Hoops & Heaters

Noel Kerns
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Hoops & Heaters
Hoops & Heaters

Toyah High School basketball court, Toyah, Texas.

Story continued from this image...

So...as excited as I was to finally see what was on the first floor of the antique school building, I curbed my enthusiasm enough to proceed up the rickety-looking stairs with due caution, and as I did, I began to hear sounds that indicated...activity of some sort...on the floor onto which I was about to step. As I got closer to the top, it became clear what the noise was...birds, and lots of them. No, I mean LOTS of them...I have no way of knowing how many for sure of course, but as I instinctively ducked down, I shined my light around the ceiling and noticed two things; one it, was incredibly high, and two it was almost completely 'moving' from what must have been hundreds of doves, all simultaneously freaking out about my arrival, flitting here and there, some finding hiding places, others apparantly exiting through some gaps in the roof.

So as I acclimated to this crazy environment, I looked around some more and discovered that I was standing at the edge of a gymnasium & basketball court, hence the high ceiling. I could also tell that dimensionally, this room occupied the entire rest of the building. The second floor had been completely removed, and the schoolhouse had at some point (I found out later, the 1950's or 60's) been converted to nothing more than a basketball facility. Bit it was clear, the place hadn't been used for anything for a long, long time. The creaky, decaying floor was almost completely covered in bird droppings, in some places as much as 2 feet deep, the walls were cracked and peeling, and the ceiling (from the original second floor) was about 50% missing, some pieces having fallen to the floor and been covered over in bird droppings, some hanging precariously from the ceiling, in some cases so low you could touch them (I elected to not). The gym was also designed to do double duty as an auditorium, as it was fitted on the side wall with a stage. As I walked around the room, more birds evacuated their positions, which was continually unnerving. As you can see from the picture, the basketball goals themselves still remained, but with no nets. This picture was the second of three shots I made in the gym, and shows both the goal, the bleachers, and one of the two heater units hanging in the corner.

Well, that's basically the whole story, except for the explanation of why my picture of the stage area came out so crappy! I will give my excuse for THAT in the description for that picture!

Night, pitch black gym illuminated with LED Flashlight.

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Taken on: January 19, 2008
Tags: Everybody's photos tagged with Toyah Toyah Everybody's photos tagged with High High Everybody's photos tagged with School School more » Everybody's photos tagged with schoolhouse schoolhouse Everybody's photos tagged with night night Everybody's photos tagged with abandoned abandoned Everybody's photos tagged with Ghost Town Ghost Town Everybody's photos tagged with Texas Texas « less
Sets appears in:   • Night Work    • Ghost Towns    more » • Toyah High School    • Texas Nights    « less
Groups appears in:   • urban explorers    • Abandoned    more » • Ghost Towns    • Eerie Creepy Encounters    • West Texas    • Vanishing Texas    • Texas Ghost Towns    « less
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