Looking the wind turbines in the eye

Yesterday evening I received a call from Gilbert Sebenste with a photographic offer. His friend, Steve, would be doing maintenance on top of the old AT&T microwave tower about 150 feet in the air, right around sunset, in the middle of my favorite place in the state - the Lee/DeKalb wind farm. He told me to think about it, and that he'd call me back in about ten minutes with instructions. Thirty seconds later my phone rang again with him asking if I could leave immediately. Of course, I was doing nothing with my evening at that point so I was out the door.

The tower is probably a 10 minute drive outside of DeKalb and the Northern Illinois Univ. campus. After unlocking 5 different padlocks, we were finally in the tower. The sketchy looking elevator wasn't responding, which I was certainly okay with, so we climb the nine flights of stairs on foot. Then, it was two rusty ladders to the roof of the tower.

The view was unreal, but I'll let the photos do the story-telling on that one. We stood up there for a half an hour or so while Gilbert and Steve debated on whether or not it would be a good idea to ride out a severe storm in the tower, until the sun dipped below the horizon and Steve finally got to work on his radio maintenance.

The last ladder to the roof of the tower, looking up.
Gilbert joining the club at the first platform.
The elevator shaft that I was not disappointed to not be using.
Looking to the north at a little farmstead and some turbines.




Back on the ground. The farm stead on the right side was burning a little something.

Hanging out with my shadow.