How I ended up in this American Prison | S1E62
Just one last safety thing. In the west cell block and north segregation that was solitary in death row. Most of the cells are open. You’re welcome to go into them, take pictures in them, whatever. Just don’t close the doors. They get stuck, people have locked themselves in before. Oh my god. Yeah. Good morning from Iowa City. So today, we got to keep driving east. I have a flight to catch in Halifax for my motorcycle to ship it over to Europe, and there’s a limited time in which I have to get to Halifax. So, yeah, we’ve got to keep going east, but there’s a lot of interesting places along the way that we’re going to visit. And yeah, I’m kind of excited for it, actually. But before we do this, the chain on my bike is too long. And so I need to shorten it before we go, because it’s all flopping around. If you’re a little bit technical and you know about motorcycles, the rear wheel can slide forwards and backwards to take up the tension in the chain. Well, it’s all the way back, so I need to take a link or two out to solve the problem. Once we get that done, then we’ll take off and find some interesting things along the way. All right, let us go. I got to get some gas at Casey’s. All right, so you might be wondering why I always insist on working on my own bike. And why don’t I just take it somewhere and let them deal with it? Well, it’s because I want to learn as much as I can about my own bike. So if I’m out there by myself, I can fix it by myself. But anyways, yeah, I’ve always been super independent and I just don’t want to depend on other people to fix my stuff I just want to be able to do it myself so I remember once I had this bike and I was just kind of learning how to build bikes like bicycles and I would put this tube in the rear tire and I’d pump it up and in the middle of the night you just go bang! like you pump it up to 80PSI or whatever because it was a road tire in the middle of the night, just “bang!” like three four nights in a row it just would do this. So confusing like what is going on like and then my girlfriend at the time she’s like “why don’t you just take you to the bike shop and have them fix it” And I was like so like, “what?” Why would I do that? Because my mindset is one of like, well, if I take it to them, I won’t learn anything, you know? And, you know, that kind of act of troubleshooting and figuring it the problem is a skill in itself, you know? So, yeah, for me, it was like, “what? Why would I do that?” It’s just like, doesn’t make any sense at all. Like, I’m going to figure this out, obviously. Maybe she was annoyed because every night the tire exploded And anyways it turned out there was like a rim strip inside the tire that was… It was just garbage And Over time the tire would push through The rim strip into the spoke holes And then As it pushed through the spoke holes The tire would blow up It would… basically a hole would form And it would blow up It took quite a while to figure out what the hell was going on. But it’s like, from that experience, I kind of learned how to troubleshoot stuff, think about stuff in kind of a critical way. And if I need to fix my chain out in the wild, well, I know how to do it. Whereas if I didn’t know how to do it, I’d be stranded. And on top of that, it’s free. And I don’t have to wait for somebody else to you know fix it for me I checked my tire pressure this morning because in the last video I had problems with a tire going down I had no idea after pumping it up to 35 psi the day before yesterday morning it was down 25 and so I pumped it back up to 35 this morning it was 35 so I have no idea motorcycle tires are a bit of a black hole of logic there’s no rhyme or reason to why it’s doing this stuff in my mind but maybe that’s another thing I need to learn about but all right so our first stop today is Riverside Iowa now I think for most people that location won’t sound like anything special at all but if you’re a Star Trek fan it might ring the bell it might ring the bell it’s a little bit silly, it’s a little bit stupid but it’s really it’s amusing I think it’s kind of funny but I know there’s like 1% you that are like, oh, he’s really going there. 12 minutes, it will be there. For you, five seconds. Cornfields of Riverside, Iowa. Oh, they have the signs already. This town is fully committed. Okay, this is going to give me a little too happy. Okay, I think it might be up here. Oh, I see a sign. Do you see that? There it is. So for those that don’t know, James T. Kirk was the captain in the original Star Trek. And he’s just a fictional character. He’s not a real person. And of course, Star Trek took place in the future. So this is the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. He was born…. or he was born. He will be born March 22nd, 2228. I guess Gene Roddenberry, the writer of Star Trek, he chose Riverside, Iowa as his birthplace. And so now they’ve fully committed and there’s like Star Trek stuff all over the town. This is the post office here. Whole bunch of Star Trek stuff. Now I just want to go check out. I saw the Enterprise over there, or a version of the Enterprise. Yeah, so here’s the Enterprise. History and Star Trek exhibits. Souvenir Shop. Oh, it’s closed! Okay, well, I gotta get a shot of the Enterprise. Oh, they open at noon. I think I have to keep going though. All right. Well, at least I can see through the glass, but… “No, I’m from Iowa. I. Only work in Outer Space” (Captain Kirk) Shoplifters will be assimilated Ride long and Prosper. Riverside, Iowa. All right, I will. All right. That made me happier than it should have. Yeah, that’s really cool. That was really fun. To be honest, I was more of a TNG fan. Actually, I’ve watched every episode of The Next Generation. and yeah, see, you can see… you have Uhara, you got the Enterprise there and then you got Scotty but if I wasn’t a TNG fan. Next Generation fan I definitely wouldn’t have come here but I loved the next generation like that, what a fantastic show it actually was a bit curious because like next generation had a different captain and Jean-Luc Picard played by Patrick Stewart and his character was born in France so I looked up you know his birthplace in France and it seems like they haven’t done the same thing in that town in France but fans have gone to that town just to be like yeah I’ve been to his future birthplace so our next destination is 3 hours 19 minutes away it also has to do with kind of popular media as well. But first, I must ride. Oh I think we’re crossing over into Illinois with this river I’m not sure what river this is *the Mississippi! Welcome to Illinois. East to Chicago All right so we’ve just arrived in Joliet , Illinois And this is the location of our next destination So this building or maybe group of buildings has appeared in many movies and TV shows including the Blues Brothers and then the show Prison Break although I’ve never watched that one oh I see it already wow maybe you can tell by now what it is it’s an old prison Joliet Correctional Facility and it’s basically an old prison built in the late 1800s that was actually still active until 2002 All right, this is turning out to be a little bit more involved than I thought Yeah, I think I’m going to go inside and, yeah, pay the price to see what this is all about. How are you doing? Good, how are you? Doing good, here to see the prison? Yeah. How much is it? It’s $20 a person. Okay. Sure. And that’s just like a self-guided. Yeah, just a self-guided tour. I’ve marked on the map here, all the buildings that are open. Oh, yeah, sweet. So here’s a map for you. That’s also your ticket in. Just one last safety thing in the west cell block and north segregation that was solitary and death row most of the cells are open you’re welcome to go into them take pictures in them whatever just don’t close the doors they get stuck people have locked themselves in before oh my god yeah so don’t want that to happen again okay all right uh and when that does happen can you hear like the knocking or whatever uh when we’ll find it we’ll have employees going around okay but the last time somebody locked themselves in a cell, the fire department had to be called. Okay. We asked that you just don’t do that if you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Note to self. Don’t lock yourself in solitary confinement. Alright, the prison gates. “Make time serve you” How you doing? Good, how are you? Alright Kind of a creepy place, huh? Yeah, and it’s… I stumbled upon it. Oh, yeah. Cause I was dropping a friend off that lived out here and he was like, well, take this way. And I was like, what is that? He was “that’s the old Joliet..” and I said, what? And so then I started researching it. So I just finally made it after six months over here to look at it. And it’s amazing. And then when you look at how the prison progressed over years and how it was at first, all the way to them not even having running water. Yeah. And then when they got done with it, just came and dumped it out in the field. Is that what they did? Yeah, it’s a sign over that says When they finished, they had a slop jar, so basically if they had to go in the middle of the night. Yeah. Or, you know, they would bring it out and just dump it. Oh, it must have been a mess out here. Yeah, geez. It’s so old that they housed Civil War people here. Prisoners from the civil war It’s so old that the prisoners themselves built the prison. That kind of makes sense. Prisoners from the alternate penitentiary… brought them here to build a prison. So the prisoners built themselves a prison. It’s kind of a good idea. Yeah. And then the stone that you’re looking at was actually quarried from the area. Yeah. You’re a good tour guide. Yeah. So I like that. Oh wow. There’s some more light over here. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that sound. It’s a pretty small room. Thanks for that. Oh, no problem Okay, well, I’m not inside it, so I should be able to close the door. The clink. Oh, this is one with a bed Oh, there’s a bed Oh, it’s a bunk! There’s two guys in here! Wow And these doors were electric You can see Oh yeah And this is one that’s totally open Without a door look at this giant switch Release ports open Emergency Unlock That made a amazing sound Which one is the… solitary? It’s to the right, I know. All right. I’m going to go take a wander. Okay. Have a good one. You too Oh, these are the original cells. Well, the rooms are quite big aren’t they? Oh, they block this off to protect it. It’s never too late to mend. Well, that’s kind of pick me up I need to hear when I’m in prison. So check out the way they lock this door. So the door can only open that way. So they’ve got a big metal bar that goes here to this padlock here. This building is looking newer. The doors are open. So it’s the dining hall. Wow. Lots of Simpsons art in here. But imagine this is where you came for lunch every day. It’s funny, there’s no smoking signs. Like, were people allowed to smoke outside? While you’re in prison, were you even allowed to smoke? It seems really odd. Wow. Is it full with water? I wonder if that goes to the tower. There. I wonder if that’s how it works, but there is a door at the bottom of the tower. It’s blocked off. And this place is kind of intense, to be honest. It’s a good You know Reminder Be good Don’t break the law We’re going to end up here Alright Well that was pretty interesting Oh it’s getting late in the day already I don’t want to ride in the dark again So I think I’m just going to ride a little more and find a hotel. Before I get the hotel, I have something to pick up here. Oh, there it is right there. So I’ll show you what it is It’s my Canada East map Very important Okay Now that we did that Maybe I’m going to find some dinner And then while I do that I’ll find a hotel healthy fast food chick-fil-a oh man maybe chipole I’ll try Panera bread don’t really know what it’s like but I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by bathroom facilities. Bathrooms in jail, it’s not fun, is it? But quite interesting to see. I’ve never been to a place like that before. And it’s, to be honest, quite interesting to see, yeah, just what life in a jail would be like. That one’s a little different because it’s been, like, upgraded throughout the years. So, like, I imagine when it was first built, it must have been just absolutely horrid squalid conditions. But anyways, also the future birthplace of James T. Kirk. I actually really enjoyed that. That was like, it’s so silly, but it’s been taken relatively seriously, and which I kind of appreciate, you know, like they made this whole expensive plaque. The whole town’s covered in these, in the Star Trek stuff, this Star Trek memorabilia and all that. I wonder if they had like a, got permission from like, I don’t know who owns Star Trek, but Paramount, Paramount owns Star Trek, don’t they? I wonder if they… because they’re using all this Star Trek stuff in their town and all that, and it’s clearly a tourism thing. But anyway, that doesn’t really matter. But, yeah, maybe I’m looking this way because the map’s there, so maybe we should look at it. So here’s our Central USA map. And this morning we started in Iowa City. And I went, first thing first, went south, and then went to Riverview. And then from there, I, and that’s where the Star Trek stuff was. And then I went this way, something like this. And then to Davenport. And then what did I do? Something like that. It crossed into Illinois. And keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Interesting, there’s a town called Ottawa, which is also the capital of Canada. And then I kept going to Joliet Joliet? Joliet. That’s where the prison was. And then I just went somewhere over here. And I think this area is called South Holland, but it’s just south of Chicago. So I’m pretty sure in the next video we’ll enter Canada. We’ll just have to rip through Michigan. I think I’ve got at least one place to check out in Michigan. And then once we get to Canada, I found a whole bunch of cool stuff to check out in Canada. So I’m kind of excited about that because some of it’s like really interesting, but also very Canadian. Which all the Canadian viewers, I think you’re going to enjoy. So yeah, so if you like this video or the other videos or you’re interested in the whole trip because the goal is to get to New Zealand, there is a subscribe button down below. and if you’d like to follow along, that’s probably a good thing to press. But anyways, thank you so much for watching the video, and hopefully you’ll see in the next one. Bye!
In a rush to get to Halifax, visit the infamous Joliet Penitentiary…
My Journey from the Beginning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGmJnplaXxg&list=PLJSk2MKoYOHNsWwkGHq5Ju0Dyidz1_kr8
Act 1 – Preparation – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th9cUzJ0zFY&list=PLJSk2MKoYOHPZ0Z80WobXASlZ-6e7RsUF
Act 2 – To an Alaskan Beginning – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJu33_BgYc&list=PLJSk2MKoYOHNPgzs6t8mbdFI2NGRPg5kA
Act 3 – Across North America – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGmJnplaXxg&list=PLJSk2MKoYOHNsWwkGHq5Ju0Dyidz1_kr8
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