Every great explorer eventually comes across a place they know they shouldn’t be. Whether they’re seeking a thrill, or exploring a mystery, Callie and Andrea aren’t afraid to trespass in the name of fun — even when it’s dangerous. Hear how Callie got chased out of an old, abandoned insane asylum, and Andrea got away from an angry farmer thanks to her speedy pony!
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Transcript
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Callie King 00:00
so close to where I grew up. It was a mental hospital that had been abandoned my gosh, probably 15 to 20 years. Oh, yeah, of -
Andrea Wady 00:10
course you would get why would you go there? Why would you do that? -
Callie King 00:14
And adventure? Why not? So we went in, and it didn't work out too well, because we saw headlights coming down the road. So we jumped in the car and actually had a little bit of a car chase, because the headlights coming where the police military whoever it was, that was patrolling way -
Andrea Wady 00:39
Jump in with both feet. Go big, follow your dreams -
Callie King 00:43
grab life by the reins. -
Andrea Wady 00:45
This is how we live. We're Callie King and Andrea Wady two horse trainers always looking for adventure and adventure and -
Callie King 00:52
finding it join us for stories of dangerous travels wild animals, -
Andrea Wady 00:56
new challenges, and in the end, always learning alongside -
Callie King 01:00
our magnificent horses. So saddle up and follow along. You're listening to grab life by the reins. So I, I want to talk about trespassing. And I think this is a top on my mind because I read a book recently that you bought for me as a gift card mutant message from Down Under. Yeah, great book. By Marlo Morgan incredible book, it tells the story of this woman who did a walkabout with the aborigine people of Australia. And there was one point in the book, there's so many good parts of this book to put there was one part where they talked about how the idea of owning land is so foreign to these native peoples. And I agree with that, because I like going where I want to go -
Andrea Wady 02:04
Yeah, exploring. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the indigenous people, like they feel like they're Guardians of the land. Yeah. So that said, that doesn't mean that we can just wander around America going wherever we want. However, we mostly have been doing that. Where have you ever trespassed? That you look back and think that was super sketchy? -
Callie King 02:28
Well, the one that comes to mind is where we were in an abandoned underground tunnel system. What? But before? Before I go into it, before I go into that one, I just have to say, I know you can relate to this. It's so much easier to trespass on land when you're writing when you're in the back of a horse. Oh, absolutely. -
Andrea Wady 02:51
Because people, there's I'll be -
Callie King 02:55
going across land where I actually do know that I shouldn't be there. But I think you're and I think I can get away with it. And people come out and be like, Oh, what a beautiful hair. Yes, we can get away with. And then later, I'll be on foot walking across. And they'll be like, What are can get away with. And then later, I'll be on foot walking across. And they'll be like, What are you doing down here? Yeah, -
Andrea Wady 03:12
you're not allowed to be on this land? Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Horses can kind of get get you can get away with things on horses. But you obviously didn't have a horse in a tunnel? -
Callie King 03:23
No, no, that was that was interesting. So I went to this place two times went the first time. We got chased out early, about 40 minutes in which of course just made us hungry to go back and explore more. So we went back like two weeks later, with an additional person. But what are these tunnels? What are they so close to where I had where I grew up? It was a mental hospital that had been abandoned. My gosh, probably 15 to 20 years? Oh, yeah, of -
Andrea Wady 03:54
course you would get why would you go there? Why would you do that? And -
Callie King 03:59
adventure. Why not? Oh, my God, we'd heard that you could go and that you could you could park off of a road and you can hike through the woods and you could, you know, walk into this place and that it was basically wide open, because when the facilities were shut down, everyone just left. And the land was now owned by a what I was told about a small military base that was close. So it was It wasn't actively being used. But it was patrolled. It was government. Oh, it was government property. At least it wasn't private. -
Andrea Wady 04:38
That is private property. I think you need to look up the definition of private government owned definitely, you know, a government facility. Yeah. -
Callie King 04:49
So we went in, and the first time that we went in, you know, you look back and you think bad as teenagers. We were really dumb. And I went in with a friend who brought her then boyfriend along, who decided it would be fun to dress on black and bring a plastic sword -
Andrea Wady 05:14
had you not been drinking -
Callie King 05:16
now? Now we had? Yeah, cuz we drove into the place. Oh, yes and got out. And part of his plan was that then he would like, sneak away from the rest of us, and then jump out with his QR with his sword. And the funny part was that it didn't work out too well, because he was the one that got most freaked out when we saw headlights coming down the road, because this tunnel system, you would go into the tunnel system, and then you could come back out at various buildings. So the tunnels were used to connect residential halls to treatment facilities to like learning facilities. And so you can kind of be up and down. Wow. And we would go through. And I remember this one part that we went down the stairs and that was probably one of the scarier parts just for physical safety because a lot of these structures were getting pretty rickety at this point. So we go down the stairs, we get into the tunnels, and I'm going along and there would just be a wheelchair sitting there. There would be a look into a room and documents were laying out on desks. I mean, it was obvious that people had just literally gotten up and walked out of the place. Oh, that's freak when it was closed down. -
Andrea Wady 06:33
So when you saw the headlights, presumably that was someone coming into into that facility. You were coming up out of the tunnels, -
Callie King 06:43
and he was the one that freaked out the most took off running left you. Yeah, he was leaving everybody. He's just running for the woods. And then so he was taking off. We ran after him got in the car because actually this time we had parked. We decided to save ourselves walking since that was smart drove kind of into the facility. Oh my goodness, and parked there. So we jumped in the car and actually had a little bit of a car chase, because the headlights coming were the police military, whoever it was that was patrolling way. And they literally chased us out. And it was my boyfriend driving at the time. And he I mean, he was flooring it I don't know how he remembered all of the roads to get out of that place. But he did. And we made it out got back on public roads and just flew out of there didn't get caught. But that's what when our appetite to go back the second time. And why would you go back again? Well, first I went with a group of girls because obviously I knew we could be smarter all girls no weirdos wagging swords around. And also we parked off on the public road hid the car, like covered it with leaves, you know, because that's what you do. -
Andrea Wady 07:56
You've been watching too many movies. And -
Callie King 07:59
we hiked in through the woods to get in. But I'll tell you what freaked me out that time is we walked up that this time we went up. So before we went in, we went right down to the tunnels this time. We're like, Okay, let's go upstairs. See what's up there. So we went up, we went into this one room, that you know, when you're in those situations where the hair on the back of your neck just -
Andrea Wady 08:19
stands out? No, mine is right now because it's going to frighten me. -
Callie King 08:23
We went into this room and of course, flashlights, you know, we're in there. It's like one in the morning. So we're in there with flashlights. And all of a sudden, I see I'm like, this isn't this isn't old bedding. Oh, and there's some things here like there were things surfing all around the place because obviously had just it wasn't emptied out. But you could tell when something was not super old. It was very used wasn't new, but it wasn't old. And the hair stood up on the back of my neck. And my my friends were kind of like poking around and lifting things. And I was like guys, there's someone that's living here and could be a psychopath. And this is the person we don't want to meet at one in the morning. One night -
Andrea Wady 09:08
because anyone that's kind of living in an old mental institution. You know, they're not going to be too happy about you poking around in their stuff. -
Callie King 09:18
Yeah, and we're also in when we were in the tunnels it actually was a lot safer because someone up didn't know that we were down there Yeah, for sure when we're upstairs and there's windows and there's lights flashing around flashlights anyone that's outside knows where they're and this person who were in his room is going to know that place like the back of his hand. You don't -
Andrea Wady 09:40
get scared very much I know this about you but did that not frighten you and ring a few alarm bells? -
Callie King 09:48
Yes, but I get I typically get scared in the let's assess and take action. Yeah, so I got I definitely got fear but I got that fear of Like, look, guys, what we're doing is stupid. We need to get out of here. Now, we didn't leave the place. We just went down to the tunnels, say, -
Andrea Wady 10:06
like, I just don't understand you Why would you do that I would well, I wouldn't have been there in the first place that would have freaked me right out. I don't like scary stuff. And you find out someone's living up here you possibly about to get murdered. So you go in the tunnel, like any sane person would. -
Callie King 10:27
So we go into the tunnel. Like we go down the tunnels, we start exploring all the rooms. We're like trying to build this mental map of where it was from the last time we were in there. And we were probably in the tunnels for about 30 minutes, and we came back up. And we're like, okay, we think we know where this other building is that we want to go to. So we're gonna walk there. So we're now outside in the complex walking, and we see those darn headlights again, of the people patrolling. So we took off to go back down into the tunnels. Well, they saw us running. So they knew that there were people there. So now they're on foot, with their flashlights and we see them, we see them out. And we're trying to we're running back through retracing our steps through the tunnels to get back, basically to retrace to go all the way back to our car. Because we didn't know our way around here well enough to say take another route. So we're running through, you know, we would hide out turn off all our flashlights see the flashlights going by of people walking up top, because occasionally in these tunnels, there would be like little windows. Yeah. And then we would take off running again. I remember we finally we came up out of the tunnels, we had all of our lights off. We were in the one building. And we had to go down this big flight of steps that was kind of like big entranceway. And then we had to run across a big open, which was the parking lot at once. Yeah. And then into the woods that would take us back to where our car was. Oh, my goodness. And why would you do that? Well, he I like the feeling of adrenaline you think and that was one of the moments that was a good hit of I actually remember standing there. And you mentioned feeling fear, I felt afraid. But I felt so excited. Like, this is just awesome. -
Andrea Wady 12:14
See, not me, I would have been expecting someone to leap out from behind the tree and murder me. That would have been it. It -
Callie King 12:21
is wild how like we can totally we all have different things that excite us. But we made it back to the car. We were quite winded by the time we got back. -
Andrea Wady 12:31
Well, I'm not going there with you if you get any bright ideas, because I know it's not that far from here. So I'm not doing it. -
Callie King 12:37
We're only one week from Halloween as we record this fact. And they have now privately turned it into a haunted. No, I'm not going so we could go tonight. -
Andrea Wady 12:51
No. -
Callie King 12:54
There probably was swords jumping out at us. No, -
Andrea Wady 12:56
not doing it. You took me to an air b&b last week that nearly made me pull my pants and we're going to talk about that in another episode. But no, I did trespass once on the abandoned set of the survivor TV show in Nicaragua. Which is random. Yeah, it's randomness. We were in Nicaragua. We were doing a border run to renew our visas when we first moved to Costa Rica. And there was a bunch of us everyone used to go and do their visa runs every three months. It was fun. We're surfing and it was really remote before a lot of people were going to Nicaragua, funnily enough, because it's a bit sketchy. Although the people are lovely, and I love the country. Governments suck, though. But we were on the beach. And we went hiking way up this beach. And we were suddenly looking and we were like, what's that it looks like an old thought or something. When we got up there, and we were finding all sorts of things on the floor, like laminated like badges and thing. We're like, what on earth is this? And we climbed in, which isn't the smartest thing to do, because Nicaragua is lots of snakes and it was all a little bit overgrown. And we started to find like all of these big wooden carvings that were like, you know, like you get the tiki carvings and stuff like that. And we were like, This is really weird. And one of the local boys hiked up with this new site. Yeah, yeah. It was the TV show, survivor. And we were like, No way. And apparently survivor is like franchised all over the world. So there's like a German survivor, an American, whatever. This was the Russian one. -
Callie King 14:47
So does that mean that it was all Russian contestants? Yes. Okay. I guess so. Yeah. Well, Nicaragua would be pretty opposite to Russia. So that seems like it would be a legitimate test. Yeah, the -
Andrea Wady 14:59
government It's quite friendly but anyway that's a whole nother conversation. But so we go in there and all of the old spears and everything with their that they because they kind of make it that sort of thing don't they where it's all like you know, jungle warfare and all that so we're running around with the spears all play in private land everyone's I know you can't go in there we're cut we're going in. We had so much fun so we're running around we were finding like shields and spears and all chasing each other around it was super good fun we didn't get caught, we didn't get caught and we all went home but it's one of those really weird ones where it's like, Oh, do you remember the Ceph survivor in Nicaragua? In the middle of nowhere? Yeah, that was the time actually we went with my friend Mark as well had come down from was from England. And he said, when he came to see us in Costa Rica, his dad has said to him, the one place you must never go while you're down there is Nicaragua. It's really dangerous. Well, yeah, parts of it is but where we were wasn't. But we crossed the border on foot. And the first thing we do did was take a picture of Mark standing under the Welcome to Nicaragua sign with bullet holes in it, sent it to his dad. He was not best pleased. Yeah, to funny, but yes, trespassing. Land ownership. It's a weird thing, isn't it? It's like really, like private beaches? Who owns the sea. No one owns the sea. -
Callie King 16:26
So what, what's the best story you have of trespassing with a horse? We started out talking about that, how it's easier. Actually, I -
Andrea Wady 16:35
do have a trespassing with a horse store. I have several, actually. But the one that sticks in my mind is my friend Dominique and I were there was this particular lane that you're not allowed to go up with horses on, you have to go really long way round. And we were like No, not gonna do that. But there's a cattle grid in the way. Which is a bit dangerous to be fair cattle grid is like the poles lying on the ground that the cows can't get over, otherwise, their feet would go through. And you can usually go round them through a gate. So our goal was right up to it, open the gate, go through and cut off about an hour's riding to get home. So we're going up there. And we see coming across from the right this foot one of the farmers and he's running on foot towards us and his sheepdogs running along behind him. We were like, Oh, no. So we just burst into a counter, go flying up the lane by now we're galloping. And he's yelling at us. And I could not help myself. I turned around. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, Catch me if you care, and we would God. Then we realized we couldn't slow down to open the gate. So we jumped the cattle grid when we were young, we were really young. It was stupid. It was the horses could jump. These were jumping ponies, they absolutely fluid. We thought we were the coolest things ever, because we've been chased off by the farm. And that was fun. The other one I remember was with my friend, Lou. We kept our horses together for years. And there was an outbreak. It was very sad. Actually, there was an outbreak of what they call Foot and Mouth Disease in cattle in Cornwall, and they were shutting everything down. And it was being announced that day that all movements were being closed. So we went out on the horses, knowing we wouldn't be able to ride for months. And we would riding back and there was this big farmer's field and they it's not, you know, like, I'm here with you in Pennsylvania. And we've gone out on the horses, and I've said is this your land? And you're like, oh, no, it's one of the other farmers. They don't seem to care. In England, they care. in Cornwall, they care? Do not right on their land, you're gonna get in trouble. Is it because -
Callie King 18:57
of damaging crops? Or it's because of just more? Wow, I -
Andrea Wady 19:04
tend to really know. I mean, I see a whole different culture when it comes to land. Like when I drive through Pennsylvania with you, you've got all these lovely houses with their great big front lawns, but there's no fences or hedges separating the neighbors. No, we don't go into that in England, the bigger fence the better. Don't want to look at you don't want to see this is my land. So it's it's just a little bit different. I think that's why, you know, in centuries gone by we're quite ashamed of how you know, the British get booted around the world and took countries and but the farmers don't like you on the land. They just don't Yeah, crops, all sorts of things, letting out wild, you know, livestock letting out livestock, but this day we were going by and there was this huge field and we knew it was the last ride whoop. And actually it turned out to be the last ride we had for about four months. And we looked and we went can't resist First, we galloped around and around and around that field and actually, we did see the farmer. And you know what he did? He smiled and waved at us, because He knew what was happening to Yeah. And it was really sad. A huge amount of farmers lost everything. And I think he just looked at us and went go for it girls. And we just kind of smiled and rode home. And then we spent the rest of the day trying to catch this delinquent goat called Polly, because Polly was cloven hooved. And the restriction on any animals was with a cloven hoof or horses don't have a cloven hoof. But if there were any animals in with your horses who had cloven hoof you are not allowed to move those horses. Well, we were going to run out of grass so Polly had to get out Polly was the most stubborn naughty girl I've ever met in my life. She used to come on rides with us big go big go. Big coat -
Callie King 20:58
like a milk go like the ones with the floppy yours. Yeah, I love goat big go. -
Andrea Wady 21:02
She was lovely. Polly. I absolutely loved it apart from the time. I nipped down to see my horse really early in the morning and I was wearing my clothes for the office I worked on and she was tethered on a great big rope. It was winter. She ran around behind me took out my bat my legs, took my legs right out from under me and I landed flat on my back at like quarter to eight in the morning. In my office. I -
Callie King 21:25
bet she was just staring right over top of YouTube. -
Andrea Wady 21:29
But this day with the foot and mouth we had to get her out. So we got her up and over the hedge. That meant we could still move the horses from field to field. But yeah, trespassing. -
Callie King 21:40
Well, when you were telling your story of when you outran the farmer and jumped over the cattle guard, I attempted to do something similar. I was out riding in the evening. So it was out after dark. And I blame it on the fact that it was after dark that I didn't see that I was riding through alfalfa and alfalfa at least here if it's been freshly cut the fields you can ride over it because it doesn't damage it. It's not wet. Yeah. But if it starts to get a little higher, more than just a few inches, you damage it if you're right across it with a horse, -
Andrea Wady 22:12
which is fair. Yes, -
Callie King 22:14
yeah. -
Andrea Wady 22:14
So you went right across the middle. -
Callie King 22:16
I went across it I was I wasn't right across the middle, I was staying towards the edge. However, my horse started to spook at something that was in the we were kind of going by the farm like by the farm buildings. So my horse started to spook at something. So she's kind of jumping out into the middle of it. And then the farmer saw us started flashing the light, you know his light on us and yelling which scared her even more. So then she jumped even wilder and then I fell off in the middle of the field. It's really hard to make it get away once you fall off. Yeah, that's it games up. Then I still had a hold of the reins. I was being I was kind of in that stage of half trying to get up and falling and being half drug. And by that time the farmer was pretty much on top of me what it was his fault you fell off? Well, I was writing in the field. But yeah, he's yelling I'm getting drug. Finally I managed to get up illipe on. I'm like kind of half shouting apologies. And also trying to talk to my horse. We ended up also making a speedy exit. but way less successful than yours. At least it was dark enough. And I think because of all the chaos he didn't get a good look at my face. Because the next day I rode right by in the day and I waved at him. So you didn't know that from the field from the road. -
Andrea Wady 23:38
I love it. What stands out for me most with that story because I love that story. It's funny. But you used a word that doesn't exist in English. And all of my American friends do this, -
Callie King 23:50
or is it a drug? Yeah, the past tense of drag. -
Andrea Wady 23:56
No. Doesn't exist. What do you say? Drag or dragged? Ah, -
Callie King 24:05
yeah. Okay, -
Andrea Wady 24:06
because I remember my friends saying to me, Oh, it was this crazy thing and I got drugged. I was like, Oh my God. What happened? What drugs did they give you? And she's looking at me going What are you talking about? Like you got drugged? She went? Yeah, I got drugged right across the path. I'm like, I am so confused right now. Like dragged you got dragged? Honestly, you locked us out way too early. -
Callie King 24:35
You know? It's like when my mom offered you a cider earlier. And you you politely told her you don't drink. She looked very confused. Yes, -
Andrea Wady 24:44
cider in our country is very different to your cider. Well, I have a saying which side legless but smiling. -
Callie King 24:54
Well, on that note, let's -
Andrea Wady 24:55
go have a slider. Let's go and have a side -
Callie King 25:00
Thank you for listening to grab life by the reins. If you want to see ridiculous photos from our adventures be the first to know when we release new episodes and be a part of war shenanigans. Join our email family at grab life by the reins.com. -
Andrea Wady 25:17
We'll see you in the next program.