So, after six week I finally found the location of this abandoned motel. A young man, who follows my work, sent me a video of him and a friend kicking down the doorways of a motel. He told me how amazing it was, and asked if I would come and explore. In the message he said, “I already kicked down all the doors. All you have to do is go in.” I personally thought, well if he went through all this trouble to help little old me, I might as well. Although the issue was that he never gave me an address. He gave me a rough description of where it was. The area that he identified was rural and filled with sketchy back roads. Malik and I drove around the area for miles. We searched the outskirts of town for hours with no results whatsoever. I tried contacting the young man again, but never received a response. We searched online, and asked around for weeks, and no one had any idea of what we were talking about. I began to think that it didn’t exist, but I saw the videos, so I knew that it was out there. We didn’t give up hope. I returned to Palestine, this past weekend, and Malik alerted me that he’d finally found the address. So 45minutes before sunset, we raced to the location. Me, Malik, two masks, a DSLR, and a dying GoPro rushed in.
The motel was vacant, as we assumed. We found overturned rotting furniture, and moldy mattresses. The exploration was simple and easy going. Every door was literally kicked open for us. Only one door was closed. It just happened to be red. Me and Malik entered a small dark home. We began to walk down a pitch-black hallway with rooms adjacent on each side. With a random wine bottle in hand, that I found on the ground, I told Malik to check the room to our right and I’d check our left. We surveyed the open rooms and saw nothing. We turned a corner, and found a bright red door. Malik quietly eased behind. He held his phones light over my shoulder, and I twisted the door with one hand, and readied the bottle to strike with the other. I quickly twisted the knob and kicked the door open. Paper forms swarmed the air, and we heard a rustle in the bushes. We didn’t see anyone, but we quickly left. We progressed on to examine one more building, before the GoPro went kaput. All in all, it was worth the wait.
WINFIELD'S WAY IN 