Gingerbread Castle

Wednesday morning we woke and made wild, passionate love.  Okay, maybe not right upon waking.  And, okay, maybe it wasn't wild and passionate -- I mean, our hotel room was nice, but it wasn't Harlequin Romance nice.  However, there is something to be said for the amorous qualities of a space where your relatives are very unlikely to accidentally walk in on you.

V and The Child had a date to go to a water park.  I was invited along, but the park didn't appeal to me; I have to be in the right frame of mind to stand around slathered with sunscreen while waiting to go down a water slide -- also, I didn't have contact lenses this time around, which makes water features awkward.   Mark offered to drive (he was the only one insured on our rental), and he was going to go visit the Stirling Mountain Zinc Mine, so I went with him.

As we were driving along the back roads of New Jersey, we saw a sign advertising "The Gingerbread Castle."

Mark got Very Excited.  "The Gingerbread Castle!  We've got plenty of time; we have to go see the Gingerbread Castle!"  When Mark was a small boy, his Mom had a book of New Jersey Attractions that she would bring out when the family was good, and the kids could choose a fun and exciting place featured in the book.  Apparently, The Gingerbread Castle was a typical destination, especially on Mark's birthday.

I pulled up directions on my mobile, and soon we were driving along Gingerbread Castle Road.  

A tall, industrial building reared up before us.  

Then we saw a green, concrete dragon holding up a sign which read "Gingerbread Castle."

Mark drove past the driveway to the suspiciously empty parking lot, and we had to make a U-turn.

"Closed for Renovations," and "No Trespassing" signs greeted us.   Mark, starting singing Alice Cooper's "Welcome to My Nightmare" as he eased the car into a parking stall at the foot of a repurposed millstone.  

I looked past the barbed wire and chain-link fencing and my gaze came to rest upon an Evil Looking Humpty Dumpty, who leered down at us from on top of a wall and seemed to be amused in an "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here" kind of way.  

Behind us was an empty shell of a dilapidated mill.  It was about six stories tall, with a concrete balcony in the middle of it.  I fully expected Evita Perone to make an entrance.  

I turned back to the eponymous castle.  It had what looked like a children's cage on the front -- decorated with dirty red hearts -- and a giant pie near a spiral staircase.  A teetery balcony clung to the side of the castle.   A giant black cat arched its back at the top of a tower, while a spider adorned the top of another.   The large, fake stones had a dark, sooty hue.   The white stucco looked dirty.  In retrospect, it was as if Jack Skellington and the citizens of Halloween Town had tried to make a Christmas version of Oregon's Enchanted Forest.   Mark was wandering around in a mild state of shock, trying to match the post-apocalyptic structure before us with his memories from almost a half-century prior.  

"What did you guys used to do here?" I asked, trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.  Even in the strong August daylight, the place looked like an Addams Family set.  

"I don't really remember," Mark said, "I was just a little boy."

What I had mistaken for an iron grille was really historical tiles for the Wheatsworth Mills parking lot entrance.  The design looked like it was from the 1930's.   Later, I found it featured on a website of abandonded New Jersey sites:  It had gone through several owners, Nabisco being the final one.  The photos of the insides showed a lot of standing water, crumbling walls, abandoned cars,  and dangling fluorescent lights.  The photographer even found old, left-behind Halloween decorations, probably from a Haunted House Event.

It turned out that the dragon was the best looking feature. 

We got back into the car and drove to the Stirling Hill Zinc Mine Museum.