Americas Largest Military Base Abandoned | Hidden in the City | Destination Adventure

in the last two episodes we did a lot of traveling and not much exploring in this episode we'll be covering a lot of territory but i want to make sure and stop and really explore a few of the locations along the way a couple of them are planned but the rest we'll just see what we can find today is christmas day it feels strange being away from the snow but santa brought me a beautiful sunrise to enjoy my breakfast then we can hit the road merry christmas everybody ever since i was a kid all i wanted to be was an explorer sail the seven seas find new worlds but uncle d everything's already been found what like everything well yeah oh man well so much for that but if i can't be an explorer i can still be an adventurer so i bought a motorhome and i'm hitting the open road my name is dustin porter and this is destination [Music] keeps me adventure oh her love keeps me warm our first location today is the red man hirohara house just outside watsonville california this house was designed by william weeks for james redman and built in 1897. weeks was famous for this style of classic queen anne home and 125 years later the detail is still clear today [Music] in 1937 the house was purchased for just under 70 thousand dollars by a naturalized japanese american just three years later he sold the property to his relative fumio hirohara for only ten dollars [Music] in 1942 the realities of world war ii saw the hirohara family forcefully removed from their house they're very fortunate to be returned just three years later in 1945. this was not the same story for all japanese interns because of this the hirohara family converted their carriage bar into a home and offered housing to japanese-american families that didn't have a home to return to post-war [Music] today the house sits on private farmland and one day at a time slowly returns back to mother nature [Music] i'm almost in a town a tiny little town called moss landing honestly i don't even know if it's a town it might just be like a settlement where a power plant is i don't know but we're chasing leads and it's a pretty cool lead that i got from a guy named james james thanks for the lead really neat one i'm gonna see if i can track this down for you but first we're gonna stop and check something out that i spied last night from the highway this traffic is ridiculous i hate leaving the motorhome that close to the road she's probably just terrified right now i think i will leave highway one very soon it's getting too busy for me and that's the whole reason i took highway one i thought maybe this place was related to the lead that we're gonna be looking for later but it's an abandoned middle school i only know that because i can see the sign on the front of it don't get stolen much happening here looks like it's been shut down and boarded up for quite some time wow this place is pretty big actually why do people have to do all this all the wrecking and spray painting are you guys doing that for oh she's in rough shape [Music] wow walking around here seeing that basketball court just sitting empty and the wind whistling just an eerie feeling very post-apocalypse wow it's still full of stuff in there got some computers huh i suppose they left stuff in there and i am surprised it hasn't been stolen good job society you get an extra two points these trees are all overgrown and spooky looking now imagine how nice this would have been back in the day it would have been a beautiful school well that's it really honestly happy we stopped to check this out pretty cool all i could see was just a little bit of spray paint on one of these buildings as i drove by didn't expect this much to be in here constant line of traffic here pissing me off after this episode we're going inland okay we're not searching for leads quite yet we're like right down what i would consider to be moss landing spied something else from the road check it out i'm guessing these are boats that have been just left here and one of them is a substantial size sailboat really want to check it out wowie actually this is a sailboat as well this thing is huge i was looking at this slightly more modern looking one look at this thing this was probably like a billion dollars at one point can't climb in it or anything because it is definitely a hundred percent private property but i had to come take a look so cool look at this snatch block it's wood i think i see why they may have retired it looks like it got a little holy i can also see from this crack right here this is a cement boat which is really cool they don't really make these anymore i've only seen a couple all right let's get out of here before we have to buy a parking pass we have found it i cannot believe it it is so much more than i thought check this out this is just a small small part of it and it's private property so i can't get in there it's so big oh my god i've been trying to come up [Music] with the highest of feelings [Music] but there ain't nothing new under the sun this is fort ord actually this is just a small section of fort ord this nearly thirty thousand acre stretch of coastline now fort ord state park was once the largest military training facility in north america [Music] more than a million men and women were trained at this facility and due to its diverse landscape it was the perfect location to duplicate and prepare for situations that soldiers would face overseas [Music] were trained here for world war ii korean war vietnam and later conflicts until its closure in 1994 after the earlier signing of the base realignment and closures act from president bush fort ord then became the largest u.s military base in history to be shut down [Music] there are plans to clear and utilize this land but for now because of asbestos and lead-based paint it sits vacant i've been really thinking about switching up my route here and getting off of highway one ever since santa cruz here this route has become way more heavily trafficked but i see this whole section between monterey and san luis obispo has pretty much nothing so i think i'll push it for one more section that should be a nice bit of coastline there and maybe around highway 46 or 41 start heading inland over towards bakersfield see if we can find some adventures inland a little bit today is kind of just a rainy dreary day so good day for just some traveling [Music] the last few weeks in these storms when it's raining this hard for a day on these sketchy windy roads there's probably going to be a washout so we're just going to keep on moving today [Music] [Music] the only thing better than taking highway one with a 56-foot rig doing it in a storm just love it pretty touch and go here in spots a lot of the northbound lane actually has to come into the southbound to get around the slides but here in the cell phone lane we're doing pretty good slow down oh easy doesn't left you [Music] brand new tires on the front here i don't want to wreck [Music] [Music] yep this road's gonna be shut down very soon that was still falling down as i was passing by it we i had to stop for a little break from the road all these washouts got me sweating and there's something on the beach here i gotta go check out those are elephant seals there's so many i don't know what they're doing here on the beach don't worry although they might look it these seals aren't dead they're here for mating and birthing season elephant seals birth and mate in harems only the strongest and most aggressive males will become alpha or harem master through intimidation and fighting males establish control over sections of beach and their harem can have between 20 and 50 females females arrive just several days before giving birth and will care for her pup only three weeks during this time she must also fight for beach space for herself and for pup [Music] in the short time they have on this beach quite the transformation will happen mom will lose one third of her body weight baby will triple in size and the heramaster with all of his fighting protecting and mating will lose 50 pounds per day shortly after birth the alpha will move in to impregnate the females and in one year they'll return to do it all again all right let's get back on the road let these guys keep doing elephant seal things [Music] there we go leaving the coastline i was hoping that the ocean was going to be there so we could have a wave goodbye or something but we're kind of just in between here so heading inland [Applause] [Music] when i was up north this summer i met somebody that was telling me about a trip that they did south and the first time they ever saw a tumbleweed and to me that was just crazy because we have tumbleweeds back home but for anyone that doesn't have the plant that creates a tumbleweed and has never seen them they've probably only seen them in like the old school cartoons i gotta show you guys something i'm just pulled over here on the highway look at this look at it's like a dam of tumbleweeds this highway as far as you can see this highway there's tumbleweeds stuck against the fence here and then in the ditch it's just full of them it's crazy [Music] it is crappy weather today windy and storming [Music] once you leave the coastline it doesn't take long for the landscape to change from green and mountains to dry and desert but one thing that stayed consistent is the weather windy and stormy here i don't know what's going on with the weather this year but i have not worn a short sleeve shirt since dawson city in the yukon but this is definitely better than the minus 30 that my family is dealing with back home so i definitely shouldn't be complaining but this area of california it actually has a winter storm warning for next week so i might have to hunker down here for a few days and kind of wait that out so i'm just going to go ahead and wrap this episode here hope you guys enjoyed this one most of all thanks for watching everybody as always take nothing but pictures leave nothing but footprints i'll catch you on the next one [Music] [Music] [Music] if [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Destination Adventure

Views: 342,656

Keywords: abandoned, urbex, urban exploring, exploring, adventure, explore, military, army, base, secret, lost, forgotten, found, road trip, travel, history, historic, historical, USA, California, Destination Adventure, Motorhome, Tiny Home, Nomad, nomadic

Id: Tl4FPjj0Otg

Length: 19min 12sec (1152 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 26 2021