BillsPics' photos

Fishing with a view on a beautiful fall evening at Morrison Rockwood State Park in Northern Illinois.....

Long abandoned Illinois farmhouse surrounded by the colors of the season...

Another shot of soybean harvest in our area of the Midwestern United States...

Soybean harvest in Northern Illinois....

This old Pontiac looks right at home with its farm surroundings...

Sitting next to a dilipidated old small town garage, this old Mercury appears to be a prime candidate for restoration... We'll hope she gets it.

This old one room schoolhouse was closed in the 1950's and pretty much abandoned shortly after. A few years back a local restoration group was formed, and slowly restored the nearly collapsed structure. This is the fine result, opened earlier this year...

Another beautiful part of the Norfolk Botanical Gardens in southeast Virginia....

A particularly ominous late summer Midwestern storm shelf cloud as it passes over our farm...

This old grain elevator hasn't seen a customer in over 30 years, a victim of bigger and more progressive agricultural practices. It used to have a railroad line running beside it, that is now long gone as well. There are rewards to progress, but there are losses as well. Character is definitely one of them...

One of many beautiful locations at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens in Virginia....

One of the many interesting monuments at historic City Cemetery in Freeport, IL. Many of the old city's founding fathers and early leaders are buried there...

The majestic bow of the retired USS Wisconsin now permanently moored in Norfolk, VA. Built for use in WW II,the Wisconsin saw its final action in 1991 during the Gulf War....

Part of the first set of trenches General Washington used on his siege of the British at Yorktown during the Revolutionary War.

The Norwegian Lady Statue in Virginia Beach,VA. is said to watch for sailors in trouble and guide them to safe harbor. In Moss,Norway, the same Statue guides her sailors on that side of the sea...

Remaining foundations for several of the old blast furnaces at the Old Joliet Iron Works site in Illinois. The Works operated till 1936,part of the US Steel Plant in the suburb of Chicago. It was,for a time ,the second largest steel plant in the US.The steel side of the plant closed in 1981. The Iron Works side of the plant was taken over by the city and into a great city park. The steel plant remains, mostly abandoned....

A shot of the administration building at the former Joliet Correctional Center in Illinois. The prison's unique architecture was drawn up by WW Boyington,designer of Chicago's famed Water Tower.It was built by contractors using prison labor in 1858. It closed in 2002. Sadly this building cannot be entered anymore due to extreme interior collapse....

The chapel at the closed and formerly abandoned Old Joliet Prison. Joliet was the site of Illinois's first state prison, opened in 1858. It house female inmates till a separate women's prison was built next door in 1896. The prison was distinct for its exterior Gothic design elements. The cells didn't have separate plumbing till a 1950's remodel! The prison was closed in 2002,and basically abandoned by the state except for 2004-5 when the TV drama "Prison Break " filmed its first season there. The city finally took possession in 2017 and opened parts of the badly decayed and vandalized prison for public tours....