feeling the rush of ice water encompass you as your body dives deep beneath the earth. For just a moment, all is silent.

Our lovely, mystical, ethereal blue hole. More like a green hole in this photo! 

On our way back towards home, we revisited the original site of the infamous 1969 Woodstock festival. We had been there a few times prior, but decided to stop in since we were nearby. It's always such a great feeling to visit the place that changed music forever. A kind, older man stopped to talk to us for a while and told us stories about his relationship with Jimi Hendrix! He was such a friendly person, and even offered to take a picture of us with the Woodstock memorial. :)

Here we are! Photo taken by our new friend :)

"And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden."

All in all, if you ever find yourself in Bethel, New York, go on and visit this sacred land. Run barefoot, blast The Band, Joe Cocker, or John Sebastian, and feel the energy flow right through you!


Our drive home consisted of singing along to the appropriate music, and reflecting on our odd, eventful day. From this adventure, I came to understand that I should always listen to my gut, no matter what my heart and head are telling me. I think about that farmhouse almost every day, and often question what made it so unnerving. Nevertheless, the places we visited in this journey will always hold a special part of me.
This upcoming summer of 2020 may have its foreboding challenges, but we should not let ourselves dwell on problems that we cannot fix. We all need to try our best to not forget who we are. Let these trying times move you forward, and may you always give the love that you receive.

-Averi :)

Thank you to Brianna and Evan for letting me use some of their photos!