The Winding River Project

[Cyclone1001]

"What should the people of Access do? Is it safe to come back? If somebody sees said individual, should he/she turn them in?"

[NASCAR_Guy]

"Do you believe this guy is associated with any of the Western or Eastern Bloc nations?"

[mrbisonm]

Thank you for your participation in this press conference again and also thanks for all the comments, glad to see everyone here, also glad that you like it.

"What should the people of Access do? Is it safe to come back? If somebody sees said individual, should he/she turn them in?"

Colonel Meyers:

"I don't think any danger was there since the beginning. The individual filmed at three occasions was totally unarmed and therefore not an offensive intrusion was alerted. Only a few of the citizens panicked again for no reason and I hope that this will be a lessons and that you understand that there is no danger whatsoever.
We surely would appreciate any information on this subject if possible."

"Do you believe this guy is associated with any of the Western or Eastern Bloc nations?"

Colonel Meyers:

"There is certainly no political attachement to this incident, whether western, northern or eastern. Everyone should know by now that nothing here is interesting enough to be spied on."

Then suddenly the Colonel picked up his notebook and said these words into the micro before leaving the room: " Thank you all for your understanding and support. When we have further news about this incident, the Lakestead newsgroup will surely be informed. Thank you, the conference is now over."

Update 50   the next morning......

After the Colonel's speech on TV, Mike just said. "Garbage, total garbage, everything he says is to make us believe something else than what really is. We saw it and it's way beyond our comprehension why they're doing all this, surely not for the gas nor anything else. This is not a regular base I say!. They even have made the skullrocks disappeared. The towers are standing right on top where they used to be and no signs of them, archeological proof my ***.......Did he say, he's got three pictures of me? Liar, I only got blinked twice"

After calming himself with help from all the others, Mike  then started explaining the adventure they all had.

«« When Slye took off with the canoe, Alex and I walked through the forest towards the base and about in a hour we came to an open spaced areal and saw lots of gravel and rocks on the side of the river. A real big mound of it. Minetrucks every 20 seconds and bulldozers by the dozen. Alex made a detailed plan of that area and I took a couple of pictures."
Alex gave the hand-drawn plan to John.
" We spent a good two hours in and around that area, trying to figure out what is where and why. There's some big excavation going on there..............and I mean big. That pile of gravel must have been at least 200 by 150 yards large and about 45 yards high, and we found out later that it comes from a giant underground entrance just on the other side of the road. Just like I said, one mine truck after the other, non stop, in and out. How come we never saw a minetruck on the road being transported there by the way? And we all thought that they said that there's no excavation on the base?"
"Strange though, what are they excavating anyways?....so damn close to the river too.?" asked Slye, scratching himself behind his left ear.
"I have no idea, but definitively it seems to be damn important and big. If it would have been in the mountains, I would have thought that it might have something to do with a shelter or something with the coldwar, but it ain't, the terrain couldn't be any flatter and wetter there. It's hardly more than 4 meters higher than the river's wayterlevel."

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"We then turned a little back to contour the busy road that leads right to the traintracks that come from Phlox and go to Access. Near the traintracks is a big flat asphalt lot with the helicopters, about 6 or 7 of them, just small ones, no transporters. So we believe nothing is being shipped out from the base neither not by air anyways and the traintracks do not have anyplace to load or unload anything, unless it is removable. On that part of the base we did not see one military person, they were all civil or civil dressed. That was curious also, right Alex?" ,and Mike looked at Alex who immediatly was nodding positively to totally agree witht he words from Mike.

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"We went then from there over the tracks and all around the western end of the base, where no fences have been installed yet. Nothing much of security there at all, but who would go through here to reach the base?.....ehem, besides Alex and I?" and he looked smilingly at Alex again who was just shaking his head and smiled a little bit.
" Once on the other side," he continued, "we came to where the towers are. They're big and high alright and way bigger in reality than we thought. There are also a lot of other shorter or very long hangars beside them, other smaller towers,  plus we saw a lot of piled enormous steelbeams just beside those hangars, they seemed to be galvanized. Those beams were everywhere. Again Alex made a plan."
....and Alex handed over another piece of paper to John, Slye and Steve.

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"Then shortly after I sent Alex to the pickup place, I crawled closer to the border of the bushes to check their security system. Everything's new there, so I thought, they probably didn't even install any cameras and floodlights yet. So I waited for the night to fall while eating my cookiebar. Then I fell asleep."
"You whattt?" Alex asked not sure that he heard right, "How in the world could you sleep at a time like this right on the base?"
Mike all innocent looking said to Alex, "All you have to do is being a little tired, get comfortable and close your eyes. We got up early that morning, remember?."
Then John slapped his forehand, not wanting to believe what Mike just said.
"Anyways," Mike continued, "When I woke up at around 20 hours, it was dark and as I suspected, there weren't many lights on the base, since they're still constructing most of the base. But let me tell you, there's more action and movement on that base than downtown Lakestead at rushhour. They continue all sorts of construction all through the night, trucks driving through at an interval of 10 to 30 seconds. One really has to hurry up crossing roads and not to be seen or even get run over.
I went towards the towers to get a better look of this big round building that was just in front of it. Wow, I don't know what it could serve for, but this is another big building with a giant pipe coming out of it in the middle and making a roaming sound that seems to be coming from the inside, almost sounding like far away thunder. I tried to get into the building which didn't seemed to be surveyed that much and then when it happened, a first picture of me was made. I saw the camera about a half a second to late and looked right into it when the flash went off. Well, they got my picture for their family album now,"  Mike told looking at everyone with a small smile.

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"That's bad, ooohh.......that's really bad." Steve said and looked down his cup to see if he had another mouthful of coffee left,
"nahhh, don't worry Steve, " Mike said, " I had my mask on. They only know now that I have blue eyes.....hahaha."
Meanwhile John ordered more coffee form the waitress and the others went through the plans that Alex made, Mike continued to talk about the rest of that evening alone on the base.
" It was only a few seconds after that the alarm on the base went on and I had to get out of there I thought, but I stayed nearby, on the other side of that giant building, hiding within the hundreds and hundreds of woodenboards with Slye's Commercial stamp on them." and Mike took a severe turn to Terry to see what he had to say about this.
" Look guys, I told you before, buissness is buissness, I can't talk much about the contract with the federal Government, IM not allowed to, besides I don't know any details whatsoever what they are being used for, all I know, the contact is big and for at least a year." Slye then helplessly looked at John, who added, " Slye can't say anything and we all understand, subject is closed. Nothing from this will clear anything up anyways, ok?"
" So what happened then?" Steve asked Mike.

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"Well, I didn't stay hidden too long, and as soon as I saw that the wood is being transported through the giant doors of the towers, I suspected that they're going underground. By now I thought, it would be swarming with security and soldiers, but none I saw were alerted too much, so I went towards the towers again, this time around the backside and through the woods. I came to this building a little away from all the others that looked like a pumping station, it made a lot of humming like noise inside."

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"I was close to the fence near the river, but then I saw a sign that the fence was electric and I didn't want to take chance I went back to the river passing by the back of the towers. By now I heard some helicopters in the back woods and some floodlights turning on in front of the towers."
"That's exactly when I went back to my place driving on the highway, I saw those helicopters and those lights in the back and I thought, that's it, Mike's dead." Slye quickly interupted the story.
"Oh c'mon, dead? No one shoots no one for any small intruding reason like this, " Mike said.
" We have done too much and I am not proud of myself at all," John suddenly dropped into the conversation," We acted like little kids, playing around with something possibly dangerous and putting up everything we have. We will never do this again. Hope that's clear" Everyone positively nodded and agreed with John,
"So what happened after that, how did you finally get out of there without getting caught?" John asked while he turned back to Mike.
"Ha ha, I didn't leave right away, I went into one of the towers."
"You Whattt?", again Alex couldn't help asking if he heard right and then turned to everyone else pointing a finger on Mike, shaking his head and said: "He's NUTS, I told ya!"

With a proud smile like a little boy Mike continued, " I was there, I had the chance and I took advantage of it, but.......unfortunelty I didn't go far. The tower inside seems to be divided into several different departments. I saw one where they had several elevators, like four of five of them side by side, open and wide enough to hold and transport a lot of stuff at the same time. No one was there. I wasn't going to take one of them and really go deep into the "Wolf's" mouth, but I took the stairs beside them and went down for one more floor realizing that the entrances were double locked below. So we know now that it goes down underground.....Funny, I didn't see any valves though or anything that could lead to a valve.
By the way, the air is moisture controlled, very dry below ground, which is not normal either, the cement walls were white, almost chalked like.
At that time I just had seen all what I was able to see and went back up another stairs to get the hell out of there as soon as possible, that's when another profile shot of me was taken, just at the towers exit. I just went straight to the river then, realizing that two helicopters were already surveying the waters. That's it I thought, I'll spend the next nights in a military prison, but then I saw that most of the soldiers, jeeps, trucks, lights and helicopters were concentrated on the river's side, I had the idea to take a long walk and go right through the thick forest, where no one would suspect me, down to the northern Access road. A long walk in the night, let me tell you that."
(see yellow line on last picture below)

"I got to the road at about 7 am this morning, went to a nearby home there, no one home, where some clothes were on the line outside, took the jogging and the sweater, somewhat a smaller size, and the bicycle and headed to Slye's place as quick as possible, hoping no one would ask questions about me being on the road at this time in joggings on a bike. And that's it when I caught Slye sleeping like a baby."
Mike ended his story with a little knock on the table and then calling out to the waitress: "We're ready for our brunch now, Miss".

"Where's the camera?" John asked.
Mike: "It's in the car, I'll bring it to Teddy Trenton in Bluebay on Monday morning, he will not ask any questions."
"Ok, you make sure to get the negatives from him."
"Right"
"Where are those clothes you had on you?" John again.
"They're burried deep somewhere in the ditch near that home"
"Hope you didn't leave your id cards in them."
"lol, no we had nothing to identify ourselves on us"
"Good, what you do with the bike?"
"Oh yeah, the bike.....well, it's somewhere on the bottom of the river near Slye's riverwalls, sorry, I didn't want to leave it anywhere else."
"Good enough, Mike"

"Let's eat now", Steve added to finish this conversation. "I'm hungry."
....and everyone agreed.»»

After the brunch, everybody went back to their home to either relax or sleep after such a stressful 24 hours although that they do not know very much more than before, but the curiosity stays on in the group, all doubting now for sure that this base has nothing to do with a gasleak.
The army still had trucks, jeeps and helicopters driving and flying all over the area all day, but the population itself seemed to have calmed down by the end of the day.

Hope you like this adventure. I'm pretty sure that more is to come one day, I can't believe that they just leave it at this, right?

Here are two more views of today's military base in West River.

Fred

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[scott1964]

Paul says "Interesting, very interesting." 

[canyonjumper]

Nice! It's great that Mike escaped from the clutches of the military without being caught. He's a . Great pics

[NASCAR_Guy]

ICBM Silo?

[Cyclone1001]

Nah, but it has to do with weapons of some kind. I say stealth bombers.

[MattyFo]

Wow! Again, I miss a few weeks and I have soo much to catch up on, great updates and the situition at the Army base just keeps getting more and more intruiging!

_Matt

[mightygoose]

great new custom content creations, and the story just intrigues.

[KoV Liberty]

No flipping way that thing is for a gas leak, its way too big. Very interesting...

Alex

[CabraBuitre]

It's amazing how quick things went from a nice quiet river valley to... THIS!  The story keeps getting more and more interesting!

[mrbisonm]

Thanks for commenting.
Still a lot of answers to be found. True, that things have gone from a very quiet, almost not important place, to the number one talks in Simland. ..Ahhhh, that army of theirs, keeping secrets from them and telling them what they should believe in.......

ICBM silo?....nah....too big too evident and no "latch"? Other weapons or stealth I doubt also, no landing strip.....? Then that gas....hm.....Porolium, said not to be dangerous, but if that big round thing is a valve.....wow...talking about not being dangerous in a "small size"?
Nah, couldn't be this either.

This weekend we will have a look at the agriculture in the valley, seemingly wanting to take over the landscapes in some areas. Land for agriculture is cheap, almost given to you, if you are willing to do some serious farming. The fertile flats of the rivers terrains are one ideal location to grow the best staple foods in Simland and a lot of it too. Some areas have more than others, some are concentrated in this while others grow better that. They even from some small communities, almost villages.
Now Access Center absolutely needs a freight station, one where all that unrefined food can be shipped to bigger Centers like Lakestead and Frampton.
Agriculture is a good source of income, employment and stability for a region and irl probably something no country can do without. Food doesn't grow on shelves in stores as most cityfolks seem to think.
I can remember a little girl that once visited my home a few years back with her parents who were my friends from New York downtown and I took that girl with me to get some fresh eggs in my chicken scoop, asking me why I *keep* my eggs there? Hm, she actually thought that I bought the eggs and stored them with the chicken in the scoop for some reason.....and that girl was 8 years old. Oh boy, that marked me for life.....lol.

Anyways, in Simland things are different and agriculture is "blooming", so to speak. We will see a lot of farm custom lots by Nexis.

Have a nice weekend

Fred

Ps: something to *Hmmm?* about...

[CabraBuitre]

Hmmm is right...  I think there's some kind of aircraft underground.  After all, there is a ramp-looking thing that says "hangar" on it...  airplane hangar?

I remember back to the movie Independence Day when Will Smith flies the alien spacecraft back to the mother ship to blow it up... the "opening" that they shot out of looked a lot like that!

[mightygoose]

is that a possible gas leak?

[Cyclone1001]

VTOL Stealth aircraft? It can happen. Looks like fog to me...

[mrbisonm]

VTOL Stealth aircraft? It can happen. Looks like fog to me...

Fog? Aircraft? Gasleak?
Hm......

[nedalezz]

Ok, Im gonna guess this is something supernatural/aliens at work. The drama is killing me!

The last update was great - certainly a lot is going on in Access.

[jmyers2043]

Hey Fred

The Winding River certaily has something strange and difficult to identify or classify there. So I did a Google seach and think that it has something to do with the angle of the city to the Sun at the point of its closest position to the Sun. . .

- Jim

[Cyclone1001]

I'm putting money on Photoshop...

[KoV Liberty]

Computers werent invented until the 90s. This is the 60s. Very interesting Fred. And to all who think about aircraft, forget it. It would be impossible for an aircraft to land underground like that, unless they are special-type aircraft or if its a helicopter hangar. These are a few excerpts from Wikipedia:

"Hangars may be used as an enclosed repair shop or, in some cases, an assembly area. Additionally, hangars keep secret aircraft hidden from satellites or spyplanes." The Winding River Region would be perfect to keep things hidden because it is rural.

"A hangar is a closed structure to hold aircraft and/or spacecraft in protective storage."

While they are normally used for airplanes, they can also be used in these forms. You guys were righ about the airplanes, just most likely not in the right context. Airships can also be part of it. Now, the only plane (that im aware of) in the world that might take off like that is a Harrier Jump Jet. It takes off vertically using V/STOL Thrusters. However, the plane was introduced in 1969. A few years later than this present storyline, true that helicopters can also be housed in here as well, but as of the previous update they can and are housed outside. And just to throw in a crazed idea from GTA San Andreas, the Area 69 in there has a similar entrance, and there is a experimental Jetpack being housed inside there. What this holds, I have no idea.

Alex