Twin cousins Grace and Kellie travel to and stay in haunted places on purpose.

Salvaged Spooky Tour Day 3- Jail and Jank

Sept 22, 2017

After leaving Marietta, since we were in the vicinity, we HAD to stop by the old Licking County Jail. To visit this one is the gem in the crown of any paranormal enthusiast, all the major ghost hunting shows have done investigations there, including Ghost Adventures. Unfortunately, they do not offer tours for the common enthusiast. I guess you have to have an Affliction shirt and a “reverse shark fin” hairdo to get in. Sorry Zak, love ya anyway! No, really, they do offer private investigations. Our timing was off since they were setting up their production haunted house in the jail. Another time, and with another hairdo.

So we crept around on the outside and peeped in the windows. 

Sometimes we were peeped upon from above-

-and sometimes someone peeped back.

The architecture begs to be photographed-

This frog grotesque could use some pants-

And they provide cheesy photo ops. 

The town of Newark, Ohio has lots of cool architecture, but a slightly menacing vibe, which is impossible to capture in a photo. We would love to do some investigating here.

I was obsessed with this abandoned bowling alley on the wrong side of the tracks. Grace kindly let me do my juvenile delinquent pose for a photo.

After jail peeping, we headed to the outskirts of Columbus to find an antique mall that is listed as one of the best in the state, the Heritage Square Antique Mall. Now, what do you picture from that name? A quaint storefront in a cozy village with tree-lined streets? A big red weathered barn in the country?

ripped from internet

Um, no. A big ol’ ugly, unkempt plaza in the sketchiest side of Columbus.  However, we had risked life and limb to find it (not really, it was easy) and decided to check it out.

It was VAST. I don’t know if I’ve ever been in an antique store that big. The space had to have been a supermarket before. And it seemed well organized, too. 

I found a few of those wooden Fisher-Price Play Family People that my sister collects and are harder than hell to find anymore, and had them hold them at the desk. We started to browse our way toward the far back corner of the store,  scouring the shelves for treasures. I was in one booth, and Grace was a couple of booths ahead, when the lights went out. The Rolling Stones had been crooning As Tears Go By on the PA, and Mick Jagger’s voice dragged and came to a deep, grinding halt in the darkness-“It issss theeeee eeevvenningg oofff theee daaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy”. Since we were nowhere near the entrance with its mostly blacked out windows, it was dark as pitch back in that corner. We were enveloped in blackness, with tons of creepy dolls lurking in every corner! My kingdom for our SB7 at that moment!

I thought the lights would go on after a minute or two, but they didn’t. I turned on my trusty iPhone flashlight (Graces phone had died earlier, perhaps the work of the Licking Jail spirits) and led Grace and a random, phoneless older lady (she was amazed that my phone had a light, perhaps she was a ghost herself, from like, 1995) to the front desk. The management was hollering that we all had to come to the front, presumably for liability reasons, but I think they thought we all might take the opportunity to stuff our pockets with juice glasses or Beanie Babies.

Since I had cash on me, and my Play Family People were so hard won, I  waited in line to pay and have my receipt hand written by iPhone flashlight. Oh the wonders of modern technology! And pencils.

That transformer had blown out the power for BLOCKS. We had to skedaddle out of there with no traffic lights or fast food to bolster us. Typical Grace and Kellie misadventure! It’s probably a mercy the lights went out since we would have been there until midnight trying to look at all those antiques.

Salvaged Spooky Tour Day Two-Marietta by Night

Our guide for the Hidden Marietta Ghost Trek was Kat, and she was accompanied by George. Kat did all the talking, and George would point silently to whatever feature she was describing in true Teller from Penn and Teller form. Kat- “The ghost of the murdered child is seen in that third floor window, all the way to the right.” George- *points to window*.

Kat in action-

Two other ladies about our age were on the tour, they were there for a “girl’s weekend” and had water bottles with suspiciously brown liquid inside, tea of the black or Long Island Iced variety, presumably. They were pleasant enough.

One of the first stories was about Buckley Island,

(ripped pic from internet)

-which served the people of Marietta in many ways, once being the site of a pest house, where the diseased were brought to die all in one place in a kind of isolated cootie-fest boarding house. After that burned or was torn down, an amusement park was built there , because, you know, cheery spot. That was destroyed by a flood in 1907. Now it is an Ohio state park, accessible only by boat. In case you want to kayak over and cough up blood or ride the  ghostly Ferris wheel.

Some of the old dens of iniquity from Marietta’s rough river days still stand, and are now businesses, apartments, or hotels. Here is one of the taverns/brothels closest to the river, for one’s urgent carnal needs convenience, it is now a restaurant with apartments upstairs-

MLP

and here is another brothel, that is now a hotel.

The building to the left was an insane asylum and now has a few businesses on the bottom floor.

They’ve never renovated the upper floors, presumably because GHOSTS.

These two buildings and their former uses prompted an in-depth discussion of Victorian era insane asylum practices, and the history of how women’s sexuality was studied. Kat had a plethora of knowledge about these subjects, and a lively conversation ensued, with mentions of early electric dildos and frogs wearing pants. George, being the only male there and with nothing to point at for the moment, stepped back and pretended he wasn’t really listening.

There were a lot of spooky stories about the Lafayette Hotel where we were staying, one of which was about a fairly recent balcony jumping suicide. This death produced an active and angry female ghost, that for some reason, instead of haunting the balcony she jumped from, haunts the restroom by the banquet rooms. Maybe that’s why she’s angry.

After the tour, Grace and I crept around the hotel, taking photos and hanging out in the suicide lady bathroom (very negative vibe, but no communication). We have had luck in the past with photos of mirrors, especially when we are fiddling around and not trying to capture anything.

Alas, we didn’t capture anything unusual. But when we got back to the room, we did an SB7 session and got a few words. I’ll include the details in a SB7 post at a later date. I have to listen to them all again with headphones this time. We had a peaceful rest that night, with no bathroom suicidals or trousered frogs disturbing, unfortunately.

Salvaged Spooky Tour Day Two-Marietta, Ohio By Day

Sept 21

We set our GPS to avoid highways for our drive to Marietta. We wended our way along the Muskingum River, through small towns both quaint and jank. Much more “scope for imagination” than boring ol’ highways.

Marietta is a town at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, It was settled in 1788. Its history is fairly typical for a river town- settlers, churches and schools, then shipping and trading and growth, and that’s when the whores come in. It got more than a little rough there in the 19th century, the usual dens of iniquity-gambling halls, brothels, taverns, lots of fun stuff. When the railroads came in as the preferred mode of transport, the party was over. Marietta was passed by and settled down into the charming, historic, haunted, antique store and B&B filled town you see today.

Our accommodation for the night was the Lafayette Hotel, established in 1918,reputedly haunted as hell.

Note the ghost standing guard outside. Our kind of hotel!

Here is the well appointed lobby-

-and our room, featuring me in my other most natural posture, on my phone.

Our room was in the Hoag Addition, which was added to the hotel and built on top of another old hotel. Here is the old hotel-

The old bell system near what are now banquet rooms from the days before telephones. I guess it was either ring for service or holler real loud. Yes, we pulled the line and rang the bells!

We also ran into some old friends in the lobby, the Blennerhassets! (see Haunts & History Tour)-

MLP

We shopped around the boutiques and antique stores in town. Two standouts, the puzzlingly named Green Acres of Marietta, 

Which had well organized “antiques and more!”, but the signage makes it look like either a barbecue joint or a feed and feather boa store. Scored some sweet swag in there, though.

And the Marietta Antique Mall, which despite being vast, was a bit jumbled and uninviting. The front desk greeted us cordially enough, but the building itself had an oppressive vibe to it.

The opposite was true of Weber’s Market, which was listed as the only liquor store in Marietta (we ran out of tequila). It looked like a tiny pony keg, but it opened up on the inside to a cute, warm little grocery store with a pretty large liquor store in one room.

Here’s a creepy staircase from another antique store in town, I can’t remember the name-

MLP

So, we ascended these pretty and less creepy stairs

back to our room for cocktail hour and to wait until dark for our Marietta haunted tour.

Salvaged Spooky Tour Day Two-Old Colony Cemetery, Granville, Ohio 

Sept 21, 2017

After scarfing down some delicious chilaquiles with eggs at the Day Y Noche restaurant, we headed to the Old Colony Burying Ground on the outskirts of Granville. OCBG was platted before the settlers of Granville left New England in 1805. Because New Englanders are practical like that. Good thing, because the ground was broken for the first burial in Spring of 1806. Always nice to have a cemetery set aside, rather than burying your Boo in the backyard.

We were driving around looking for a good place to park, and we happened upon a side street with a tangle of trees at the end. We suspected there was a set of steps going down to the cemetery from there, and indeed there was, to the left of this fairytale cottage-I’m home to Tara! I need this cemetery adjacent abode!

This Christine-esque vehicle was parked across the street. It’s a sign!

Here’s the Cemetry Gates-

We ambled through, admiring stones, reading inscriptions and enjoying the peaceful vibe.

This row enjoys a view of the local feed mill. One can imagine how houses and factories crept closer and closer to the old burying ground until it became an anomalous green space in a sea of industry and residence,  a reminder of mortality to glance at as you clock in at the feed mill or drive to the salon.

Grace took this photo of her fellow taphophile in my most natural state, surrounded by death-Like most historic cemeteries, OCBG has been a victim of vandalism. There are ongoing restoration efforts going on, and here’s a line of domino tombstones they are working on putting back together-

Grace has selected this lovely cemetery adjacent property, so that I can descend the stairs and have drinks on her headstone-view deck.

Then we can hop in Christine and drive past OCBG to the salon!

 Salvaged Spooky Tour Day One-Buxton Inn , Granville, Ohio

Sept 20, 2017

My twinsy cousin picked me up at the Greater Cincinnati Airport, and we were off on our next adventure. Our destination that first day was Granville, Ohio, which was fitting for our consolation trip since it was founded by Massachusettsonians and is known for its New England character. It has a wide, walkable central avenue with lots of historic architecture and cool shops and eateries.

We were to stay at the Buxton Inn, which has operated continuously since 1812, and has hosted notable guests such as Presidents Lincoln, Harrison and McKinley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and um, Dixie Carter.

The Buxton Inn is justifiably proud of its history, and just as proud of its ghosts. There is a pamphlet available in the office that highlights some of the inns most frequently experienced hauntings, which include a “Lady in Blue” a ghostly cat, and Major Buxton himself. The information binder in the room advises what to do if you have a “ghostly encounter” on the Guest Services page, right between the wi-fi info and the check in/out times.

(My lousy photo, not Grace’s!)

We were in Room 7, on the second floor.

The view of the other side of the exterior corridor-The room was charming and had lovely antique furniture-

And a wee twin bedroom attached-

(M.L.P.)

With potential “ghost encounters” in mind, Grace remarked upon the Inns tagline-

“I don’t mind to Feel the History, as long as the history doesn’t feel me!”.

We strolled through the pretty town, admiring the local architecture and flair,

-eating the good local pub grub, trying mango jalapeno cider and buying Chicago mix popcorn.

Here’s a different shot of the Inn-

We got back, and did our customary nocturnal creep-and-nosy-around the hotel. The Buxton Inn started as a tavern and there are still no lack of bars therein.  One in a banquet room on our floor-

a better stocked yet just as vacant one on the main floor-and one in the dark, dank cellar that was also vacant but didn’t feel like it was-

Sadly, they were all closed for the night, but we brought our own supplies, fortunately. We settled in to our room, and were preparing to do some SB7 Spirit Box work, when we heard a loud, prolonged “meeeeeooooowww”. Our jaws dropped as we exchanged a knowing glance. The ghost cat! Minutes later, the guest in the room next to us returned and opened their door. “Meeeeeooooowwww” said their door hinges in need of oiling. We had to laugh at our creaky hinge ghost cat encounter. DEBUNKED!

We did three two minute long SB7 sessions, which were fairly fruitful. Just listening the the playback on my iPhone, without the aid of earbuds or headphones (which I forgot), we got a few voices, one of which said “Patrick”, then when I asked their name, said again, emphatically “Patrick!”. We also got a female voice that said “Grace” or “Gracie”.  (We reviewed the audio after we got done with our trip, and there were more words, and I will do a post in the wrap-up about the rest)

There were no ghost encounters that night, unless you count the dreams Grace and I had. She dreamed of a man’s face, close up to hers, rough and mean and in sepia tones, like an old photo. This dream woke her up, and she immediately thought “Patrick!”. It killed her sleep the rest of the night.

I dreamed that I was a kitchen counter, and a woman was fixing dinner on me, and her little girl kept asking questions while the woman cooked. They were both in 19th century garb. Maybe there had been a kitchen where that twin bed was against the wall way back when, but it seems doubtful. I’m going to chalk my dream up to the mango jalapeno cider.

The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men… and Bitchy Hurricanes Sept 9, 2017

The Spooks and Books Tour was all booked and planned out for September 15-23rd, and included loads of haunted literary spots in New England, and a stay where a certain axe murderess (probably) “gave her mother forty whacks”.

Alas, my home is in southwest Florida, and Hurricane Irma was predicted to take a direct hit on my town at that time. My husband and I were to be evacuated, so we took off with the Airstream for points north (see Antisocial Adventures blog https://peepinggator.com/2017/05/02/featured-content-2/ if you would like the deets). Since we didn’t know how bad the damage was going to be, and we had to spend several days getting back home, I had to call it and tell Grace I had to cancel. Broke my heart. She was so awesome about it,  and all but one hotel/tour graciously refunded our deposits. The holdout was the Salem Inn, and their greed and hardheartedness has been documented by Grace and me on TripAdvisor and Yelp.

Grace had taken ten days off, so we decided I would fly up and we could take a little three day driveable-from-Cincinnati mini tour to salvage some of our annual spooky fix. My lovely twin cousin quickly whipped up an itinerary, and away we went, undaunted by  “best laid schemes… gang aft a-gley”!

*******************************************************************************

More to come, September 2017, the Books and Spooks Tour!

********************************************************************************

Epilogue to Rock and Shocks (RS)14

So, another haunt jaunt comes to a close. We had a few paranormal things happen, all when we weren’t expecting it, listened to some great tunes, stalked a few celebrities, and ate a metric ton of biscuits.

We dedicate this trip’s blog to Grace’s dad Bill Keel,

for his great love of rockabilly music, Johnny Cash and spooky stories, and his great love in general. You’d be hard pressed to find a sweeter man.

And to his best childhood friend and cousin, my mom Marjorie Keel McCullough,

who claimed to have “discovered” Elvis before anyone else when she was a teenager in Missisippi, introduced me to Stephen King novels, and cooked southern food better than any ol’ restaurant could dream of doing.

We felt their presence and approval this whole trip.

Many thanks to our constant readers, and all those who tuned in occasionally. We enjoy sharing our adventures with ya’al.

So until next time, good music, good eats and clear EVPs to you all!

Noshville (RS)13

Our last day was in Nashville. It was a Saturday, and we got there at around four, and it was crowded as hell on Broadway and all the surrounding “touristy” areas.

We chose Nashville to break up the eight hour drive back to Cincinnati, and specifically to visit the Johnny Cash Museum.

The museum is smallish, but packs a lot of punch. Johnny’s career spanned about 50 years, so there is a lot of paraphernalia to look at. It also was super crowded, so not a lot of great opportunities for photos or reading plaques without bumping elbows.

Here are a few snaps we managed to get-

“Interesting” June Carter dress

We stormed the gift shop, and then tried to walk around Broadway, but it was such a river of people that one could barely move. We decided to eat dinner at Puckett’s Grocery then head back to our Airbnb to relax.

I ripped that photo from the ‘net. Ours would have been too choked with tourists.

It was an hour wait, so we sat on the steps of the Presbyterian church across the street and people watched. There must have been 15 bachelorette parties that passed by, all sashes and tiaras and teetering heels. Also, we found out that Kanye West was doing a concert that night, which accounted for a lot of the crowd.

Dinner was good, and we headed back to our room, which was in Germantown, close to downtown. Cute room with lots of amenities, and a hostess that sat in her living room watching TV and acted like you didn’t exist.

Before we left town the next morning, we had to try Monell’s, a Nashville legend for southern cuisine.

They have lovely gardens, with beautiful koi fish swimming in little ponds.

Monell’s serves family style, with the whole menu brought out in stages. We sat at the head of the table of about twelve people. There are some rules, one of which is no cell phones at the table. The hostess seemed a tad severe, so we didn’t risk taking photos. I ripped this little food porn collage off the internet for ya’al though-

I won’t try your patience with another rapturous food list. Suffice it to say, the food was delicious, the fried chicken being the best part for me. Grace agrees.

Being sat with strangers made me self conscious about tucking in like a ravenous dog and licking my plate. I attempted to be decorous and not motorboat my food like usual. I still managed to knock my chair over when I got up. I was so sated with grits and chicken that I wasn’t even embarrassed.

At the register, they asked us if we wanted to pay for our “ticket”. We were momentarily confused. Was there a tour we didn’t know about? So ya’al know, your restaurant bill is called a “ticket” in the south.

So, after yet another fabulous meal experience (nothing but salad when I get home, I swear) we drove the four hours back to Cincinnati.

That eight days went FAST. We hope you enjoyed the blog as much as we enjoyed sharing it. Sorry for all the food posts, it was too good not to try to describe for posterity. Ah, the south. Music and ghosties and biscuits. Heaven!

Hot Rods and Rockabillies (RS)12

Last night was a helluva night, gang. I am hung over like a sumbitch, but it was worth it. Apologies in advance if this blog post is sketchy.

After our culinary and Killer stalking exploits, we checked into Hollywood Casino in Tunica. If you’ve been to a smoky casino with senior citizens in bedazzled track suits wheeling oxygen tanks around and glazedly pushing the max bet button on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine, you’ve got the picture on this one too.

It has an obvious movie theme, which could stand to be updated.

My gambling will go on and ooonnn…

The hotel room was fine, pretty much standard Hampton Inn style accommodation. Except we had large photos of Errol Flynn and Claudette Colbert leering at us from our walls. So Hollywood!

We got tricked out in our rockabilly duds and headed to Sam’s Town Casino next door. Sam’s Town matches the description above, except throw some Wild West/Victorian brothel decor amid the scooters.

The car show was in their parking lot. When we got there, it was getting dark and there weren’t a lot of owners hanging around. Which gave us the opportunity to take a bunch of snaps whilst remaining antisocial.

We went to this car show to see a Nashville rockabilly band that Grace found on the Internet, Zippy’s Clutch. They played in Roxy’s lounge in Sam’s Town from 9pm to 2am. We stayed for the whole show. They rocked that joint.

They played all the Sun Studios standards, some Stray Cats, a little eighties, with their own spin on all.

The crowd was mixed from the oxygen tank set to young rural types playing pool to middle aged couples and two aging pin-up types. Only two.

And narcoleptics.

We chatted with the band during their many breaks. They were witty, pleasant young men, and engaged with their audience easily. They did their best to play requests, even playing a Jerry Lee song for us without the aid of a piano.

We sat at first by an older gentlemen who was pleasant enough, but toward the end an obnoxious blonde with little carny hands and her 70 year old boyfriend took his seat. She irritated me a little because she kept hollering “Sweet Home Alabama!!”, and I’d yell “NO!” because HELLO, Zippy’s Clutch is a ROCKABILLY band. They shouldn’t be subjected to 70s southern fried rock requests. I was gratified when they didn’t play it. Didn’t Carny Hands know that when you’re drunk you’re supposed to holler “VIOLENT FEMMES!!”?

We took some snaps with the band afterward,

and we enjoyed the show so we promised we’d promote them when possible. These are some talented fellows, ya’al.

We got back to our room about 2:30, and slept in until about 9. It’s been a while since we’ve stayed out at a show that late. Totally worth the hangover and black lung from the smoke. Maybe an oxygen tank would be prudent for next time…

The Killer and Killer Eats (RS)11

Today, we headed to Tunica. The drive was less than an hour, and we were looking for a Cracker Barrel or a Bob Evans to grab lunch, but the road to Tunica is paved with casinos and gas stations and the occasional small, puzzling cotton field betwixt.

All I can say is that it was fate (and corporate greed) that kept the chain restaurants away from the casino area. Because that’s how we discovered the Blue & White Restaurant.

Grace found it on the Internet, and away we went.

Now, after two days of southern fried hedonism in Memphis, we vowed to be good and get something light, like a salad.

As we walked in, we were greeted by two separate servers who asked “How are ya’al doing?” and then one of the sweet young ladies seated us, asking if we wanted smoking or nonsmoking. I’ve lived in smoke free cities for so long that I was taken aback and for a split second was whisked back to my 1970s childhood. We got nonsmoking, of course, which was a bigger but darker room off to the side.

As walked to our seats, we passed a little buffet. It was a kind of crowded, and all I could see was a vat of beautiful, golden, forbidden fried chicken. “Steady, old gal”, I said to myself. “Your veins have flowed with Crisco for the past two days. Be good”.

The young lady seated us and handed us menus, then described the buffet in her darling Mississippi accent – “Our buffet is ten dollars, that includes your drink and dessert. It has fried chicken, catfish, salmon patties (she pronounced salmon with the L intact), greens, pinto beans, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, fried green tomatoes…” . I had been squirming the whole time until she got to the fried green tomatoes, than I succumbed. “I’m in. I’m down for the buffet”. I looked across across at Grace, and saw the same raw buffet lust written all over her face.  We both got the buffet. Our server asked us if we wanted some rolls or cornbread, but we forbore. See?! Self control.

I glanced with scorn at the salad bar, and got right to the hot items. Here’s the immediate result-

-the long term result to be determined at my next checkup by my doctor.

At the risk of gushing, (and why stop now?)  I’m here to tell ya, I’ve had southern, Cajun, low country and all kinds of down homey food all across the south. I’ve eaten at Paula Deen’s and Mrs. Wilkes in Savannah, and Coops in New Orleans. I’ve never had a meal as good as this one. I mean, this makes Paula Deen seem like she runs a Waffle House. And I love Ms. Dean, don’t get me wrong. But this food was slap-yo-momma good.

The cook came out to replenish the buffet while I was getting plate number two and asked how I liked the food. She looked exactly how one would want her to, kind of like Sylvia on the Sylvia The Queen of Soul Food can, but a little older and with rosy cheeks. I gushed like a fangirl, most inarticulately. She smiled and thanked me. If she thought I was an idiot, she didn’t show it.

The coffee was even my favorite brand, Community.  Our server asked if we wanted Caramel Cake. She said it “caaare-a-mayl”. We just couldn’t eat another bite.

So, deliriously full to the eyes with all that wonderful regional food, we waddled to the car to begin our Stalk Jerry Lee Lewis  campaign. Armed with fangirl boldness and the camera, we plugged our potential address into the map and damned if 35 minutes later we didn’t drive right past Jerry Lee’s gates-

Here’s his house-

Somewhere in that house, at that moment, The Killer was slurping chowder, or perhaps watching re-runs of Gunsmoke. Somewhere in that house, the Ferriday Kid might have been taking a nap in his recliner, or cleaning his pistols, or cuddling with his chihuahua. Oh, the maddening potential of that shuttered house!

We drove by four times, with me resisting the temptation to rummage though his recycle bins that were on the curb (Jerry Lee recycles!) or to snatch the Walmart bag that was lying in the ditch next to his gate. It might have had a receipt for Metamucil in it. The Killer’s Metamucil! We decided that to gaze and snap photos was probably better than the reality of rattling the gate and screaming, causing Jerry Lee to have to decide whether to use the cane to walk or leave his shooting hand free to chase us away.

We headed back to Tunica to check into our casino room, blaring Big Legged Woman and I’m a Wild One the whole way.

Tonight’s the Delta River Cruisin’ Car Show. We had to check into our room early to rest because my proximity to The Killer and all the potential scenarios wore me the hell out. And to nap off our lunch. Mercy!

Memphis Day Two (RS)10

Oh lawd, where to begin? We slept in a little, the B.B. King room having good shades, then headed to Arcade for a late breakfast.

The Arcade Restaurant Is the oldest in Memphis, open since 1919 when they used pot belly stoves to cook the food. Lots of movies have been filmed here, including The Firm, The Client, Walk the Line, Great Balls of Fire, and Mystery Train, among many others.

We loved the old “boomerang” Formica table tops-

I ordered the Eggs Redneck and Grace  ordered the breakfast sandwich with turkey. Some bitches are healthy and shit. Guess which pile of starch and grease is mine-

Hint- it’s the one with the fried chicken and not the fruit.

As we were walking (staggering) back to the car, an older gentleman looked at me and said what I thought was “Imodium”. I frowned slightly and thought “how would he know what I just ate, and why does he (correctly) assume I’d need Imodium already?”. It took me a second to realize that he said “Good morning” with a heavy southern accent. Say it out loud. You’ll see why I thought that at first.

We popped into Sun Studio to shop and take some snaps-

We toured the Stax Records Soulville museum. Wow, what a great homage to Memphis Soul, funk, jazz and blues.

Otis Redding was their biggest star. We learned a lot an feasted our eyes and ears on lots of music history-

That’s Isaac Hayes Cadillac. I took the picture, I know it’s crappy but the damned thing was on a turntable.

Afterward, we shopped at Red Velvet Vintage in the South Main district, then headed to the Elmwood Cemetery. We drove through a scrubby industrial area, and at the end of the road was this arch and bridge.

Crossing the bridge was like entering another world. A lush world of peacefulness and beauty, with, well, dead people.

A real oasis in Memphis. I have to recommend it to any visitor. It has a huge “Confederate’s Rest” Civil War area, and a ” No Man’s Land” area where there are  mass graves because the diggers couldn’t keep up during the Great Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878.

This one I asked Grace to take for me as I might have a similar marker about the Bengals someday-

I can just hear my family talking to the stonecutter- “Can you do a football?” It will probably read “She died of disappointment.”.

We had read about Mattie Stephenson, who came from Illinois to Memphis to be a nurse during one of the Yellow Fever epidemics. Word on the street was that she had been left at the altar by some bastard and thought (loosely paraphrased) “Yellow Fever nurse sounds good, what the hell”. She died shortly after arriving, but for her bravery was called the “Heroine of Memphis” and given an elaborate headstone.

There was supposed to be some paranormal activity associated with Mattie’s grave, so we wanted to find it. After driving around for a long while, we decided I should go into the office and ask where she was.

The young lady didn’t bat an eye when I asked where to find Mattie Stephenson, she highlighted a map for me. An administrative looking lady came out from an office nearby and asked me why I was looking for Mattie, did I have an interest in Yellow Fever History? She sounded like she might want to chat about Yellow Fever, and I wasn’t prepared to fake it. I was like, “Um, we read about her on the Internet, and wanted to see her grave? We, um,  just like cemeteries, we’re that kind of people?” I didn’t want to admit we wanted ol’ Mattie to rise from the grave and give us some rockin’ EVPs.  I mentioned that my cousin lived near Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati and did she know it? She brightened at the name Spring Grove, as any cemetery enthusiast would, since it’s the finest in the nation (#biased). I then rambled on that Elmwood was super nice and we enjoyed the peacefulness and getting away from Beale Street, the people were way quieter here. She laughed and wished me a good day.

BTW, Spring Grove, if you’re listening, Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis has a little gift shop. A GIFT SHOP. Take a note, Cincy!

Here’s the hard-won photo of Mattie Stephenson’s dang gone grave, with No Man’s Land in the background. She didn’t deign to supply us with any rockin’ EVPs.

We headed back to the B&B to freshen up, but we needn’t have bothered, for we were headed to Earnestine and Hazel’s a dive bar in the South Main district.

Here’s the link for the fascinating-but-longish-for-an-already-lengthy-blog-post history of Earnestine and Hazel’s-

http://earnestineandhazelsjukejoint.com/about/the-bar

Suffice it to say, it was a pharmacy, then a brothel (until the 1990s!), a piano bar and now a dive bar that serves Soul Burgers.  Eric from the Absinthe Room told us about the bar, and his dad was the one who invented the Soul Burger. A bunch of movies were shot here, too.

We had dinner at 5 Spot, an oyster bar behind E & H’s. Like a lot of places in Memphis that we’ve experienced, you went through a sketchy place to get to a nice place. There was a dark labyrinth at the back of the bar that led to the restaurant. Random.

After we ate, the fellow (I’m assuming an owner or manager) from 5 Spot offered to take us through the upstairs. He didn’t know a lot of haunted stuff, but gave us a lot of fun facts and had the doors unlocked to some rooms so we could see them.

Including this one, which is where Ray Charles lived in a heroin stupor and played piano at night at the bar. That is really the piano he played then.

Me, asking incessant questions even without the influence of absinthe.

Here’s a corner where a little girl ghost in 1940s garb has been spotted and allegedly photographed-

Here’s some photos of the bar downstairs-

They look cheery because of the flash, but it was dark as hell in there

We Ubered back to the B & B, and the driver insisted on waiting until we were safely in the house before he took off.

Here’s my personal wrap up on my two days in Memphis-  it’s not a pretty city, but all the people we ran into are super kind, opening the door for us, chatting personably, polite, helpful. We had three Uber drivers and they were all kind and funny. I know we are just tourists and don’t live here, but we were favorably impressed by the locals.

Also, to open a business here, you can buy a somewhat derelict building and not do a damned thing to renovate it and you’ll still do well.  Just throw your merchandise in on top of the cracked lino and hang your shingle. They embrace the flaws and the history soaked into the walls. Either that or they’re too cheap to fix it up and they know we’ll all patronize it anyway.

Also, if I lived here and ate at the restaurants every day, I’d be a TV star. Like on My 600 Pound Life. Or they’d send Richard Simmons to hold my hand while we both cry and they can cut me out of my house. Good eatin! Lawd.

And of course, good music.

Now on to stalk Jerry Lee!

Memphis Day One (RS)9

Siri eased us into the western outskirts of Memphis to our Airbnb,  a Victorian mansion a bit past its prime.

It was bohemian in a Fight Club, Paper Street kind of way. A couple was standing on the front porch when we arrived, long story short, the hosts had emailed all of us three digits of the four digit code to get the key from the lockbox. It was the work of about five minutes to get it sorted, so no real biggie.

The decor is eclectic and quirky, in a sort of Late-Seventies-Jumble-Sale motif.

And there was a classic rock station playing in lieu of having a host present.

We threw our bags into the B.B. King room, freshened up a bit and Ubered to Beale Street like good little tourists.

The temperature was in the nineties at 5:30, so we wandered around in the air conditioned Peabody Hotel, searching for the ducks swimming in the fountain, but alas, they ducked us. They were already retired to their quarters for the evening.

Beale Street is ugly by day, so we ducked into the nice dark bar at Jerry Lee Lewis’ Café. I know it’s ridiculous to entertain the notion that The Killer is going to drag his 80 year old ass out to pop in for an impromptu concert, but hope springs eternal.

Instead we were treated to a performance by Landon Ray Lane on boogie woogie piano, MERCY! That fella can play!

I don’t think Jerry Lee could have stood on the piano like Landon did, not without a lift and a walker. But who knows? The Ferriday Kid might be able to do that, from pure meanness. Especially if you told him he couldn’t.

After watching the first act, it was nice and dark outside and beautified by the neon lights. And a gazillion motorcycles.

The Absinthe Room was the only thing that could tear us away from Landon Lane. Once you open the door and start to ascend those green fairy lit steps-

-the noise and squalor of Beale Street and its Midwestern drunken tourists stop cold,  like a radio being snapped off.

At the top of the steps is a little bar, and a room with pool tables and a juke box.

The bar is tended by Eric, who patiently described the different absinthes and their potencies to us novices.

It’s a pretty process to pour an absinthe cocktail.

We were the only ones there for a while, and we enjoyed conversing with Eric, who is a filmmaker and musician, and who has a vast knowledge of the area. We talked movies, music, restaurants, and how hipstery Nashville has become. Absinthe makes us chatty. We learned a lot, and talked a lot.

Then we got on the subject of Jerry Lee Lewis. As you can tell, I am a super JLL fangirl. Printed on our official itinerary for this trip is the phrase “stalk Jerry Lee”, which was my only contribution. We intend to try to find his house in Mississippi and take some photos outside the gate. If he doesn’t shoot at us. Or even if he does.

Eric had met Jerry Lee when he was a kid, and his dad had taken him to see Jerry Lee’s house in Mississippi. He was also invited to an estate sale at the house (!) recently that was JLL’s stuff, but didn’t go! What I wouldntda done to go to that and bought some old coffee mugs or something!

So, Eric searched back on his Facebook and got the address of the sale for me, which may or may not be Jerry’s home address! Here is a record of the momentous occasion that may change my and Jerry Lee Lewis’s life-

Speaking of devilish musicians, you know that famous (and only) photo of Robert Johnson, the blues guitarist that reportedly sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads?

Where the Absinthe Room is now used to be the first African American photo studio in the nation. The photo has been traced to having been taken there.  So, we drank absinthe steps away from where Robert Johnson had his photo taken, with draperies hung in front of this fireplace-

Ain’t that cool? I guess he didn’t have to worry about the camera stealing his soul.

You may ask, “How was the absinthe?”. Wayl, Grace loved it. Me, not so much. I gave her the last third of mine and switched to bourbon. Absinthe has a black licorice taste, and kind of numbs the tongue. Still, it was fun to try it.

As we Ubered back to the house, we chatted with the driver. (Absinthe=chatty, remember?) Grace asked him about the neighborhood that the B&B is in, and he said “you’re on the border”. So, the driver, who was driving an old Saturn, thinks our neighborhood is sketchy. Hmmm.

It was a quiet night, though, except for the times I went into the hall to use the shared bathroom and was greeted by the classic rock station blaring from the kitchen. Still, I’d rather pee to the dulcet strains of Bon Jovi than hear creaking floorboards and disembodied voices. I know as a spooky girl I should want to hear disembodied voices, but not when I gotta pee.

The lion on the stairs gave me quite a turn the first time I crept out into the hallway though-

I was Livin’ on a Prayer, I can tell ya…

Cash is King (RS)8

So after a hearty breakfast at the surprisingly chic McDonald’s of Newport, we found the Rock and Roll Highway Museum “downtown”. It was in the Newport municipal building.

So you can brush up on your rock and roll history and apply for a brush fire permit in one stop.

When we walked in there was an old upright piano on the right, with a photo of the Million Dollar Quartet above it.

My pulse quickened, because this piano must be the one from the famous jam session at Sun Studios when Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash all played together. I didn’t read the placard next to it because we were greeted by a nice young lady.

The staff was really sweet, and they went cheerily about their business like bees in a happy hive. We noticed that there was an art installation and a bunch of tables laden with assorted dolls in the lobby. Because they are having an art show, and starting a doll museum soon.

We were directed upstairs to the museum, and were greeted by an enthusiastic lady that informed us of the layout and the highlights of the collection.

Really, it was mostly a collection of photos and posters from the clubs that all the greats played in the golden era of rockabilly in the fifties and sixties, with a few other artifacts thrown in.

Their focus was on Sonny Burgess, who sang Red Headed Woman and is from Newport.

I perked up when the lady mentioned the piano downstairs (Jerry Lee?? Was it played by the Killer?? My mind raced as I plotted ways to touch the piano, and the poses I would strike in the photos) was present at Porky’s Rooftop Club when Elvis played there once and he might have played it. Bwah bwah bwaaahh. For me at least. I’m sure an Elvis fan would have peed their pants.

When we got done with the museum, we  just had to take pictures of the dolls to share with yaal. You’re welcome.

Bully dollies

I call this one “Alarm and Beseechment”.

That Native American doll is right to give that white teeth-baring Michelle doll the side eye. She’s about to Ruin Everything.

It was a short-ish drive from Newport to Dyess, Arkansas, and I won’t lie and say we were sad to leave Newport in the glow of our tail lights.

The road rolled on between rice and cotton fields, and then we were in Dyess. The Dyess Colony was created in 1934 as part of the New Deal. The government drained the swamps (Grace’s Arkansas Swamps!!) in that county and built houses with outbuildings and 20-40 acres and moved farmers on them to clear and farm the land. The history is really interesting and rich, but, like us, we know ya’al want to get to the Johnny Cash stuff so I’ve abbreviated the history mercilessly. Google Dyess Colony for more info. 😘

There is a visitor center that used to be the theater,

and a museum that used to be the Dyess administration building-

Both are exceptional, utilizing historic objects in a modern way, such as using the old Dyess High School gymnasium floor boards on the wall and to make shelves for the souvenir shop.

We boarded a shuttle to take us to Johnny Cash’s childhood home. We were the only two to go. Our driver/tour guide was Tim Allen. We asked a few questions on the way, and he was very informative and approachable.

Here’s the historical marker, complete with ethereal beam of light-

When we got to the house and went in, we were so excited to be there that I went left chattering and asking questions and Grace went right taking photos. Mr. Allen was at a loss as to which of us to tell the house facts to, I think.

The house is just darling,

and they’ve done such a great job with the restoration. They peeled up several layers of flooring and found Johnny Cash’s mom’s “linoleum rug”-

Mr. Allen told us that there was a video that played on a motion detector in a mirror on the wall of Johnny Cash walking back through the house in the 70s. I’m so glad he warned me, because it would have scared holy hell out of me if  I walked past it and Johnny Cash’s voice came out of that mirror.

This is the Cash family piano that Johnny’s mom Carrie played. She donated it to a local church when they left and  the church donated it back for the museum.

It looks like I’m feeling piano vibes whilst in a trance but I’m just blinking.  See that brown hymnal above my hand? While Mr. Allen and Grace were looking at the piano and talking about it, that hymnal sprung off of that rack and fell on the floor. It didn’t fall off, because it would have hit the keys. It jumped off in an arc. No one was near it. I heard the thump as it hit the floor but Grace and Mr Allen saw it jump off the stand. Mr Allen said “Who was that??”. We kind of laughed and said this stuff happens all the time around us, and he said we brought a ghost in. We promised to take the ghost back with us when we left. We also trod heavily around the piano to see if it would happen again because of vibrations; it didn’t.

Here’s Johnny and his brother Jack’s bed. Johnny carried his brother’s pillow with him everywhere after Jack was killed in a circular saw accident when they were kids.

We explored the screened in porch-

After which we explored the yard, where Grace found out why the porch was screened in, as she sustained multiple mosquito bite souvenirs from the grass.

The gooey, ex-swamp field mud is referred to locally as “gumbo”.

Mosquitos like gumbo, I think.

There was no way we were leaving without trying the porch swing-

Here’s me grilling Tim Allen in the front yard, he was so patient with my ten thousand questions.

His grandparents lived in one of these houses and his family stayed in Dyess for the long haul. I asked him if it’s pronounced “DYess” or “Dy-yes” and he informed me that it’s “Dice”. So in case you go, call it “Dice” if you want to impress a local.

Back in town, we explored the museum more thoroughly-

And peeped into the window of the building used in the film Walk the Line for the sawmill scene where Jack had his accident.

Glutted to satisfaction with Johnny Cashness, we drove off in, appropriately enough, a Car Named Su, which is the moniker we gave Grace’s Subaru when she got it a while back.

Next stop, Memphis!

Miss Fortune (RS)7

Today is kind of an in-betweeny day, we got a 4+ hour drive toward our next scheduled destination (Dyess, AR) out of the way and we wanted to see the Rock and Roll Highway, Route 67, and the Rock and Roll Highway Museum in Newport, first.

First, we planned to have a tasting at the Keel Creek Winery near Eureka Springs. Keel is Grace’s maiden name, and my mom was a Keel. You know, we’re cousins.

When we got there, we realized we had made a time zone mistake and it wouldn’t open for another hour. We didn’t want to wait, so we took off. The Keel wine probably has top notes of verbosity with a smooth guilt finish anyway… 🙂

On the unremarkable drive between Eureka Springs and Newport, Arkansas, we passed towns with such peculiar names as Gravesville, Joy, Rose Bud, and my personal favorite, Yellsville. I know a few people who should live in Yellsville.

We stopped off in Bald Knob (tee hee!) to visit the Shady Grove Cemetery.

As you can see it is neither very shady nor a grove. It has a reputation for being haunted, if you flash your lights at night three times, ghost children will come and push your car and leave tiny handprints on the back. Any snotminer that left handprints on my car would become a ghost if they weren’t one already, just sayin. 😉

We tried the SB 7 Spirit Box for a while but got no voices, not even a “Kill Zak”. I guess we need more practice, but the loud staticky noise wears on us after a while.

As we were wandering around talking to seemingly only the SB 7, Grace noticed this headstone-

Kind of typical, huh? Check out the back of the stone-

I have searched the Internet all evening trying to figure this out. Was that Jackie’s last word after she slipped on a banana peel? Was she known for saying it? Did the stone cutter make a mistake? Was there a scratch and dent sale on headstones? I must know. I am going on the Bald Knob forum to ask. I better be careful when I google that forum, I guess.

The museum we are to visit is in Newport, which ain’t a town that you’d call a goin’ concern.

The Rock and Roll Highway 67 has this description on the Arkansas state tourism website-“In the 1950s, clubs and joints along this stretch of highway from Newport to Pocahontas played host to Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty, Sonny Burgess and Billy Lee Riley.” So far, there hasn’t been a sign or any mention of the Rock and Roll highway on 67. It’s a pretty run of the mill highway.

Grace had us booked into the best motel (3/5 stars) in town, the Fortune Inn and Suites. The reviews stated that it was better than it appeared, and for the love of gawd stay there while in Newport instead of the Days Inn.

We had some misgivings about staying here, but it is the only convenient location for our itinerary. As we approached, Grace said “Oh god, there’s the sign, ugh”. I will admit the place lacks, um, curb appeal.  Upon pulling into the parking lot, we reflected with horror-what must the Days Inn be like??

We parked in front of the crumbling office, and had a powwow. We agreed that we would check in, look at the room, and if it was dirty or had bugs, take our leave and drive a few hours to another hotel. It was $70, prepaid non refundable, and we were in total agreement, both of us being the non confrontational type, that if the room was nasty, instead of going in and demanding a refund, we would cut our losses and do an Irish goodbye if it was unacceptable.

We walked in, and it was like stepping from the exterior of the Bates Motel into the interior of a modern Hampton Inn.

The lady behind the desk was well groomed and middle aged. We checked in, and asked her about a local Mexican restaurant and whether it was OK. She said that there wasn’t much to pick from around here, but that the restaurant we asked about had a clean inspection record from the board of health and that one could see into the kitchen to acertain if it was clean. Her relatives that worked for the board of health had told her horror stories about few local restaurants. We both felt then that we were probably safe with this hotel being clean.  She also told us that right now there were “millionaires” staying at the hotel because they owned a huge corporation in Newport and had come from Japan to visit.  I can’t picture that, but there were some lux trucks parked on the cracked concrete. She had a great sense of humor. She had us in stitches talking about caring for her 87 year old father. “Picture a one eyed hairy orangutan staggering into a restaurant”. We kind of wanted to stay and hang out with her. But we had to look at the room.

The room is surprisingly ok, flat screen TV, clean mattresses and pads, comparable to a Super Eight.

The bed is messy because I had just torn it apart to look for bedbugs. Those mauve prints need a whip and a chair, though. Kind of a culture shock from the  Crescent Hotel last night.

We had difficulty finding the restaurant (Google had the address wrong) so we called the lady at the front desk at the hotel and she gave us directions. Indeed, the restaurant was clean and pretty dang good.

We went to Wal-Mart and picked up some wine (we klassy) and went back to the Fortune to watch TV.

We were too late to see the Rock and Roll Highway Museum today so we are going to see it tomorrow, after our night sharing a hotel with millionaires.

Crashing the Crescent (RS)6

After narrowly escaping having our souls eaten by the doll inmates of the Yellow Moon Antique Mall, we drove to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Grace has been super excited to get here, she hasn’t been to Arkansas but it sounded intriguing and free-spirited, like a big wild swamp full of hippies.

It wasn’t a damned thing like that but she wasn’t disappointed when she saw the beautiful Ozark mountains rolling off in the distance.

Speaking of Ozark, while one is still in the flats of Missouri and headed toward Branson, every road side advertisement and sign has the word “Ozarks” on it. It’s not just barbecue, it’s Ozark barbecue. It’s not a winery, it’s an Ozark winery. It’s not a Taco Bell, it’s the Taco Bell of the Ozarks. And we were two hours from the Ozarks when this started.

Anyway, our destination was Eureka Springs, I’m going to do the Cliff Notes version of the history of the town. It has more than 60 springs in the area, or used to. The Native Americans around here held the healing waters sacred, and all the local tribes shared it and didn’t build villages here. Then the white man kicked the Native Americans off their own lands, the springs were lost for a while until Dr. Aleah Jackson, another white dude, rediscovered them and started exploiting the springs, I mean, selling the water, a town was built so people could take the healing water, and within a hundred years of Caucasian interference, all but a couple of the springs were  polluted. The White Man Ruins Everything, once again.  Here is one of the springs-

And some town shots-

The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs opened in 1886, at the height of the water boom. It was built to be a luxury hotel. Like all old hotels, The Grand Old  Lady of the Ozarks had its ups and downs, being a hotel, a part time academy for young ladies, and for two years a hospital conceived of and run by an egomaniac charlatan.

Norman Baker was an inventor, vaudevillian, and shyster who in 1937 opened the  Baker Cancer Hospital,

which promised a 100% cancer cure rate and used all kind of crackpot cure methods including injections of alcohol mixed with watermelon seed and corn silk extract into the tumor area. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for him to be run out of town for practicing medicine without a license, among other offenses.

The hospital closed in 1940.

Spending the night at The Crescent is definitely on our “bucket list”. In the  paranormal community, this is a big one, just haunted as can be.

When we checked in, we were kindly upgraded by sheer luck into a more spacious, and more haunted room, number 419. I don’t know how the front desk knew we were spooky types, maybe the all black garb tipped them off. Our upgraded digs is known as Theodora’s Room. It’s huge and has awesome views-

That’s an artist’s rendering of Theodora, drawn according to descriptions of the entity.

Theodora is alternately described as either a nurse for the Cancer Hospital, or a patient. She reportedly straightens the room, packs your stuff, makes the bed, paces at 3 am at the foot of the bed, appears as a full body apparition outside the door and fumbles for her keys, etc.

We explored the hotel

then chilled on the porch for a minute

After dinner in town at Local Flavor (excellent), we came back to the Crescent for our ghost tour.

This tour is well done, with costumed tour guides and they ran an EMF meter. We ranged all over the hotel, all four floors and even Mr. Baker’s morgue in an outbuilding.

There are at least eight or so “confirmed” named ghosts in the hotel, including a little boy and girl, and a hot Irish stonecutter fellow who fell 2 stories to his death. The Crescent touts itself as America’s most haunted hotel, and it may be true.

Here’s a morgue shot. complete with glowing guide-

It was a great tour, lots of history and good ghost stories.

Afterward, Grace and I were taking some photos on the third floor, around the area where the most ill patients were kept out of sight of the others. We spotted a warped mirror, and we were taking some goofy shots of us posing like serious ghost hunters-

-having a bit of a laugh.

There was a hotel guest, an older gentleman clad only in a pair of shorts who kept going to the vending and getting ice. We sneaked a couple of shots of him, intending on being funny and saying he was a ghost on the blog here. Here’s the first shot we took-

with him walking away.

Then Grace was trying to be sneaky and take one as he was approaching us, so she faced away and took this one on the sly, holding the camera out in her left hand.  I was standing in another part of the hallway nowhere near her. The fellow then kids with us and asked if we caught a ghost, and said something like he was as close as we would get. Funny he should mention that.

We were having a drink at the Sky Bar and reviewing the photos when Grace tells me to take a closer look at the last photo we took. Look at the left bottom third of the photo-

We see an almost solid looking head that looks like a child facing the POV and looking over their shoulder to look at the old dude.  You can see a bluish shoulder and white shirt. You can’t see the wall or carpet pattern behind it, it’s between the lens and the background.

We headed back down to the hallway and tried for ten minutes to debunk it.  Here’s what a regular human looks like in what is pretty close to the same POV-

Grace was a trained photographer in the Air Force and doesn’t put her thumb close to the lens. We tried to put our thumbs over the lens but it made it too difficult to hold the camera. So it’s not her thumb, and it’s not the camera strap, which is red

So, we took loads of photos on the ghost tour and in the hotel tonight, and when we relaxed and goofed off we had an anomaly show up. Typical.

When we got back to Theodora’s Room, we did a SB7 Spirit Box session,

but got no recognizable voices.

We retired to bed around 1:45 am. Grace was out like a light, but I had a touch of insomnia. I watched the room and looked at reflections in mirrors and the TV, but I didn’t see anyone cleaning or pacing, and finally got to sleep around 2:30.

I did get up to go to the bathroom once and noticed we hadn’t locked the door with the chain, and I wasn’t sure we turned the bolt. I sleepily jockeyed and jostled the bolt, and the bolt eventually turned forcefully on its own. I was too tired to be scared about that or to contemplate much as to its paranormalness.

We woke up to a beautiful Ozark morning, and had a good breakfast in the hotels Crystal room.

Not just a good breakfast, an Ozark breakfast. We are a bit sad at having to leave the Crescent and all its ghosties behind, but all the other spookies at our next stops have to have their fair share of attention, too.

On to the next destination, which is the Rock n Roll Highway. The Ozark Rock n Roll Highway, that is.

Pernicious Poppets (RS)5

We spent an hour or so exploring the Yellow Moon Antique Mall next to our hotel. We thought you might enjoy meeting some of the new friends we found there. I’m sure they will enjoy meeting you, and, you know, eating your soul.

Happy Nightmares!

And a final note to tie up our Jefferson City experience, last night when we returned to the hotel after the prison tour, I saw this man lunging toward me from a darkened corner of the lobby-

It’s the Baymont Inn SpokesGinger. He made me gasp and clutch my heart, and not in a good way.

Let’s blow this town! Onward to Eureka Springs!

Grace’s Turn-Missouri Penitentiary (RS)4

We started our six hour plus drive today to get to our next destination, Jefferson City, Missouri, home of the Missouri State Penitentiary. After we left the rolling cornfields of Indiana and were on the highway, the scenery was unexceptional so I’ll spare you the details. This day was about the destination, not the journey!

We arrived around 4:30, thanks to gaining an hour from the central time zone, checked into our hotel, the decidedly un-haunted but comfy Baymont Inn, which just so happened to be next to one of our favorite kinds of stores-

-which we will be storming tomorrow morning.

We then headed into downtown Jefferson City, which according to the town map sponsored by the hotel, is The Most Beautiful Small Town in America. It’s not bad. Crumbling Victorian mansions and a big ol’ 1836 Gothic prison slap on the edge of downtown.

Here s the warden’s house-

One does not tour a haunted prison on an empty stomach, lest the spirits take advantage of your weakened state and possess you to drop the ectoplasmic soap. We found a microbrewery called- wait for it-

to have a snack. Good Prison Nachos and spicy fried pickles. The restrooms were called The Gas Chambers. Did we laugh? Yes. Are we cheesy tourist types? Yes.

The tour group was comprised of around 20 people. There were some teenagers, and some of the 65+ persuasion. We thought the teenagers were going to be rowdy. Wrong. More on that shortly.

We had a little time to kill (prison joke!) and stormed the gift shop where the cashier regaled us with tales of what the Ghost Adventures cast was really like. She was not a fan of Zak. But we bought hoodies anyway.

We had to have our mug shots taken. Look at the blank psychopath eyes on those two miscreants, imprisoned for public drunkeness and taking terlet selfies.

Our tour guides were Tom, who was a guard at the prison for 15 years, and his fiancé Maggie, who, next to my cousin Kim, is the worlds biggest Walking Dead fan. Check out the tatt on her ankle of Daryl Dixon-

Maggie was on the Ghost Adventures episode filmed here, too.

So we start on the tour, and there are signs everywhere and we had been verbally warned not to close the doors to the cells because they will lock and they don’t have keys to them. The first thing one of the retirees did was almost close his wife into one of the cells and had to be reprimanded. Then another old guy jumped out of a cell and screamed to scare his friends and had to be reprimanded. Tom was kind but firm, and I’m glad he stopped the disruptions. The teenagers were the most well behaved group there. Besides us middle agers.

Here’s the women’s block-

And one of the many men’s cell blocks-

the one where Sonny Liston was incarcerated. Here’s his cell-

Then we went into “the dungeon”, a basement area where in the old days the prisoners were flogged, and in less barbaric times, were confined for days and weeks in total darkness. /sarcasm.

We got a little ways into the back corridor where the cells were, and Grace’s chest got tight and she couldn’t breathe, then she got dizzy. She tried to take herself in hand and power through it, but then she got super nauseated. She told me later that her thought was “I’m going down”. She told me that she felt faint, and I asked if she wanted to leave but she said no, so we had some TicTacs and she managed to make it through the lights being put out for three minutes or so.

We were the last ones to file out of the dungeon, and as we passed this corridor-

Grace heard chains rattling at the end of the corridor, and thought someone was hiding in that last room making a racket with chains for effect, maybe one of the disruptive oldsters from the tour, but of course there was no one there. No one living, at least.

Needless to say, we were glad to get out of the dungeon and into fresh air, which restored Grace pretty well, except for feeling a little drained.

We went into another cell block, and we all were quiet and turned out our flashlights so we could see “the peekers”, shadow people that peek from the cell block corridor. I didn’t see anything, but Grace saw two white, long, stretched out, featureless faces dart in and out above and behind her in the corridor. I didn’t turn in time when she told me it was happening.

There was a woman on the tour who apparently was psychic, or thought she was psychic, or was faking being psychic. Her eyes kept rolling back in her head, or she was breathing heavy sometimes, to the amazement or amusement of all. She was telling us all in the “peeker” corridor that there was a spirit named Eric talking to her, he was a black man that was executed there. Tom asked her to get his inmate number and she slowly rattled off a six digit number. But when we checked the photos of all the executed people in the gas chamber, that number wasn’t there, nor was there an “Eric”. She pointed out who she was talking to on the oddly high-school-seniorlike photo collage of executed prisoners, though.  We didn’t know whether to believe her or not, I will admit I leaned toward scoffing, but then remembered I’ve been to many psychics myself. We think having her along added to the experience, whether she was real or fake or unhinged.

Here’s the gas chamber-(not the restrooms)

The chair wasn’t comfortable but I guess they didn’t have to sit there too long-

One can watch themselves die-

unless the governor calls and stays your execution. Let’s hope they had Call Waiting on that phone.

And just as that was almost the end of me, that was also the end of the tour. We stayed a little bit to chat with Tom and Maggie about spookies and The Walking Dead-

-and thanked them for a great tour.

So, today was Grace’s day to channel the spooky events. I didn’t see or feel jack shit, although I enjoyed the tour thoroughly. I have to admit that if I had to be poked by a ghost, I’m glad it was at The Story Inn and not the Missouri State Penitentiary.

The Scoop on the Story Inn (RS)3

Our first night of the Rock and Shock Tour is at the Story Inn, in Story, Indiana. Story was founded in 1851 by Dr. George Story. I think it would be a better story if his name wasn’t Story and Story was named after a story. But anyway…

The Great Depression kind of closed the town down, and the Army Corps of Engineers flooded the valley nearby to make Lake Monroe. This cut off some main roads to the town, and it was deserted until the general store and some other town buildings were restored and made into a rockin’ B&B and gourmet localvore restaurant.

It is in the middle of nowhere, as the Inn’s motto proudly proclaims-“One Inconvenient Location Since 1851”. We drove through hilly, curvy roads with a canopy of trees overhead, interrupted by ripe cornfields now and again.

We are booked into the Blue Lady Room. According to guests who stay in this room above the store, the ghost of a woman appears by the bed, in the mirror, or as a reflection in the window, if the blue light on the nightstand is turned on. Others have insisted that the Blue Lady will materialize without provocation. It’s not only the bedside light that’s earned her the “Blue Lady” moniker: her eyes are  icy blue, and she has a habit of leaving behind blue-colored ribbons in her wake. She’s allegedly the shade of Dr. Story’s wife.

We checked in, and settled into the room to relax a bit before dinner. It definitely has an energy about it, it’s hard to describe. Grace says it feels like static electricity in the air.

That hallway wraith is blue, but that’s no lady.

Grace has stayed here once, and there was a guest journal that all the guests wrote their experiences in. We couldn’t locate it,  so we were digging around  trying to find it. I went to the right side of the bed by the blue light and opened the drawer to see if it was in there. As soon as I pulled out the drawer and curled my lip in distaste at finding a Gideon Bible instead of the journal, I felt a finger poke me hard on the back of my right arm. My first split second reaction was “Why is Grace squashed into this space behind me and poking me as if to make me move so she can see into this drawer?”. I turned to see what the hell she was up to. I gasped when I saw she was across the room, with a startled expression on her face. “Did you POKE me??”, I exclaimed, and she said no, and asked if I had heard that static snapping sound. I hadn’t. It occurred at the same moment that I felt the poke. Ten minutes in the room and no spooky talk or expectation and already it’s time to rock and roll. We tried to recreate the conditions of the poke moment and debunk it, but we couldn’t. Well, I’m surely not the first person to be poked by a ghost.

We walked around the spacious gardens, grounds and outbuildings.

I am a swinger.

That front porch is the best spot to get a signal on your phone. In case you’re going to come here.

When we got back to the room to freshen up for dinner, my phone dropped from 31% battery to 17% within a second. Grace has the same model phone as me, but was at almost full battery and acted normally. Also, the camera battery died, and that thing usually lasts through days of heavy use without a charge. Drained from 2/3 to dead within an hour in the Blue Lady room.

We had dinner at the restaurant, delicious. And then a cider each in the tavern, then sat on our darling little balcony, illuminated by Grace’s little ghost wine cork.

Poor Grace had to listen to one of my wine-fueled literary discourses. This one was about Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’m not sure why Grace tolerates me and/or allows me to consume wine in her presence.

So, we turned out all but the blue-encourages-the-ghost-to-appear light and retired to bed. We both woke up several times in the night due to the air conditioner cycling loudly, or other sundry reasons, we both would look around but no apparition materielized, no blue ribbons strewn, and no ghostly whispers were shouted over the air conditioniner noise.

I got really cold early on in the night, which I must comment on as being a paranormal event because I run hot like a furnace. Anytime I am cold would have to  be supernatural. Eventually I lapsed back onto my normal peri-menopausal night sweats. Grace experienced no temperature fluctuations. So once again I was Blue Lady bullied. ;).

It seems like when we are looking for something paranormal to happen, it rarely does. The incidences we’ve had in the past have almost always occurred in broad daylight, too. If the camera is ready, and the recording devices standing by, naught. If we’re putting on makeup or searching for a journal, bingo, ectoplasm. Irritado. It’s like the dead don’t want to produce evidence on cue. Rude.

After our uneventful evening, we had breakfast downstairs, where we discussed such varied topics as chemotherapy, Jane Austen, literary fan girls, Morrissey, and jacked up lady parts, much to the eavesdropping pleasure of the silent couple beside us.

Here are some misty mornin’ Story photos-

And my 1950s squeaker frog Grace got me for my birthday. I have to include a photo of him because there is always room on our blog for a cowboy hat sporting squeaker frog, and because I like him more than a friend-

We will end this post with his smiling face.

Onward to the next rockin’, shockin’ road trip stop, we will do time at The Missouri State Penitentiary!

“Practice” SB 7 Spirit Box Session (RS)2

Rock & Shocks Tour Starting Soon! (RS)1

September, 2016

My Twin Cousin and I are embarking on another trip soon, filled with haunted tours and lots of significant rockabilly sites! Grace has lined us up an amazing itinerary. We start on September 17, the day after my birthday. I can’t wait!

Here’s the mega cool banner that Grace’s husband Bill made for our trip-

Pretty awesome, huh?

This time, we are bringing an SB7 Spirit Box that I scored on eBay. It’s just like the one they use on Ghost Adventures. I haven’t practiced with it yet because I am scairt to use it in my house. It probably only says “Kill Zak” anyway.

The SB7 came with a bonus “laser grid” pen, that I think is for detecting motion. It’s kind of fun, but it came with a poorly worded note that said not to use it in cooler temperatures without “warming it up in your pocket” first. We’ll see how long it lasts before turning into a ghost itself.

Our first official post will be on the 17th. Follow us on our rockin’ shockin’ new adventure!

*********************************************************************************

Grace’s Parting Shots (HH)17

A few of Grace’s favorite photos from the trip-

Epilogue (HH)16

Final Destination (HH)15

We had all day free to roam around Wheeling before the tour of the prison that night. To see the splendors of Wheeling. Wheeling. So we slept in as late as possible, and decided to shop a little bit.

On top of the next hill over was a Cabela’s. Grace had never been to a Cabela’s, and was duly dazzled by all the acres of camouflage items.

Ever feel like you’re being stalked?

And behold the Upside Down Starefish! Look into its evil eyes-

It seems to say “Look at those hideous creatures gaping and walking by, bedecked in camo!”.

After an afternoon of rednecky-good shopping, we rested up a bit, bundled up and headed for Moundsville to the West Virginia State Penitentiary.

After a light dinner at the local Perkins, which I have to say was THE place to be on a Moundsville Saturday night, we searched for our destination in earnest.

We used the map feature on my iPhone to find it, and we were driving in the residential area of downtown Moundsville when the map said the destination was ahead on our left. We thought it might be wrong, but lo and behold, there it was, an imposing gothic prison, slap in the middle of town.

The pink lights don’t diminish the menacing air one iota.

The Penitentiary opened in 1876. The structure was originally built for 480 prisoners, but by the early 1930s it housed a total of 2,400. For almost 1,000 men, Moundsville’s prison was the last stop. Dozens were hung, several electrocuted, many more were murdered by their own kind. Then there were those who couldn’t take prison life and killed themselves.

Meet Old Sparky.

When we got there, we and the 26 other people on the tour wandered around the little museum and gift shop. I want this framed display of shanks to hang in my house-

I took this photo of “throat cutters” and captured the reflection of two fascinated tourists-

We took a 90 minute guided tour of the facility, ranging all over and including stories of the murders and events that happened in various spots. You had to bring your own flashlight, or your ass was in the dark. The paranormal hotspots were supposed to be the kitchen, solitary, maximum security, the sugar shack, and psych ward, though so much violence went on everywhere, you’re almost tripping on spirits no matter where you are.

The lady doing the tour has been doing these tours for fourteen years, and she walked confidently through the dark, using no flashlight.  She finished up the tour, then we all had free rein to go wherever we pleased.

But first, a terlet selfie-

That pompom is an antenna for picking up paranormal activity.

There were a couple of groups of young people and they were loud and boisterous, making it almost impossible to do any EVP recordings. Grace got a few hits on her M2 EVP app, but I got very little. Very heavy atmosphere, of course.

The gallows trap door-for many years the tour guides would pull a little handle-

Like the one in our guide’s hand here- and a dummy would come crashing through the trap door, hanging from a rope around its neck. They ended this practice when the dummy was decapitated upon falling through the door, thus freaking out a bunch of tourists. The irony is, the public hangings of inmates stopped here many years before because of the same incident-with a real human. Someone always spoils the fun. And what’s that white spot on that lady’s face? Orb!

A “calming” cell in the psych ward. The interior is pink.

Me descending into the “Sugar Shack”, an indoor recreation area for the inmates, where lots of sex and murders took place. The guide said that Zak Bagans from Ghost Adventures saw his breath down here and “screamed like a little girl”. To be fair, we watched that episode and I’d say the guide exaggerated his reaction. No one picks on Zak but us!

Grace in the “wheelhouse” that led up to the Warden’s living quarters. Ghost hunting is in Grace’s wheelhouse.

Cell art and glory hole. Don’t care to speculate on why it’s triangular-

Some more “art”, it is striking how similar my and this maximum security murderer inmate’s musical taste is –

-but I don’t have a glory hole in my room, at least.

Cell interior in regular cell block-

I took this after EVP said “mirror”, but don’t know what the significance is.

Gracieloohoo getting EVPS in the regular cell block-

Psych ward corridor-

Maximum security area where guards fixed the inmates food trays. There was a tapping noise near here that responded to us asking it to tap again.

This tour was a perfect finale to our Haunts and History road trip. The guided tour was informative and interesting, combining the best of statistics and stories, and then to get turned loose to ghost hunt and explore as we wished was a real treat. Most tours are restrictive and supervised. But not at the WVSP! You can shuffle through the infirmary, stand under the gallows door, sit on the toilets, utilize the glory hole, unsupervised, all with the signing of a waiver!

After our hour of “free time” wandering at will through the prison, talking to (seemingly) empty rooms and cells and dodging groups of teenagers singing “Folsom Prison Blues”, we raided the gift shop (nothing says ‘classy’ like a West Virginia State Penitentiary hoody!) and headed on back to the hotel for a Maker’s Mark at the hotel bar and laughing over the Ghost Adventures WVSP episode on the iPad.

A great ending to a great trip. The next day we drove back to the ‘Nati, full of whisky and French fries and stories, and probably transporting some attached “spirits” over state line

Wheeling toward Wheeling (HH)14

After a hearty colonial breakfast served on a metal plate by a tavern wench at the  Jean Bonnet, we had a visit with the resident goat then headed out for our final destination, Wheeling West Virginia.

On the way, we stopped at the Monroeville Mall located in beautiful (not) Monroeville, PA. The mall was where George A. Romero filmed his movie Dawn of the Dead. The internet said there was a small zombie museum and gift shop. A zombie gift shop. Full of zombie merchandise. One stop holiday shopping, here we come!

But nooooooo. The internet was wrong. The Internet. Imagine getting misinformation on the Internet. /sarcasm

It had closed a few years ago, leaving only this tragic laser tag sign to remind us of what once was.

I must say, the mall was pretty “dead” and the clientele did walk in a shambling, shuffling way, which was kind of them.

While searching the traitorous Internet to make sure we hadn’t missed something, I found a website that said the play land in this mall was called the Land of Make Believe and was modeled off of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood! All was not lost!

Um, yes it was.

Behold the sad patch of carpet where once resided Ex the Owl and Daniel the Tiger. But at least they had a tiny display about the show.

Fred Rogers fared better than George A. Romero did at this mall.

Uncle Stevie’s novel Christine takes place in the fictional suburb of Libertyville, Pennsylvania, which is adjacent to Monroeville. The Monroeville Mall is mentioned repeatedly in the book.

And the mall can’t take that away from me.

One of our goals for this trip was to visit the Pottery City Antique Mall in East Liverpool, Ohio, four floors of antiquey goodness.

When we arrived, it was well past lunchtime and we cannot antique on an empty stomach, so we scanned the depressing-assed streets of East Liverpool, Ohio for somewhere to eat. There were practically tumbleweeds a-blowin’. We finally found a local dive called Zada’s.

It looked like any other depressed river town bar and grill, so we had a seat. The server was eating at the bar, and informed us that she had to eat so she could take her antibiotics. I’d rank that in the top five for things one doesn’t want to hear from one’s waitstaff. But still we soldiered on. At least she wasn’t drunk.

We ordered the special, the Pilgrim Pitt sandwich (Pitt for Pittsburgh style, again, semantics, restaurant people!), turkey, cranberries, stuffing, sweet potato fries and cheese (’cause, why not?) on thick hand cut bread. It was danged good, we didn’t care how advanced the server’s consumption was at that point.

The antique store was pretty well organized, and vast. There were only a couple of shoppers and salespeople milling around. At one point, I saw this drum looking thing that was way on top of a cabinet rock back and forth alarmingly. I figured someone was on the other side fiddling with it and was about to get their head smashed in, so I went over so I could watch it happen. There was no one there, in fact, no one was in the room but us and we were nowhere near it. The drum thing had stopped moving, but the tag was still swinging back and forth and I checked to see if it was near a draft or vent and it wasn’t. Grace saw the tag moving, too.

Spookies always happen when one is not looking for it.

Grace also had a negative feeling at the antique mall about a certain area, her instincts were telling her to vacate, so she did. Something was giving off a scary vibe back there. Antique stores are kind of exhausting, all those objects with all their energy shouting all at once.

We bought a couple of treasures, and saw a lot of interesting and creepy things, not least of which was this lamp-

Which I wish I had room in my life for, I’d put it in my guest room.

And these three lovely ladies-

Blonde, brunette, or redhead? The blonde seems to have lost her bloomers.

We drove through lots of hilly construction, and arrived at the McClure Hotel in Wheeling, after driving over a creepy, see-through suspension bridge. If there’s one thing our experiences in Point  Pleasant taught us (besides you can be a drunk and own a business), it’s to be leery of creepy bridges.

We had dinner at DiCarlos Pizza, which was chosen from its walkability from the hotel. It’s a Wheeling local favorite, and they bake the crust and toppings then put the cheese on cold before they serve it.

It was surprisingly good, and all the cheese doesn’t come off in a sheet with the first bite like with melted cheese. I’m going to try to duplicate it at home.

We retired early to rest up in the non-haunted McClure Hotel, for tomorrow is the last hurrah of the trip, the Twilight Tour of the West Virginia State Penitentiary!

Leaving Gettysburg, Jean Bonnet (HH)13

We were told at the Dobbin house that a hot breakfast was served in the restaurant between 8.30-9:30 a.m. Ewww, earrlllyy. Their checkout was at 10 a.m. too, so no slinking to breakfast in a pajamas/yesterday’s clothes combination and getting ready later.

We got there at 8:45, and were seated in the corner with the creepy dolls-

On our way through the dining room, we both realized that seated at one of those  tables was the couple we entertained with our witty and loud Richard Gere-hamster discourse. You’re welcome.

By the time we got our breakfast, we had cleared the room. Maybe our reputations preceded us. The scrambled eggs were dried out and everything was lukewarm.

We were checked on several times and we got the sense that we were the last dogs hung from the B&B breakfasters and the staff had long been desiring our departure. We had barely gotten up from the table when the vacuum was wheeled down the hall by a scowling colonial-clad maid.

The Dobbin House restaurant ambiance and history was terrific, but almost every staff member we interacted with was terse. Maybe those mob caps are too tight, I dunno. We dubbed the Dobbin the Get-Your-Shit-and-Get-Out Inn.

Since the weather was more cooperative, we visited the Triangular Field and the Bloody Wheatfield battlegrounds.

The Triangular Field-guess what? A big bunch of soldiers died there. The bodies were reportedly three deep in some areas. It’s one of the haunted hotspots, lots of cameras malfunctioning, batteries drained and spooky stuff showing up in photos.

We split up and did some EVP sessions. I didn’t get much, and after a few minutes heard Grace laughing across the field. She was getting word after word on hers.

First she said “it must have been terrifying  that day” or something to that effect. The immediate response-

She asked if he had a girlfriend or wife, and what’s her name-

After sitting for a while on her EVP rock, Grace felt the need to find a potty. When she was thinking about this-

appeared on the screen. That’s when she laughed. I came over to see what the hubbub was, and we started to walk away. I asked if Grace’s buddy would mind if I took a rock from the field, immediately, this-

I took this to mean he didn’t give a fiddler’s fart, and I took a rock. We love a ghost man with a sense of humor.

We then drove to the Bloody Wheatfield. I won’t try your patience by telling you why it’s called that.

We wound our way back to town because we suddenly both decided we wanted to get a single toy soldier from this shop-

but none were handsome enough to tempt us.

We kept stalling, trying to make up reasons to linger in G-burg. We loitered at the tourist center by our homegirl Jennie Wade’s house, considering cannon shaped pencil sharpeners and sweatpants with “Gettysburg” emblazoned on the booty before finally giving in with a sigh and rolling on between the ditches.

Leaving Gettysburg was like leaving 7.058 wispy new friends behind. We didn’t get a ton of  paranormal “evidence”, but both of us fell in love with the energy and history of the place.

We are still both nursing sinus infections, and with all the trumpeting nose blowing and sodden “white flags” we’ve left a trail of, I’m surprised we didn’t attract a regiment of ghostly soldiers.

A fine blue mist of melancholy from leaving Gettysburg settled over A Car Named Su as we headed to Bedford, PA, to the Jean Bonnet Tavern and Inn.

The JB is easily the oldest place we have visited or stayed on this trip, dating to the 1760s.

Needless to say, lots of fascinating history to be had at this place. It was a fort during the French and Indian War, George Washington slept here, a revolutionary war traitor was hung inside the inn, as well as a horse thief. Two skeletons were found during renovations, one with a broken neck.

It’s supposed to be just teeming with ghosts. The owners seem to embrace the haunted history, listing ghost stories and staff and patron’s experiences on their website. Every single room has more than one entity in it, allegedly, ranging from revolutionary soldiers, to fine ladies, kids, and even the smell of sugar cookies baking. That one can haunt me anytime.

When we checked in, the manager told us that her son lives in the third floor apartment but he’s quiet and we wouldn’t notice he was there. We were to be the only guests in the Inn, and the only living souls there beside the attic dwelling son. One of the servers said she shouldn’t have told us about the son so we would hear footsteps above us and be scared. When the manager showed us the room, she pointed out a stack of notebooks, where guests wrote about their um, experiences, she said significantly. I began to gather that the JB has more than its fair share of ghost seeking tourists.

This is our room, #2-

It was lovely, with historically wonky floors that made every trip to the restroom an unintentional downhill sprint.

See the room across the hall? We were the only ones staying that night, so I ripped off their rocking chair in that room and put it in ours.

It looks like my chair at home, Olde Hickory, otherwise known as The Forbidden Chair because I don’t allow anyone to sit in it but me.

We ate a delicious dinner in the cellar dining room, (I took this picture this morning)

Then had drinks in the tavern upstairs where we captured this full bodied apparition standing on Grace’s shoulder-

The sweet server talked ghost with us, admired our ghost photo, and brought us the ghost photo album from the Inn.

We were doing an experiment where Grace would read all about the history of the JB and its haunts and I would read none of it to see if our experiences would be influenced by expecting something specific to happen.

We stayed up past midnight watching old Ghost Adventures episodes on YouTube on the iPad, then went to sleep. We both woke up numerous times and looked all around, but yet again, nada. Not even a dusty ghost fart. Quiet as a tomb, if you will.

Today I read the history and haunts for the JB. Our room was supposed to have, among other haunts, a spectral man rocking in the rocking chair. The room hadn’t had a rocker until I brought it in. And still the bastard didn’t show up. Skunked again.

But we did have a goat sighting on the JB grounds this morning. Now THAT we can see!

Heroines and Hamsters (HH)12

Yesterday in Gettysburg was a little rainy for tromping around battlefields and crouching under boulders. We went to the Jenny Wade House Museum instead.

One buys tickets for the museum at the gift shop. The boisterous middle aged lady manning the shop was wearing 1860s garb, but telling another worker about how she blew up Facebook talking about her anniversary. Eras colliding. She informed us the next tour would be in eight minutes, and to make sure we weren’t late.

We noticed an older gentleman in old timey garb slouched defeatedly on a folding chair when we first came in. At the appointed time, he stood up, eyed us suspiciously and started to tell us about the tour and what to expect, then led us outside to the house. He looked a little like an irritated Donald Sutherland.

Meet Bob the tour guide.

It was just Grace and I on the tour, so we got all of Bob’s attention. Maybe he thought he was wasting his time giving the whole 45 minute spiel to two tourists. But he had a rapt audience. Despite his surly demeanor, he was a great storyteller and tour guide. As we got more excited about the history of the place and asked questions and made comments, there was a physical change in his face. For the first 15 minutes or so, his eyes were barely open, one squinty and one just about shut. As we progressed, he seemed to wake up and looked quite normal at the end.

This was the best tour we have had so far on this trip. Jenny Wade’s story is fascinating and tragic, and the house and artifacts are so intact and well preserved. We really got a sense of what it would be like to be a civilian in the middle of that horrific battle.

The temptation for me on here is to ramble on and on about Jenny Wade, but here are as few details as I can curb myself to-

Jennie, her mother, her younger brother and a crippled kid neighbor boy left their home in central Gettysburg and traveled to the house of her sister, Georgia Anna Wade McClellan at 528 Baltimore Street to assist her and her newborn child. It was July 1, 1863, during the first day of fighting of the Battle of Gettysburg. More than 150 bullets hit the McClellan house during the fighting.

About 8:00a.m. on July 3, Jennie was kneading dough for biscuits when a minie ball traveled through the kitchen door and the parlor door of her sister’s house and hit her. It pierced her left shoulder blade, went through her heart, and ended up in her corset. She was killed instantly. While it is uncertain which side fired the fatal shot, some authors have attributed it to an unknown Confederate Sharpshooter.

Bob helpfully points out where the bullet that killed Jennie came through the door.

Now, picture the scene, the sister bed ridden from childbirth with her 5 day old baby,

her husband and all the men in the family off fighting the war, bullets whizzing through the windows (every pane was broken) Union troops demanding food and water for themselves and their horses, men screaming and dying in the yard. Jennie could hear the groans and screams of the wounded men at night and sneaked out to give them water. They ran out of bread and she was baking biscuits when she was shot.

Bob points out where Jennie died. She had that green door behind her to help shield herself. Didn’t work.

Here is a floorboard soaked with Jennie’s blood that someone had the foresight to pry up before the floor was replaced.

If they did that for me, it would be soaked with Cabernet and dog piss. Just sayin.

A shell came through the roof of the house

(The very shell)

but was a dud and thankfully didn’t explode. Union soldiers insisted that Georgia, the baby, Jennie’s mom and son and the crippled boy go to the cellar. Jennie’s mom insisted that they bring Jennie too, so they wrapped her in a quilt and brought her down. So there they are, crouched in the cellar on the dirt floor, with shells exploding and deafening cannon fire all around, Jennie’s corpse lying there with the biscuit dough still on her hands.

(Ghost Adventures filmed at the Jennie Wade House in 2008. Zak got his ass grabbed here in the cellar while trying to lie next to this mannequin. Perv.)

She is the only civilian casualty from the Battle of Gettysburg and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

By the end of the tour, Grace and I were both firmly crushing on her. We are full blown Jennie Wade groupies now. Wade-y Ladies, if you will.

When we emerged from the cellar at the end of the tour, we heard a gasp. We startled two looky-loo tourists that were peering down into the cellar. Imagine our white faces appearing on those dark stairs!  Those jumpy Gettysburg tourists again!

We had lunch at Hunt’s Cafe, where I rediscovered Lebanon Bologna. I had toured the  Lebanon Bologna Factory with Aunt Sissy and Becky when I was a kid. I must recommend to try some yourself if the opportunity presents itself.

Ah, modern times. No one bats an eye when you take a picture of your food. We never wasted real film on that back in the day. But I digress.

We set off toward Culp’s Hill. During the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3, 1863, Culp’s Hill was a critical part of the Union army’s defensive line. But we went there because Christine at the Doubleday Inn told us there was an Ohio regiment  monument there that mentioned Cincinnati on it, and because

as proper Wade-y Ladies we also had to see where Jennie’s hot childhood friend Wes Culp used to run around as a boy.

Keep an open mind. Try to picture him in a beanie with a plaid flannel shirt on.

We didn’t find the monument we were looking for, but got some cool snaps of some other ones-

Then we climbed this calf-muscle-crushing tower to see the view-

All ten visible feet of it.

When Grace was in G-burg when she was eight, she dropped her doll off this tower just to watch it fall. I gave her a wide path when we were at the top, though I doubt she could lift me. 😉

We ran into a friend at Evergreen Cemetery-

And saw some interesting headstones-

Check this out-

Here’s a c&p from the internets-“The Gettysburg Women’s Memorial is a tribute to the women of Gettysburg who served and suffered because of the battle. It depicts Elizabeth Thorn, wife of the caretaker of Evergreen Cemetery. At the time of the battle she was six months pregnant and caring for three sons and her elderly parents. Her husband was away serving with the 138th Pennsylvania Infantry, which was serving in Virginia during the Gettysburg Campaign.

During the battle Thorn and her family were forced to flee their home in the gatehouse, which was witness to hand-to-hand fighting on July 2nd. She returned to find her food and possessions stolen and dead bodies lying unburied everywhere.

As caretaker of the cemetery, she was ordered to begin burying casualties, Men were detailed to help but one by one they slipped away, unable to bear the work. The statue depicts a weary Thorn leaning on a shovel as she rests from burying 91 casualties from the battle.

Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter, Rose Meade, that month. The child was never healthy, though, and died at the age of 14. Elizabeth always believed the stress of the battle and her work burying its victims affected her unborn daughter.”

Stupid poopy men making Elizabeth do all that work. Still, I guess when there are stank bodies rotting all over your lawn, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

After ramblin’ round, we checked into our B&B, the Gettysburg Inn at the Dobbin House. This is the Dobbin House-

It was built in 1776 for Reverend Alexander Dobbin and is now a colonial style restaurant. We ate dinner there last night. We ate in one of the bedrooms on the top floor, which the hostess told the party next to us was the most haunted room. What, WE don’t look like WE need any spooky insider info?

Grace took this photo of the nifty bed-tables. It came out sepia toned, with no filter applied-

We ordered the Rum Bellies Vengeance drink with dinner-

There they are in the foreground, with me gazing wistfully at George in the background-

I must say, these drinks were STRONG. we finished our meal and headed down to the tavern in the basement of the Dobbin House to keep the party going (we only had to walk (stagger) across the parking lot to our room. Quit judgin’.

Gracing the tavern steps.

There, due to the rum drinks, this kind of mischief ensued-

-much to the non amusement of the sour tavern wenches.

We retired to our room, the Lee suite (traitors!) where, after spending many nights reading by firelight in historic inns and homes, we were pitifully chuffed about our ’90s era analog TV

And in keeping with the 1990s theme, we watched Pretty Woman. We were tipsily slinging mini twist pretzels around the room and having an intelligent and loud discourse on whether or not the old rumor is true about Richard Gere stuffing live hamsters up his ass, when we realized that we had neighbors next door. There was a 1.5″ gap under the door between our rooms, and it was clear they could hear everything.

 So we leisurely finished up our bestiality conversation and retired for the night, to dream of Wes and Jennie and Zak and try not to think about hamsters in conjunction with any of these people.

A Personal Aside from K (HH)11

The Haunted Train Case and Other Mildly Macabre Events (HH)10

Sounds like an Edward Gorey story, doesn’t it?

Day two in Gettysburg began with a drive to the Gettysburg National Military Park. As we walked up the goldenrod and ragweed lined pathway, fearing no evil, for Allegra was with us, we both simultaneously admitted that we didn’t really give a shit about going through the museum there. It’s so nice to travel with like-minded folk.

We had lunch again at Sweney’s Tavern. Gobble ye Goober Soup while ye may.

Devil’s Den and the Slaughter Pen sounded much more appealing to both of us. This is the site of some of the bloodiest battles. I’ll spare you all but one gory detail, lots of men died and the rocks supposedly ran red with blood.

View from Little Round Top, another battle site studded with monuments and cannons where, you guessed it, lots of troops were killed . The formation of boulders is the Devil’s Den, and the darker triangle in front is the Slaughter Pen.

I did a little EVP work in a little boulder cave on Little Round Top, and got “cause, past, struggle, go, out” so I did what I was told and got out of the little cave.

I felt drawn to a little “breastwork” defensive wall nearby, and asked about anybody who was there and what was their name.

I got the answer “green”. When I checked the nearest casualty plaque, there was a Pvt. George Green listed.

Coincidence? Yeah probably. But kind of cool if you keep your mind open. Don’t skeptic me out , bro.

We headed down the hill to The Devil’s Den, which is much more impressive than a photo can capture. After the battle, the bodies were stacked and stuffed all in and around these rocks, presumably because the ground was too rocky to bury anybody.

We settled into the Devil’s Cave area of the rocks to rest and soak in the atmosphere. Grace found a stone settee and I found a nifty leanin’ niche nearby under a big boulder roof.

A middle aged woman came up the walk with her husband. I heard them approaching, and knew they’d look in the “cave”. I didn’t want to startle them, so I called out “hello” when they came into view. The woman gasped and clutched her chest, and said I’d scared her to death. A lot of the tourists here are so full to the eyes of ghost stories that they’re a little on edge. We chatted for a second and then she took a picture of us with her iPad. (An aside-why do people haul those around and take photos with them? It looks dumb, like taking a photo with a steno pad.).

We were both quietly doing EVP sessions in our cave. I was asking if who I was talking to had a wife or girlfriend. Then I asked if he wanted one. Then, just to make Grace laugh, I asked I there were any chubby-chaser soldiers there. Ten seconds later, this was the EVP-

I shit you not.

There is a famous Civil War photograph taken in Devil’s Den called The Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter. It was taken three days after the battle. The photographers dragged a dead soldier over and staged it. The lengths artists go to…

We tried to recreate the photo with me as the dead soldier, but as Grace was blocking it and trying to get me to pose right (the lengths artist go to… ;)), we heard the inevitable approaching tourists, so we were trying to hurry so they wouldn’t see my 45 year old ass lying on the ground and playing dead. We kept laughing, so it took even longer. Grace got the picture, and I got up and was dusting off right before they got there. Turns out that Grace’s camera was on video, which made us laugh even harder. Here’s a screen cap of the smiling “corpse”-

At least Grace didn’t have to drag me over there…

We found the Irish Brigade monument, which is on top of the wooded hill near Little Round Top.

Photo of the Irish hound butt is mine. Grace is way classier than that.

While we were up there, all at once, in front and in back of us, we heard what sounded like many people running through the bracken toward where we were. We froze and looked at each other with excitement and fear in our eyes. It lasted for about thirty seconds, then two squirrels tumbled fighting out of the underbrush. Squirrels can be really loud and Civil-War-soldier-sounding, it seems. The noises still continued around us after the squirrel wrestling match ended, though.

Then it was time to check into the Tillie Pierce House Inn. Tillie Pierce was the daughter of the town butcher, one of the wealthiest families in Gettysburg. She was a teenager during the battle, and wrote an eyewitness account of what she saw years later.

Grace had booked us into the Tillie Pierce room, which really was her room back in the day, and reputedly the most haunted room in the Inn.

We were freshening up after we checked in that afternoon. Grace had her train case on top of the dresser with the lid open and propped against the wall. She was standing in front of it, and I heard two loud thumps, I thought she had dropped something hard onto the floor. No, right in front of her, the lid to the case went forward then back, like someone was trying out the hinge. The thumps were the handle striking the lid.

Now, the lid to the case drops back when you open it, there’s no spring in the hinge. There’s no way for gravity to make it go forward then back. We tried to debunk it many ways, by stomping on the floors or pushing on the dresser but couldn’t figure it out. I guess Tillie was checking it out.

We were the only guests in the Inn that night, and the owner or housekeeper don’t stay on site. We were given a key to the front door and pretty much the run of the place.

The guest book in the room was full of tales of ghostly goings on that happened to the previous inmates, the most common experiences being hearing footsteps in the hall or from the attic, a ghost cat mewing in the hallway, and waking to the coverlet being pulled off of one.

The downstairs parlor, dining and breakfast room were pleasant and warm feeling.

The gift shop was cute, but just where is the doll that’s supposed to be in that box? Where’s she scurried off to? Abe wasn’t looking, so he don’t know…

And Tillie herself keeps watch to make sure you don’t shoplift-

She looks like a tooth chipper. I can just see her taking off her Victorian ear-bobs to fight, can’t you?

The upstairs hallway is lined with old portraits and those stairs off to the left lead to the locked attic –

We had booked a “ghost hunt” with the Farnsworth House that evening. It was 90 minutes, included the cellar at the FH and a battlefield nearby called the grove.

There was only Grace and I on the tour. A 20 something costumed female guide gave us each a bag of equipment , told us how to use the stuff, (as if we didn’t know) and basically let us loose. She seemed nervous and indifferent, yet nice enough. We didn’t get one damned EVP, no answers to divining rod questions, nada. She and another guide told us some personal ghost stories and admired our ghost photo, so not a complete loss. But that’s OK, we still had Tillie waiting at the Inn!

We were both really wiped after our unsuccessful hunt, and being in the damp night air had taken a toll on Grace’s sinus infection. So we had a cookie in the breakfast room then went to bed.

I turned to Grace and said I was so tired that I kind of hoped nothing too scary would happen that night. She answered wearily- ” I hear you. I’m getting too old for this shit”, and we both laughed our asses off.

It was super quiet for a long time, and I stayed up until 2:30 listening for footsteps or cats. Nothing. We slept off and on, not resting much really.

No ghosts. But I personally can attest that Gettysburg has the cleanest damned streets in America, because the street sweeper vehicle went by, like, forty times.  You know those charming wavy glass wood windows? Noise-wise, they might as well not be there. The rest of the night, trucks, cars, and I even heard a damned  train go by. By about 5 am I wouldn’t have been surprised if a Roman chariot had clattered on down Baltimore Avenue. But no ghosts.

We have some theories about the footsteps at TTPHI. The antique wood bed frame in our room creaked and pinged almost any time you moved. This might account for sounds in the night. The acoustics are really odd in those old houses. And if one of us walked around in the bathroom the creaking floorboards definitely made a sound like footsteps in the hallway.

In the morning, the coverlet was pulled off my side of the bed. It is made of a silky, slippery material and is easily slid to one side when one gets up for the potty in the night forty times like I do.

 As Ghost Adventures would say, DEBUNKED!

 

You have me on the cat ghost though.

Doubleday Inn and Gettysburg Day 1 (HH)9

It was a shortish drive from Harper’s Ferry to Gettysburg, about an hour and  fifteen minutes. We stopped at a local grocery store on our way to stock up again on cold/allergy supplies. I started with a sore throat and sniffle on day three, and Grace started with the same thing a day or two ago. We are more like Snot Sisters than Spooky Sisters right now. I think we are allergic to history.

Grace made a couple of friends at the store, but left them both behind when she couldn’t decide between the Empire or the Rebellion.

Upon arriving in Gettysburg, we drove to the battlefields near our B&B, which included the Eternal Light Peace Memorial-

And lots of cannons, and battalion memorials all over. ALL OVER.

We all know the facts about the Battle of Gettysburg from school or documentaries or North and South and whatnot, but it is eerie to stand out there in those silent farm fields where thousands of men died horrible deaths. The three day bloodbath covered so much ground and involved so many troops, that there is hardly a patch of grass in front of the Shell station that doesn’t have a plaque or a monument or a resident soldier ghost.

We went back to town for lunch at the Sweney’s Tavern, which is part of the Farnsworth House Inn. We each had Slippy Chicken Pot Pie,

but I asked about the Goober Peanut soup because it sounded interesting. The sweet server brought us out a whole bowl so we could try it.

It’s chicken stock with peanut butter stirred in. Sound gross? It wasn’t. It was delicious, and I’m going to try to duplicate it at home ASAP!

Here’s the B&B we stayed in, the Doubleday Inn, which is spang on one of the battlefields, across from Iverson’s Pit, if you know your Battle of Gettysburg locations.

The Inn was built in the 1930s, but the stone fence in front is from the battle. The pictures I posted above of the monuments and cannons are right across the street.

We were walking around at dusk, snapping away in a general (not paranormal-seeking) way, when Grace snapped this pic of the wall and woods to the left of the Inn-

When she was reviewing her photos, she showed me something in the photo. See anything interesting in the woods, there, to the right a little?

How about now, zoomed in a bit?

We don’t want to be specific, we want to see if anyone else sees what we are seeing in the picture, as a control.  If you see something, dear reader, could you email, FB message, text, smoke signal one of us and let us know?

We went back into town to have dinner and drinks at O’ Rorke’s pub

When we got back to the Doubleday, we went for a short ramble/EVP session in the direction of the photo of the woods. We were griping about how cold it was, when we got two EVPs in a row-

“Accept weather”. In other words, shut up about being cold! 😉

Then I started taunting, saying Grace was a slave owner and that she beat her slaves and what did they think of hat? Grace protested, so I said I was joking and to forget it, I was trying to get a rise out of them. It immediately said “dangerous”.

We went on back inside the inn after that.

After a couple of beers by the fireplace,

we retired to our room. If anything happened in the night, we slept through it!

Pop and paranormal culture (HH)8

Family Guy ghost hunts at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum! Pete spotted it and sent me a picture-

Harper’s Ferry Day 2 (HH)7

 Around 8:15 yesterday morning we rolled out of bed and threw on enough clothing to appear decent at the breakfast table at our B&B in Harper’s Ferry. It’s always a little stressful at a B&B because one has to sit at table with strangers, and you don’t know if you’re going to get some prissy-pants old biddies, or hipster millennials or other horrors for table mates.

We were seated at a table for four with a young, adorable couple. We talked about dogs, (they have two Jack Russell Terriers, kindred spirits!), and after some inane chatter about who was from where and what we were all doing in Harper’s Ferry, the young fellow asked us if we had heard the news story about the man who died because he had a tapeworm that had cancer, which led to the young lady telling us about the 1930s era song Me and my Tapeworm, which Grace YouTubed right away, and soon we were all laughing, bonding over tapeworm tales and telling really bad jokes. A pleasant breakfast surprise after a train noise filled night (for me, anyway!).  We had fluffy berry pancakes and bacon cooked by one of the B&B owners, Chris, who endeared himself to us by using the word “fuck” before 9 a.m. and looks like a handsomer, less crazed Zach Galifinakis. Bonus!

 It was a fine gloomy day, and we walked a long way down the path by the Potomac River. Crossing the bridge meant we were in Maryland suddenly. If felt so different. 🙂

Check out the cool abandoned house-

That rock formation kind of looks like a skull, doesn’t it?

Now check out the photo anomaly that spontaneously occurred on the second photo-

WoooOOOO’

Leaves we like.

The house just kept getting more photogenic…

Here’s how that damned noisy train got into town-

Game-for-any-nonsense-of-mine-Grace and I made one last attempt to smoke out the Gypsy Sisters. I know that Nettie sells blinged out flip flops at a flea market near Martinsburg, so we drove a little ways to Charlestown to the Gypsy Flea Market. Not a Stanley in sight. Skunked again.

We had a localvore dinner at the Canal House restaurant in upper Harper’s Ferry, then went on the Ghost Tours of Harper’s Ferry tour. It met at St Peter’s church.

As we waited the last ten minutes before the tour and more and more people arrived, a lot of them snotminers and even an infant, our hearts sank.  We had doubts as to how much we would enjoy this tour. There were about 40 people.  Also, our guide, Rick, said he was a historian, which in my experience means a bad storyteller. He also implied that he didn’t believe in ghosts.

I was right. Rick wasn’t a good storyteller. He was a GREAT storyteller. Being a historian he would give us the true story, then tell what people had experienced at the sites.

One of the best stories was about Dangerfield Newby, one of John Brown’s raiders on Harper’s Ferry.

His father was a white slave owner, his mother was a slave. He was given his freedom by his father, along with his mother and six siblings.  He joined the raiders because his wife and children were still enslaved and John Brown promised him he’d help Dangerfield get them back.

He was the first of the raiders to die in the raid on Harper’s Ferry. Here’s the scoop-

On 17 October 1859, the citizens of Harpers Ferry set to put down the raid. Harpers Ferry manufactured guns but the citizens had little ammunition, so during the assault on the raiders they fired anything they could fit into a gun barrel. One man was shooting six inch railroad spikes from his rifle, one of which struck Newby in the throat, killing him instantly. After the raid, the people of Harpers Ferry took his body, stabbed it repeatedly, and amputated his limbs. His body was left in an alley to be eaten by hogs.  Creative sonsabitches, weren’t they? Here is where it happened-

The ghost of Dangerfield Newby paces slowly up and down the alley, all in black, head down. If you approach him, he will raise his head slowly, gaze at you with those sad blue eyes, and then you notice the gaping wound in his neck…

The tour was 2 hours long, Rick told the tales, acted some parts out, and even sang a few songs. The snotminers were better behaved than the adults. No one was obnoxious or asked dumb questions. Best $14 we ever spent.

After breakfasting and discussing reality TV with our favorite new breakfast buddies again this morning,  we had to depart Harper’s Ferry. Here are a few parting shots-

The Stone House B &B is the one with the porch on the front.

A picture of Grace doing what she does best.

Up the hill in lower H.F.

In case you couldn’t tell, that’s John Brown’s Fort.

We loved Harper’s Ferry, (except for the TRAIN), but it’s time to head to… GETTYSBURG!

Heading to Harper’s Ferry (HH)6

The drive between Elkins, WV and Winchester, VA was through the real Appalachian mountains, twisty and turny and outright gorgeous. Inspired by a Louis CK bit about the overuse of superlative words,  we tried to exclaim over the beauty of he scenery without using the words “awesome”, “cool”, “wow” and “amazing”. Since what we saw were all these things, it was a challenging game to play. “That mountain overlook is so…peachy.” “Look at those groovy rock formations.”  Try this the next time you’re on a vacation in a scenic location. It’s harder than it sounds.

One of our stops was at the Cork Street Tavern, in Winchester, VA.

The restaurant building here dates back to 1827. Two ghosts are said to reside here, John and Emily. John Mann’s spirit wears a long black frock coat, and Emily’s voice is often heard calling John’s name. The ghosts play tricks by moving objects within the restaurant and occasionally lock a patron in the women’s restroom; one more of the many interesting things to note about this restaurant is that female patrons are said to stumble, but not fall, every day upon entering a certain part of the old section of the tavern.

We walked into a small bar area and were asked if we wanted smoking or non smoking. Since we wanted nonsmoking, we were instructed to go back outside and go down four doors to the non smoking section. As we turned to go out, a grizzled old man in a bucket hat seated at a table of similar characters said “Hello Ladies”. We  said hi, then turned to go out. We heard them talking through the open window as we walked past- “I would have sworn they had smoking written all over them”. Spooky girl=pothead in the Virginia territories for some reason.

Nothing paranormal happened, we had a good meal and good service. I tried to get locked in the terlet, to no avail.

Grace saved the day by managing to stumble on our way out. WoooOOOO!

Winchester is the quaintest, cutest little colonial town. Here’s the historic shopping district-

But one of the most interesting things that happened in Winchester was using the public toilet. It’s called an Exeloo. You had to pay a quarter, and the stainless door slid open like something in 2001 A Space Odyssey. One presses a button in the wall, and what HAL thinks is an appropriate amount of TP comes out of a slot. I disagreed with HAL, and pressed the button for more until he refused to give me more. The toilet only would flush after you wash your hands, more timed and measured units of paper and soap. There was a sign stating that the door would open on its own if one exceeded ten minutes,  which makes one picture all sorts of scenarios.  HAL will not tolerate dawdlers, so get yer business done quick.

Now this next excursion of our trip, I take full responsibility for. It’s neither haunts, nor history. It’s trashy reality TV related.  Since we were going to be near Martinsburg, WV, I wanted to try to catch some of the Stanley Sisters in their hometown.  Gypsy Sisters is one of my favorite TV programs. I figured when we got to Martinsburg, I’d recognize the businesses they frequent on the show, and I could gawk/stalk accordingly. Well, TV adds charm, apparently, because nothing looked remotely familiar. I should have written some notes all those times I binge watched the series again and again. I’m not a researcher, remember? I spew words! So no Stanleys for me. Grace gamely indulged me and tried to help me stalk.

We arrived in Harper’s Ferry around dusk, what a unique little historic town it is, nestled next to the Potomac River with  colonial brick and stone buildings all piled willy-nilly on a hill. It’s another sight that is difficult to translate to photo-I ripped this one off the internet-

Still doesn’t do it justice. We checked into the Stone House B&B, slap on the Main Street of lower H.F. and were advised by the lady owner that the restaurants close really early, but might be open later because Gordon Ramsay was filming a Hotel Hell episode up the street.

Sure enough, there was a film crew on one side of the street, with lights and cameras pointed to The Town’s Inn. We walked by the crew, and snapped a couple of photos and were told to “move along” and “don’t cross the street”, which got our blood up because they don’t own the damned sidewalk.

The only restaurant in town that was open was right across the street, and they seated is in the courtyard with a perfect view of the goings on. Take that, film crew Nazis!

Here’s a blurry shot of Gordon’s head through the window-

I don’t think I’ll be able to sell that one to TMZ.

Our room was on the top floor of the B&B, four historically bockety flights up, with comfy antique furniture, a view of town from one dormer-

And a view of this craggy hill, the Potomac and the railroad tracks from the other.

We ran my GhostRadar app when we got back from dinner. The green dots are supposed to be “anomalies” (ghosts) and  the app is like an Ovilus, it picks up EVP words. We were griping about how stuffed we were from dinner, when a dot showed up behind us.

Looks something like this, but was only one dot. Anyway, as it was moving through, it gave us these two EVPs-

Then the “dot” ran off. Called us fat, then fled like a coward! Judgy spirits are the WORST.  🙂

You know those charming railroad tracks that were part of our view? Holy shit, it was the Red Ball Express all night. That train ran all night long, I mean, sometimes twice an hour. It was so close and so LOUD, it didn’t sound like the windows were shut. And they ALWAYS HONKED, or whistled or whatever. You’d no sooner get to sleep, you’d hear the train a’comin’ AGAIN. I don’t know if this B&B is haunted or not, the ghost would have to have a damned megaphone to make itself known over the train noise. “BOOOO!! BOOOOO, I SAID!”

I made up songs to amuse myself when I would be awakened again by the train- Freight train Freight train, rolling so fast, freight train freight train, you can kiss my ass…

But knowing we got to explore Harper’s Ferry the next day got me through the night somehow, though with very little sleep.

 Grace was surprised when I told her about the all night train show. She never heard it all night, she thought the trains stopped running at 10:30 pm.  She sleeps like the dead! No wonder she doesn’t see ghosts standing at the foot of her bed anywhere, they can’t wake the biotch up! They’re probably blowing ghostly trumpets in her face, and slapping her around, but she sleeps so soundly she doesn’t know!

Keys and Crazies (HH)5

We pointed A Car Named Su (Grace’s Subaru) toward our next haunted destination. I’m not sure what was more amusing, hearing Grace carefully enunciating as she asked Siri for directions to the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, or hearing Siri repeat it back in her posh accent.

Before we found the asylum in Weston, WV,  we stumbled on this magnificent library whilst looking for a place to pee.

After using their facilities, we looked around the library a bit.

Kinda made us miss the old Southgate House.

Here is a random November violet I saw in their yard. Strange weather this year.

Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum looms large as a destination in the paranormal investigation realm. And in real life. It’s massive. All the ghost reality show teams have filmed here, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Asylum. Ghost Adventures, if the show has the word “ghost” in it, they’ve wielded an EMF meter at the Trans Allegheny.

The asylum operated from 1864-1994. The main building is the second largest hand cut sandstone building in the world,  only exceeded by the Kremlin.

By the 1980s, the hospital had a reduced population due to changes in the treatment of mental illness. Those patients that could not be controlled were often locked in cages. The state built a modern faculty elsewhere, presumably without cages.

Though we were too late in the season to tour the inside, we called and asked permission to take photos on the outside. There was a white pickup truck that kept circling around and watching us , presumably to make sure we didn’t break in and check ourselves in.

We could not resist peeking into a few windows. If I were in the offices there that day, I totally would have banged on the door and scared the holy shit out of us. They really blew an opportunity there, if ya ask me.

Our lunatic looky-looing concluded, we headed to Elkins, WV, to stay at the Graceland Inn on the grounds of the quaint Davis and Elkins College.

Nice name. Beautiful mansion, huh? You’d never guess that it’s haunted by the spirit of a slave that was beaten to death and buried in the basement. There is also the spirit of a maid named Katie, and some stuffy old senator that haunt the place too. But what are they going to do to you, compared to Basement Guy? Clean your room spookily? Give a creepy speech? No, it’s Basement Guy you don’t want to run into. He has way more to prove.

Here are some interior shots of the Inn-

Those fireplace tiles remind me of Scrooge’s fireplace in A Christmas Carol. Maybe if we stare at them long enough, basement guy will leer back at us.

The elevator was the smallest, strangest elevator we have ever seen. It opened with a regular wooden door, and had about 4×4 feet standing room. It had red lines painted on the floor that you couldn’t breach or the elevator would stop.  I took one look at it and walked up the three flights of stairs, leaving non-scaredy Grace with the luggage in the lift. I did ride it later, sans luggage, and you could watch the wooden doors go by that led to the other floors.

Our room was called The Cosby Room. If a ghost offers to fix you a drink in there, say NO.

We walked into Elkins and ate dinner at the 1863 Grill, which sounds like a dark-lit old establishment with pub food and tankards of ale, right? It was a well lit barbecue joint, no booze, and had excellent baked beans. The kicker? Cinnamon rolls served after your meal.

 Piping hot cinnamon rolls, saturated with real butter, the center melted in your mouth and the edges were chewy crisp. Did I mention the top note was BUTTER?   I almost had to have a cigarette after…

Later that evening we walked down the hill to Walgreens to get some supplies (booze). As we walked across the grass toward the crosswalk, Grace took the hotel key out and the little chain broke off the key chain, leaving just the wooden fob and no key. We searched in the goose shit riddled grass in front of Walgreens for about ten minutes, using our phone flashlights hoping to catch a glint. Several Elkins natives walked by or parked in Walgreens, and no one offered to help. One super thoughtful woman hollered “What are you looking for, mushrooms?” over her shoulder as she walked past. I have to say, if we had been in Point Pleasant and looking for that key, every drunk bastard and rambling server in town would be out there helping us. We didn’t find it that night, and returned in daylight the next morning and didn’t find it then either. It’s like the earth opened up and swallowed that key. We never figured we’d spend more time key hunting than ghost hunting.

We did spend some time creeping around the hallways at Graceland that night. We sat in the billiard room while I did the blog and Grace fixed some of her photos. While spooky in atmosphere, not a whole lot happened. I thought I saw Grace’s styrofoam cup full of wine (we classy) move two inches to the left, but chalked it up to phone/blog blindness because there was no way for it to move without making a noise. As the Ghost Adventures team would say, DEBUNKED.

So, other than the great goose poop key hunt, uneventful. We had a good nights sleep in a beautiful mansion. Needless to say, we didn’t take the psycho elevator down to the dirt floor basement. Mama didn’t raise no fools.

Come play with us…(HH)4

Blennerhassett Boos (HH)3

Parkersburg is the home of the Blennerhassett Island Historical Park and the Blennerhassett Museum. Meet Harman Blennerhassett.

Harman Blennerhassett was from England, and he left in the 1790s to conceal the fact that he married his niece, Margaret.

Ewwwww!

He and his niece/wife built a huge mansion on an island in the Ohio River near what is now Parkersburg back in 1796. They entertained the creme of colonial society, and were big buddies with mah boo, Aaron Burr, and became entangled in the infamous treason trial with him. By the time the long trial was over and Mr. B was released from the state pen, his family was ruined financially and never returned to their island home. The B family and their descendants then became the most luckless bastards you ever heard of.

Mr B sank what little money they had left into a cotton plantation, effed that up, lost the plantation, then a family friend who was a judge in Montreal was going to appoint Mr. B to be a judge there. Yay, the salvation of the Blennerhassetts, right? Wrong. The friend died of an infection from a fox bite before he could appoint Mr. B.  Luckless bastards. Eventually, Mr. B, his niece/wife and their kids/great nephews trudged back to England to sponge off their relatives and die melancholy and gruesome Victorian deaths.

But look at the really cool museum they have named after them!

Apparently one can take a river boat to the island and tour the replica mansion (the original mansion burned to the ground in the early 1800s due to a hemp fire. A hemp fire. Luckless bastards.), but we were too late in the season to do that.

We liked this museum more than a friend. What’s not to like? Lots of B family artifacts, mah boo Aaron Burr’s death mask-

And Victorian hair wreaths-

And mourning jewelry, old tombstones, creepy old portraits, ancient, curious household items and farming equipment, wedding dresses on mannequins-

Lots of scary antique dolls and toys-

What fun it would be to be here at night, when the museum is closed, crouched in a corner with those dolls grinning at you with gleaming teeth, those blinky eyes click click clicking open and shut, the sound a little closer,, now a little closer, bride mannequin limbs creaking as they waltz in the dark, the dulcet tones of the wraith of Harman Blennerhassett falling down the stairs again and again…  But alas, they made us leave in the daylight.

We checked into the Blennerhassett Hotel, which is the main reason we are here.

It is loaded with ghosts. It’s a classy place, but they have a whole page dedicated to cataloging the hotel ghosts on their website. Never hurts to mix in a few ghost chaser dollars with the business conference money, I suppose.

There’s a grey suited ghost, ghost kids that play tag and run down the halls, a “turn of the century newsboy” that tugs on the cooks sleeve in the kitchen, the “four o’clock knocker” that knocks on the coffee bar door at 4 a.m. and a ghostly party in the ballroom (sounds like the Overlook! UNMASK, UNMASK!).

We took a walk in town, there were some amazing Victorian mansions but we waited too long to eat lunch and were too hellbent on finding food to stop to take photos.

We discovered a vintage toy store where I scored some Fisher-Price Play Family people for my sister Tracey, who collects them.

We especially liked these twins, who we dubbed Blindy and Blondy-

After dinner at the hotel restaurant and and a jaunt to Krogers for some supplies (booze) we retired to our well appointed but not spooky room. Not a knock on the door at four or a peep from the tag playing hallway ghosts did occur all night. Our scheduled ghosts must have been bitten by a fox.

Our first destination was Point Pleasant, WV, home of the Mothman. For the uninitiated, in November of 1966, two young couples were  going for a drive (looking for a place to make out) in a remote area in Point Pleasant. They all saw a dark humanoid figure with huge wings and red eyes that gave chase and flew alongside their cars as they sped away. This creature was spotted several more times in the weeks that followed by different witnesses. 

A year later, December 15 1967, the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant collapsed during rush hour, sending 46 people to their deaths in the cold Ohio River. The Mothman wasn’t seen again. It is thought his appearance was a portent of the disaster. 

 

We rolled into town in time for lunch, and chose the Iron Gate Grille, a historic looking local tavern. I ordered the Mothman sandwich made with imitation Mothman fillets (nah – ham and cheese melt with olive “eyes” attached with toothpicks to the top) and Grace ordered a Caesar salad and a glass of house red wine. The server seemed flummoxed as to what wine that was, and there was no wine list.

A few minutes later, a disheveled looking man comes staggering out of the back and toward our table. I thought a homeless person had sneaked into the restaurant and was going to ask us for change.

Instead, he begins questioning Grace about what kind of wine she wanted, saying the “JK” wine was the house red and that was $10 a glass. At least that’s what we guessed he was saying. He was clearly tanked and was slurring slightly. After many miscommunications, he and Grace came to an accord about the wine.

Then he asks us where we are from, and upon discovering we were from Cincinnati, slurs his dedication to the Bengals and shares a charming story about a game he went to where the usher was a  “deaf girl” and then mimicked the way she kept saying “no smoking” in a half drunk, half Family-Guy-does-Marlee-Matlin voice, repeating the line about six times and laughing uproariously after each time. I could not meet Grace’s eye, because I was afraid we would bray laughter like a donkey, and this guy seemed to be teetering between funny drunk and angry drunk. Finally he went away, hollering “no smoking” and guffawing all the way back to the kitchen. I think he was the owner.

We were staying at the Lowe Hotel, right across the street from the Mothman statue and the Mothman Museum (which touts itself as the WORLDS ONLY Mothman Museum). The hotel was built in 1901. It plays host to a plethora of ghosts, not least scary of which is one of a little girl that rides her tricycle around the halls.

After we left Drunk Guy Bar and Grill, we drove down the street to park by the hotel to check in. As we exited our vehicle, two men in a parked car near us asked us if we wanted to smoke. We ignored them. They inquired twice more as to our willingness to smoke with them, until we were forced to just say no, like Nancy Reagan taught us to, so many years ago. We went inside and were greeted by a friendly, heavily intoxicated desk clerk who blearily, yet somehow manically gave us our key (a wonderfully old timey skeleton key it was) and made a few local recommendations.

After freshening up, we walked across the street to the Mothman Museum (the ONLY one!), which was pretty OK, and when we were done, the friendly guy at the counter gave us directions to the TNT area (where the sightings began). He was lucid and friendly, and reeked of liquor.

In case you’re keeping track, that makes three for three local business proprietors in Point Pleasant that were intoxicated before 4 in the afternoon.

At the TNT area, we admired the pretty pond. Which we read later is a toxic waste dump. I’m surprised it wasn’t full of Jagermeister.

After a pleasant sunset walk along the Ohio River where all those nice people perished after holiday shopping 49 years ago, we walked back into town to eat dinner. As we passed what looked like an old time soda fountain but was puzzlingly called Harris Steakhouse, a friendly older lady waved and smiled to us from behind the counter. We were lured in by this gesture of friendliness and the Mothman on the logo.

We didn’t notice the piles of newspaper and sundry restaurant items kind of piled up in the corners until we were well inside and committed. The walls were papered with greasy, dusty children’s drawings of the Mothman. 

It was kind of like dining in your hoarder granny’s attic. But we thought, what the hell.

An older man sitting in the back of the room alternated between coughing tubercularly, breathing heavily and regaling us with stories about the Reds and the local WPA high school he used to work at and the ghosts therein.

A nice elderly woman asked us where were from, and told us she lived in Cincinnati and loved it, and that her husband worked for the electric company and they always had to move whenever she got settled in a place. Three minutes later, she told us the same story again, word for word.

We ordered a Mothman Burger to split, and it was damned good. The trick to enjoyment was not to picture the state of the kitchen based on the state of the dining room. When it arrived, I asked the server/cook/owner Carolyn if the locals minded the Mothman tourists. She sat at the table across from us and gave us a ten minute monologue about city council, the Turtleman, the flood wall walk, festival parking concerns, and the intolerable situation of the Chief Cornstalk statue being formerly located behind the park restrooms.

At this point in the day, we were  so relieved that she seemed eccentric and not intoxicated that we settled cozily into the Naugahyde booth and embraced the crazy.

Then a woman came in with another party and was introduced to us as Chief Cornstalk’s great great great granddaughter. We all chatted for a few minutes before we cleared a spot at the counter to pay our bill. I have to say, we felt like locals in the know by the time we left, except not the drunk part.

We visited with the Mothman and his buns of steel for a bit before going back to the hotel.

We were going to wander the halls of the hotel looking for ghosts, but decided that we had enough strange encounters for one day.

We breakfasted at Tudor’s Biscuit World on the outskirts of town. After we ate, I wondered aloud about getting a coffee to go and a lady from another table kindly answered my question. This is another Point Pleasant theme, people jumping into your conversations (albeit in a helpful way) from across a restaurant.

The young man who got our free coffees commented on my purse. I told him it was Edgar Allan Poe on it. Turns out, he had read Poe extensively and referenced an obscure story that I hadn’t heard of. Never judge a book by its Tudor’s Biscuit Workd smock. And he wasn’t drunk.

Point Pleasant, despite most of the locals starting drinking at noon, is a quirky, hospitable, friendly town where the town folk really plugged all the local sights and businesses. The town is truly weird, it doesn’t have to “keep” itself “weird”. It is weird without trying. We think it does the Mothman proud. 

Strangeways Here We Come