OPPENHEIM Adventure and more

My friend Chickie and I have been trying to get together for a month or so and today finally worked out.  Barb joined us (all three of us graduated the same year l967).

After dropping something off at Opportunities Niagara Unlimited we headed to Oppenheim Park, so that we could find the remains of the old zoo.  My parents took us kids there in the 50's and 60's and I have vague memories of doing that.  I had coordinates from a geocache that has been archived and was using them to find the remnants.

When we arrived, I was not sure we would be able to explore because there was a sheriff's vehicle
sitting there.  When my GPS seemed to be pointing me in the wrong direction, I decided to ask her if she knew where the remains were.  She pointed in the same direction that my GPS was pointing and said it was OK for us to go in and look but she wanted us to know that there is a homeless veteran living in one of the buildings.  His name is Fred and she said he is rarely there during the day and that he is harmless, anyways.  This seems to be Fred's habitat.  A tent set up beside one of the buildings.  The building has cages in it.

Here is a pic of one of Chickie at one of the cages.  

Fred has bags and piles of bottles and cans (the redeemable kind) in the building and all around outside.  Here are a couple of his personal effects.

Here is a picture of Barb and Chickie inside this building

After we completed our urban exploring of the zoo remnants, we decided it was time for lunch.  We stopped at a place called HOOVER'S 

which I think is just outside the village of Sanborn limits.  Barb and I had their beef on weck and Chickie had a burger and a HUGE order of fries.

Then we headed back towards Lockport.  I had a bit of difficulty finding THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE, but after some driving around we arrived.  I gave my GPS to Chickie and told her about the geocache.  She found it with a few hints.  Both she and Barb seemed excited about both the geocache and the remnants of what we think was a mill in "the olden days".

Then we headed for THE ROAD TO NOWHERE.  I was not with Peggy when she replaced the missing cache that she and I hid, so this was a new one to me.  Chickie was very assertive and she found it before me!!!!  Here she is showing Barb and I

 Here is a picture of the road that goes nowhere!

It was a great day!  When we got back to my house, I helped Chickie open up her own  geocaching account!