Last week, (March 8) Dayton played host to our first Instameet and photowalk!

The event kicked off with everyone meeting and greeting at Press Coffee Bar. It was a large turnout, with people waiting outside for our walk to start due to elbow-room-only inside.

We started the walk by taking a group photo in front of St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Many thanks to Joe Devine from Red Hangar Design (Instagram name: @redhangar) for the use of his group photo. (Notice us representing the blog in our Dayton Unknown tshirts, smack-dab in the middle of the pic!)

After that the group traveled to our next destination, with people stopping along the way to take pictures of everything imaginable. Not a sight was left unphotographed along the way.

The first official stop of the photo walk was at St. John’s United Church of Christ. The church was very welcoming, with the church representative who let us in warmly telling me, “wander anywhere you like.”

There were many great photo opportunities, and as we explored through the many rooms and areas of the church, a small group of us came across the open door to the bell tower area.

Narrow stairs and dim lighting only heightened the interesting atmosphere of the small space. The group of us took pictures and reveled in our cramped little discovery.

As time passed, our group went from many, to just two, Bethany and me. We realized that people were starting to move on to the next stop, so we headed back downstairs.

Unfortunately, this is where Dayton Unknown’s participation in the photowalk ended for the day. Upon arriving at the front doors, we discovered they were all locked…with crash bars holding the doors in place.

Attempting to unlock the door turned out disastrous, the alarm went off as soon as we pushed on the door. Bethany called the police, while I found a church phone and tried calling all the extensions to see if anyone was left in the building.

I made a video documenting our humorous predicament. You can hear Bethany in the background in the phone with the Dayton Police.

We actually even posted our situation on Instagram, in hopes that someone in the group would check, so they could possibly inform the proper person of the situation.

All that was left was waiting. We waited for 45 minutes until the police showed up and let us out of the church. Luckily the responding officer had a good sense of humor and was a good listener.