it turned out we were going to take a canoe down the chicago river. now, if you've ever been to chicago, you know that the "river" is more like a narrow canal of toxic waste that is bordered by factories and industrial plants. it's about as far from nature as you can get. but we dragged the canoe down to the water and lowered it in, which was kind of hard since there aren't any public docks. it had gotten dark, and our flashlight was almost dead, but we paddled along past floating trash through the murky water. everytime another boat approached us, we shined our weak light at it, hoping it wouldn't run us over. we went under bridges and freeway overpasses, about 2 miles, until we got to our destination: a big abandoned grain elavater.

natalie's friend had explored the place on his own, and had decided that the best way to get to it was via the river, since the yard next to it had a gaurd dog. it was a huge, white, building with round towers, about 15 stories tall. after we tied up the canoe, we found the place where he'd knocked in part of the wall, and climbed through. everything was covered in thick dust and debris, and parts of the floor were missing. we started climbing up the stairs, and about halfway up our flashlight died, so it was almost completely dark.

when we got to the top floor, we had to climb up a ladder on the outside of the building to get to the roof. i'm almost never afraid of things like heights, the dark, abandoned buildings, etc... but this whole situation was really scary to me. not only did we have no light and no way to escape, but i was climbing up the outside of a building, 15 stories above the ground, and if i fell i would fall into the toxic river. but we all made it up to the roof and stood for a long time looking at the view.. we had a perfect view on all sides, we could see the whole city, and it stretched out in every direction further than we could see.