vHOTEL continued from page 21 much of the character and beauty of this once grand hotel has been lost with time, abandonment and Mother Nature, and we think maybe there had even been a fire at one time in here. We maneuver quite cautiously up the second and then to the third floor, with each level the floors and walls seem to just disappear where there is only skeletal remains. A room number clings to a door on the third floor, room #29. There are a few mattresses and springs remaining, but much destruction, including the elevator shaft that looks like a death trap. As we make our way down rotten hallways to the back stairwell we find it is blocked and have to gingerly back track down dicey stairwells to the main floor. There are collections of books in boxes, purses, old chairs, a type writer, and even a child’s doll in the back rooms. We find the stairs leading to the basement are no better than the others we had encountered, but we decide to continue on. In our early years of exploring we did not have head lamps or carry flashlights to guide us (we learned as we went that this is to be a necessity). The basement was black as night and creepy to navigate through; we relied on our camera flashes to see. Narrow cement and dirt passageways held the remains of old items from the hotel, porcelain toilets, the counter top to a liquor bar, wooden mail cubby, many items we had no idea what they were or would’ve been used for. After reaching the boiler room and walking into too many cobwebs to count, we reached the front stairs to exit back out the front of the Padley Hotel, back into present day. Most of us have seen the movie “Titanic”. We watch the robotic underwater camera’s capture what remains of the Titanic as she lay on the ocean’s floor and they proceed to travel inside the hull of the boat, giving us a tour of the dining rooms, and the staying quarters, showing us the state that it exists today. Then Hollywood magic happens and what we are seeing is the magnificent Titanic as she would’ve been in her glory days. Well in my mind that was what I had experienced while I explored the Padley Hotel from floor to floor, down every hallway and from room to room. I envisioned this once magnificent hotel in its glory day, and if you look really close at some of our photos, you can see it to! vBy Angella and Ryan Byykkonen