My winter trip

[DGXSER]

That is some cool stuff. I don't know why, but I much prefer the "private" historical stuff like this over the commercial "National Park" type stuff.

I have been involved with some bank vaults before, and I think they may come close, but still second place to those blast doors!!

[XSokieSPECIAL]

Hey Tod!,

Great stuff man. Was wondering how you were doing.

I've got 3 12 year old girls staying here wifh my daughter for her birthday/slumber party. They were up watching scary movies late and I guess they were too scared to turn off the lights and TV before they went to bed.
I had to get up and turn everything off so I thought I would jump on here and see whats up.
Glad I did!

Good to see your having a good trip so far. Great pic of that central Texas mountain. I think I've seen it before. But then, if you've seen one you've seen them all. I gotta get me one of those missle silos.

Looks like it's getting warmer as you head south. Hope it holds out when you cross the mountains in New Mexico.

I know you'll stay in touch.

Have a GREAT trip.
Be safe brother!!!

[trbig]

Bruce was lucky enough to meet one of the guys that had worked on this site back in the day. He had some pics that he shared with him of the site in operation, of the particular missile that had been at this site and such, and he shared them with me.



Ready to go….. Scary stuff.



The control room.



This was all supposed to be top secret, but the government thought it would be a good idea to show the people of Abilene what they were putting in the ground all around them. So, they brought an Atlas missile into downtown Abilene and set it up for them to see! Lol. Gee, that’s pretty secret!



Here’s the missile as it was unloaded at the local Air Force Base from a C130. Not much room for error! I bet they got better fuel mileage on the way home!










And here’s one of the construction phase. Notice the people standing on the area separate from the silo where his home now is.








And here’s the missile as it turned off of I-20 onto the ICBM Highway.




Finally, I said good bye and headed off into the sunset.





I got into Big Spring Texas and grabbed a motel where I am now sitting typing this. Total miles for the day was just shy of 500 at 497. Tomorrow… headed to Carlsbad, New Mexico.


Tod

[trbig]

Over his kitchen area was the crew escape hatch. You were to pull the handle you see, and the door would swing down. This would let several tons of sand used as a blast shielding to pour in. You climbed up this sand pile to the ladder, and out to freedom. I just wonder what they thought would be left?



Remember the second gate I went through? This is his window.. equipped with microphones. You can hear birds, wind, rain, etc.



All around the whole room, there is a 6 inch metal lip with several inches separating the floor from the walls. The concrete walls at this level are 40 feet thick!



And here’s down on the second floor where his gym and bathroom are, shooting up next to the column to the first floor.



And this is the original sign from the 60’s… so he thought he’d stick a fire extinguisher there also.



Back up to the first floor, we exited through where entered, but instead of going up the stairs, we went to the left and went down. The door you see here is a blast debris door. This is to help stop debris if the missile were to explode while in the silo. Apparently, this was a bit of a problem, and he rattled off at least 4 times that he knew of. There was a lot of hydraulic fluid around with a lot of liquid oxygen, and the two don’t play well together. Also, the actual shell of the missile is very thin and would crumple under it’s own weight. It was approximately the thickness of a dime. There had to be a positive pressure inside the hull of 5-6 psi at all times. If there ever got to be a drop in pressure, alarms would sound and they’d have to try to get to the nose of the missile and attach a hook and basically hang it until pressure could be restored.



Through the debris door and heading towards the silo, you can see another blast door.



And another after that.



And out to the silo.




And here’s a shot to the bottom. When he bought this there was over 60 feet of water covering several stories of the lower levels. The metal has been pretty rusted down there. It took him over three months to pump the water out. He said he occasinally drops a tool down there, and about once a year, he'll make a trip down there to gather them all up. lol.





A tiny bit of the graffiti.



The whole silo is supported on these giant springs on the sides. Each spring is 4-5 feet long.



And they go down a ways...




Some of the stainless steel lines for loading fuel onto the missile. From the time they got the order, it would take approximately 15 minutes to fuel, raise the missile to the surface, and fire it away. He said the manual for firing the missile was very complex, but when it got to the part that the missile was launched, the manual just ended. There were no instructions on what to do next.. lol. Wait a couple weeks before exiting, await further orders?? Nothing. Through several things they saw, these men realized they were just expendable.



LOL.. This is a bad pic, but it’s to show how long people had been breaking in and climbing into the silo. This beer can is the old pull tab style.



This is just part of one of the floors, and every single floor had been packed with electronic equipment. There was hardly room to walk between everything. Where the missile was, was separated from this by some aluminum foiled insulation. The missile was kept at 70 degrees, but this area was separate from that and was hot and noisy they say.



Another shot of the ram. This thing is every bit of 20 feet long.



He’s covered them to keep the water out, but this is the blast exhaust ports that the people would climb down into to get to the silo. Supposedly a pretty harrowing experience, but it seems many made the trip.



Door closing…



And all down…




To be continued...

[trbig]

I left out this morning for my winter trip I’ve been mentioning. When I left, it was 29 degrees. I rode for a while until the sun started coming up good and got the obligatory starting out shot. For some reason, I thought I needed to bring enough clothes to where I won’t have to wash anything for two weeks. Hmmm.. Two week old dirty socks and underwear. The wife may not be so happy when I get home after all? Lol. I also have enough tools to pull a motor and split the cases if necessary, rain gear, and the laptop here.





In this next pic… I have made it to central Texas. Central Texas is a blast to ride… here you have a mountain.





And here is their cash crop…. Prickly Pear Cactus and Mesquite trees



And here is their twisties! It consists of hitting the off ramp.. then back onto the freeway. You actually get to turn just a bit!




I was headed to a guy’s place that I have been chatting with for a few months. He bought an old Atlas nuclear missile silo back in 1997 and has been working on making a home out of it. Some of you may find this next part boring, but I was really interested in this. I remember reading about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and how close we came to nuclear war.

The silo I visited is just one of the original 72 that were around the Abilene Texas area. It was being hurriedly built and was finished the same year of the Cuban Missile Crisis.. 1962. A lot of people crawled in and sprayed graffiti over the years. This had to have been a daunting task. They had to climb in through the exhaust vents down into this silo where there was absolutely no light, and climb and hang on rusty metal to spray paint their message and names on the walls. One I saw was way back in a corner over that seemed to be more dangerous than most said, “Huge balls, little brain.” Lol.

So, I turned off of I-20 and headed south. I stopped to call Bruce and tell him I was getting close. As I sat there, I thought… Man, I wonder if nuclear missiles actually came right down the road I’m on. It didn’t take long to answer that question rather blatantly.




I turned off the highway to this non intimidating gate, which is the actual original entrance.



A little ways in, and I see another gate coming up.



Yeah, this one meant a little more business.



And here’s my tour guide, Bruce, awaiting me. You can see the silo door beginning to rise to the left of the flag.



A little higher…. It took some effort. These doors weigh 74 tons each!



And here you can see a few floors down into the silo. Don’t trip though… it’s 184 feet to the bottom!



An old quonset hut to the side of the pad. To the very right of the pic, you see the entrance.



You can’t really see it, but in the center at the very back of the pic under that tree, there is a concrete pad that held a telescoping radio tower that was 90 feet long when all the way up.



Had to throw in another bike shot with the silo door all the way open.



The entrance…



I took a pic, but it didn’t turn out. You go in that door and down approximately 2 stories, then turn right, and you come to the first blast door. They made these angles at 90 degrees to reduce the blast force. These doors are several thousand pounds, but I can move them with one finger. They are pretty rare to still be existing. Very few left are still there let alone operational.



Through that blast door and another 90 degrees to the right, is another one. I wish I had gotten a better pic of the latch. I don’t think a bank vault has anything on these doors.



Through that blast door and down the steps is where he’s made his main living area. He’s removed a third blast door, so you can see right in.



I felt bad taking pics of the guys house, but here’s a shot back into the kitchen. The main funnel-shaped column to the left you see supports the ceiling and goes to the floor 2 stories down. This level of the home as well as the one below it are free floating.. they are hanging from the ceiling. What this did, in the event of a close blast, it would shake the ground and walls, but the supported rooms would stay stationary. This level where the kitchen is used to be the crews quarters that had the showers and bathrooms. The level below this was the actual control room. This structure was actually separate from the missile silo.



One of the hangers attached to the roof.




To be continued...