Drove around aimlessly this morning....some questions.

[Chris]

Well, since I'm on evening shift until this Friday, I've been spending most of my otherwise-useless mornings driving around scouting places, going down roads I've always been curious about, etc. Today I headed down I-44 until I got to 109, where I turned north and headed to Rockwoods Reservation. I love this place. Not only do I love just being outside, especially in the woods, on a nice day, but the place is loaded with history and several cool places.

About a year ago, me and some friends walked one of the trails that goes throughout the park. We found a cliff in one part that had a rock in front of it and if you 'slithered' down in between the rock and the cliff, you could enter, albeit on your belly, a small cave opening.

I mentioned this to Inubis and Tunajive on one of our explorations and was told that there was a very small cave down there. So today I returned, immediatly found the cliff and cave opening, and entered. You could almost never stand up, but what I found was indeed a very small cave with some nice formations in it.

There are several other cool places in the park and it was a beautiful day to be there, but I couldn't stay to long.

Next I headed down old Rt. 66 until I saw a sign for Washinton. I headed that way, but before I got to old downtown Washington I saw a big steel bridge across the Missouri on 47 and decided to see where it would take me.

I soon ended up at theintersection of 47 and 94. I took 94 knowing that it would take me to I-64. Along 94 I saw several odd things. First, I saw a massive power plant. I assume it's still in operation although I didn't see any steam from it's HUGE smokestacks which put the ones at Armour to shame. It may have just been my perspective, but they looked like they were 300-400 feet tall. I want so badly to explore a power plant. Next I drove past several of what I assume where remnants of the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works. I was hoping to see the buildings I remember riding past when I was a kid where they refined either uranium or plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Are they still there?

The road went over what looked like an abandoned road with a single wide road that split into two smaller roads where it went under 94.

I also saw a gargantuan pile of large rocks, with a concrete 'thing' at the top. The pile looked new and there were some steel buildings out front. Anyone know what this is all about? Graveyard for radioactive waste or something?

The pretty much sums it up. Just saw an area I haven't seen since I was little and wondered what was up there to explore.

[Chris]

Oh, nevermind about the power plant....it was Labadie....thought it was further south than that.

[memory_machine]

Those are my old stompin' grounds! I can help you out. The buildings you remember driving by as a kid used to be called the Equadome. It was actually the water treatment plant of the old Weldon Spring Ordinance Works Mechanical City.

http://www.stateofhorror.com/equadome.html

Sadly, it was demolished in 1997, I think. However, there are still a few buildings left that were once part of the Ordinance Works: the bunkers in Busch Wildlife Area as well as a large power plant at the back of the Lost Valley Hiking Trail. No one really knows about the plant. I discovered it running cross country in High School. Maybe I can take you there sometime.

The large mound you saw is a containment facility for the nuclear waste that was removed from the different Weldon Springs sites, left over from the uranium processing done there during WWII. It's now open to the public as some sort of exhibit.

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tips/get ... nNo==10044

Hope that helps!

[Chris]

Thanks, man. I was kind of under the impression that that's what the gravel mound was, because it said 'interprative center' or something like than on signs in front of it. I'll 'Google Earth' some of the buildings I saw and maybe you can tell me what they are.

[White Rabbit]

Yeah... The Equadome was one of the things I wanted on this site, until I found it was demolished before I even began it

[crazydrummerdude]

There's gotta be more pictures out there of the Equadome. That place was so huge, so awesome. I only went there twice, and once was after the first time they tried to demolish it (it was bombproof). I remember coming up to the fence, climbing over, and about shitting myself. It was like paradise, there was so much to explore.

Man, I hate development, and cops..

the site is now a police training facility.