SAVANNAH ORBS?

Hello all:  Yes, I know I haven't posted in a long time, stuff happens, what can I say?  But we're back on the road again and spent a jolly night digging up ghost stories in the celebrated haunted town of Savannah, Georgia; a most beautiful city, by the way.  While out and about with my Sis-In-Law Deb, we were directed to a few particularly haunted homes in the downtown Historic District, and these pictures I took show several orbs hovering around and above the homes.  

This house above is a particularly haunted home, said to be the most haunted in Savannah.  There were several grisly murders there and the house has remained unoccupied since then, in the 1950's.  That bright moon-looking object up at the right is not the moon, and is invisible to the naked eye, so what is it?  

What are they?  Some believe they are the physical manifestation of spirit energy, another words ghosts, and some believe it's a dirty camera lens.  But . . . 

. . . using the same camera a minute later on a different home that wasn't purported to be haunted, no orbs show up.  All I did was make a quarter turn and took the picture of a home very near.  Nothing.  Hmmm.  I got some interesting shots of orbs at the most haunted locations, so it makes me think that some kind of energy is engulfing these homes, and I find my change in opinion about orbs interesting as well.  I was always in favor of the dirty lens theory or dust particles showing up on the photograph.  Except how do you hold onto the idea of a dust particle when there are orbs the size of these in the following pics . . .

We stopped by 'The Pirate's House' which was built in the 1730's!!!  This eating establishment is not to be missed if you're ever in Savannah, if for no other reason than the amazing history there, including its claim to be the inspiration for Stevenson's classic 'Treasure Island' and its Captain Flint, who was a very real patron there.  Robert Louis Stevenson spent a fortnight in the area and decided to stay a very long time, as the locals say, to write his book.  While we were there we got more orbs in our photos.  So as you would conclude; yes, this place is very haunted as well! 

Spotting orbs in my photos isn't at the top of my weird-o-meter list compared to what else I've seen and experienced, but it did put a nice capper on an already fantastic evening.  Please at some point in your life make the effort to give Savannah a few days of your time.  You won't be disappointed!  Later, all.  

John's been denied critical medical test!

Family and friends, please read and heed!

While some are so busy raving about Obamacare and how no one can be denied coverage (even illegals,) maybe it’s time to really think about assessing its merits, about exactly what 'coverage' you will get, especially when its effects hit this close to home!  Insurance companies aren’t going to sit idly by and lose billions of dollars over Obamacare, and are finding new ways to absorb these tremendous extra costs.  Ever hear of death panels?  They are real, folks!  Emails have been going around for quite a while detailing various American’s dilemmas with being denied life-saving procedures or surgeries because of their age, etc.  Now it has come home to John.  That’s right, John, who has been having this annual test for five years since his three heart-attacks and five stints.

John called his cardiologist’s office to set up his annual physical and nuclear stress test and was informed that it is now disallowed by Arizona Blue Cross/Blue Shield, as well as any other insurance company that they are aware of, stating this is directly due to Obamacare . . . the insurance companies are cutting costs by denying more and more life-saving tests/procedures.  The nuclear stress test is so critical because it is the one diagnostic test that definitively shows potential blockages going into and out of the heart . . . and can thereby prevent a heart attack, and it is the test that is directly responsible for John being alive and well today.  They shoot the nuclear material in his vein before he steps on the treadmill, and they take a detailed picture before the stress test, during and after the heart has rested when the test is over.  If they find damage or blockage (which they have in the past because a few years ago John was clogging up faster than the kitchen sink) then they call for further tests, mainly an Angiogram.  Because of the combined benefit from these tests, the resulting stints and medicines John was put on, he is fine and has passed every annual test with flying colors.  But that doesn’t mean his situation couldn't change.  So in a nutshell what the insurance company is saying is: So sorry, not allowing this preventative diagnostic test, John . . . and what they are really hoping for is that John will just drop over with a heart attack and die . . . save them any additional expense.   

This test, now that we are forced to pay for it out of pocket, is outrageously expensive!  And THIS after we already pay $1,000 a month for a personal group insurance major medical policy with a $5,000 deductible each, and after we received a notice three months ago from Az. Blue Cross/Blue Shield that, exclusive of the annual birthday threshold increase and annual cost basis adjustment they make, they were raising the whole groups' rate per month to cover ‘Recent unforeseen cost expenditures.’  Our added monthly premium amounted to $300.00. About a 40% hike in our rates out of the blue.  We jumped from $700.00 a month to $1,000.00.  Now we’re being denied a vitally important test which would alert John’s cardiologist if John needs further care to prevent another heart-attack. 

Frankly, John and I are livid.  You should be, too.  So please, friends and family, before you offer support or praise for Obamacare, ask yourself how you would feel if this were to happen to you personally, your spouse or your children!     John says, “Well, I've survived three heart attacks, so I guess we’ll just have to see if I can survive a fourth.”  We’ll see.

CREEPY IS AS CREEPY DOES!

Hello all:  

During a recent family conversation a subject was brought up that I wanted to share with you . . . a story . . . well, an experience my family had some years ago.  Despite everything that has happened to us as a family which could be labeled 'paranormal,' no experience has been as flat-out, Twilight Zone creepy/scary as this.  Even during this most recent discussion, my hubby, the girls and I were still scratching our heads and giving a little shudder over the experience, wondering just what the hell happened that one afternoon while we were four-wheeling?

We were camping at Alamo Lake in Arizona for the weekend, which is located in Southwestern Arizona.  The lake is surrounded by gently rolling hills which are covered in low profile desert vegetation.   These multitude of hills are crisscrossed with dirt roads from years of mining exploration and off-road exploring, or four-wheeling as Arizonans call it. Having gotten our fill of fishing for the day, we struck out in our Suzuki Samari late that afternoon to go explore the area.  We were fairly avid rock hounds with a long history of four-wheeling the Arizona back roads, and though the girls weren't overly excited about bouncing up and down on dirt roads in the Samari (very similar to a jeep with the stiffest of shock absorbers,) they were even less excited about the prospect of more fishing, so off we went.   

We found our first dirt road easy enough and followed it several miles to the crest of a long hill, and there it dead-ended.  We turned the Samari around and took a long appreciative look at the panorama of the lake below us in the far distance. The dirt road had a soft, almost sand-like composition and the tracks made by our SUV cut deep and clean in the dirt.  Our tracks should've been easy to follow back . . . except that when hubby made the u-turn and headed back down the same road following our tracks, about three miles down the road they abruptly disappeared, and a few hundred feet further the road dead-ended . . . again.  Okay, this was weird, but at this point we were only shaking our heads, confused.  We took a look at our position in respect to the lake. Yes, no doubt this was the road we'd come in on, so why didn't it go back to the main highway?  We u-turned a second time and . . . a few hundred feet back once again there were no tracks, on the same road we'd been on all this time.  And our u-turns were very tight, we weren't meandering around in long loops.

We all exclaimed in unison, "What happened to our tire tracks?  Where'd they go?"  as we progressed along the road.  We finally got up to the same crest of the hill, still with no tracks before us, and this time the road kept going out into the desert wilderness.  Now what had happened to the dead-end?  By this time it was getting a little too close to sundown and we were all getting a little too nervous.

"There's the damn lake right there- we can see it," my hubby gestured at our front window as once again we turned around along the crest of the hill.  We weren't venturing a foot further into Alamo's eerie Bermuda Triangle.  "So help me, if I have to I'm heading straight out through this desert towards the lake!  I'll get us to that main highway!  To hell with these bizarre roads!"  I asked him to please not do that, not yet, because there were too many moguls and bushes which made it unsafe in my opinion to just strike out through the desert.  Without a dirt road we wouldn't be able to tell what kind of drop-off might be over the next ridge.  I could tell my hubby wasn't giving deference to my request for long, especially when he snapped back with, "I'm not gettin' us stuck out here in the dark in this Twilight Zone!"  The girls had started whining from the back seat, obviously I was getting more out-voted with each passing minute.  

Halfway back down this same main dirt road, which, by the way, did show our prior tire tracks this time, there was a suddenly a road branching off where there had been no other side road before.  Hubby took that road . . . and there were our tire tracks!  Aarrrgh!  Now our family unit was getting seriously creeped out.  We took that road off in a direction paralleling the crest of the hill and . . . it dead-ended!  We u-turned around again, following our tracks to the main road and turned right, back towards the lake.  Several hundred yards further and we found another off-shoot road that also hadn't been there before, so we took it next . . . all the way to where it dead-ended.  By now our whole family had a case of the jitters as we watched the sun slide behind the mountain and the landscape grow sinister with creeping shadows.  I stole a sideways glance at hubby's expression and I knew we were going four-wheeling for real.  We turned around in a u-turn one more time and followed our tracks back to what should have been the junction with the main dirt road, but there was no junction.  No junction! This time this small secondary road went all the way back to the main highway! WTF????????

My hubby let out a string of expletives which my girls are still fond of using to this day!  We have no explanation for what happened out there in that desert; what kind of phenomena we bumped into.  Some kind of energy vortex?  It felt like a parallel universe.  Your guess is as good as ours.  There were no other tracks besides ours on those roads to have misled us.  There wasn't one second of this hour-long tour de farce where we weren't absolutely sure of our location and the road we were on.  We could see the lake and our position to it at all times, for Pete's sake, which is what made the experience so frustrating.  And scary. Our tire tracks just kept doing a frightening slight of hand- now you see  'em, now you don't.  Roads kept changing under our tires, appearing and disappearing seemingly at will.

So, my friends, if you ever decide to venture out anywhere near Alamo Lake, take a compass, water, and a video camera!  You'll want to document your experience if you happen upon Arizona's Bermuda Triangle!  And tell someone where you're going . . . so they can send out a rescue party if you disappear!  Later, friends.   

MERMAIDS? INTRIGUING . . .

Hello all:  We have returned home from our vacation and it was wonderful, if for nothing else than the fact that hubby's internal parts held together just fine through the trip and there were no emergencies to contend with, other than losing our kitty along the way to kitty AIDS. That cut deeply, but the trip was so much more than that one heartache.  It was the best trip we've had in a long time.  Spent treasured time with family and went on many new adventures, including finding the final resting place to pay my respects to some of my relatives I  never knew. Now I'm home and settled in for five minutes,  and though slightly embarrassed to admit it, tuning into a show that sounded completely far-fetched. While making sure I was alone in the living room last night I watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel about mermaids.  Seriously.  I'm still shaking my head.  A show claiming to have had actual remains of a mermaid as well as capturing one.  Notice I used the word had.

I have to say after watching the two hour special, some of their evidence is compelling, no doubt.  And mermaids seem to be woven through our cultural depictions all the way back to caveman walls. Could another parallel species of humans have evolved under our oceans?  Isn't that intriguing to imagine.  Why not?  If so, then the next question I would have to ask is are they thriving, or struggling?  I would guess the latter, because man is delving further and further into the domain of the deep, making it harder for anything to continue its existence undiscovered.

The documentary made a plausible hypothesis of how man and mermaid could have split apart on the evolutionary chain, one taking to land, the other finding their best chance for survival under the waves.  I studied the antique photographs they had depicting large whales and sharks pulled from the ocean with intricate spears sticking out of them of unknown origin. I watched the videos highlighted in the show; a boat of fishermen in some South American country (I think it was South America) dragging up a web-handed creature in their net and so shocked they dropped the net back into the sea; a video showing South African officials raiding the scientists' office and carting off all evidence; a sonar blip of a webbed hand slapping against the lens, and finally the cell phone video taken by a boy on the beach here in the U.S. showing a beached and trapped mermaid lunging at the boy as he poked at it with a stick.  Pretty awesome looking stuff . . . and yet . . .

  

My skeptical side lumps this in with Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster.  Even with the impressive videos and build up of facts given by those interviewed in the documentary, I find myself drawing the same conclusions . . . why is it that with all documentaries of this sort, physical evidence is nonexistent?  Either there never was any to begin with, or it has been lost, confiscated or destroyed, so all you are left with is a convincing video and some scientist or intrepid explorer swearing on camera that what they experienced was real to the max. Some argue that a video is physical evidence.  I'm sorry.  Perhaps I lived in the 'show-me' state of Missouri in a past life, because even with all that's happened to me I still have to see things with my own eyes to fully suspend disbelief.  I am much more comfortable with concrete evidence.

These compelling videos make me gasp for a flash point of time and exclaim, "Hell, yeah!" until I remember that  Hollywood has made Superman fly, E.T. phone home and Thor make my heart go pitter-pat in triple time.  Making a seemingly irrefutable video?  Yeah, totally within their capabilities.   But if there really are mermaids coexisting with us on this largely unexplored earth, would I want one captured just to satisfy everyone's curiosity and my own skeptical nature?  Positively not. If by some miracle they do exist below the deep blue they need to be left alone to just . . . be.  The same right every human counterpart on land wants.  If they are there, I will paraphrase Tiny Tim's famous line; God bless them all, each and every one.  May they stay safe and untouched by mankind's destructive tendencies until if or when we are evolved enough to share our planet with them in peace.   Later, all!  

'Shawshank' Prison, aka The Ohio State Reformatory! WOW!!!

Hello, friends!  I had a stellar tingle travel up my spine as I stood at the outside perimeter fence of the Ohio State Reformatory, the filming location for ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ some scenes from ‘Air Force One’ and ‘Tango and Cash,’ and of course the boys from TAPS on ‘Ghost Hunters.’   This structure just can’t be captured in all its formidable beauty in pictures.  It was one of the most contradictory pieces of architecture I’ve ever seen; beautiful but barbaric, grim to the point of menacing but luring me in.  It was closed to tours (we missed the tour season by four days, aaarrrgghh) and yet one worker stopped at the front gate, radioing in to a guard to let him pass through; the gate opened and it was all I could do not to hop, skip and jump in behind him, camera and sis Deb in tow.  The only thing that kept me planted in my spot was wondering how we’d ever get OUT. 

The stone walls and iron bars are obviously still here, but so are 215 of the 154,000 who passed through OSR in its 94 years as a prison. Some sent to Mansfield have never left, resting (or not) in the graveyard just outside the fence.  There are numbered markers there, laid out row after row.  No names.  Most died from diseases like tuberculosis or influenza, but some perished from unnatural causes . . . from violence, which was all-too-common inside this prison.  And the worst of it occurred well away from the main cell block, which is six stories high and still remains intact to this day.  Apparently because there were so many witnesses in the cell blocks, the worst violence took place in their solitary confinement area deep underground, also known as ‘the hole.’  Away from prying eyes.   At least one inmate somehow hung himself deep in the bowels of the hole, another set himself on fire, and two men who were confined together in a single cell in the hole were kept together too long.  Only one came out alive, stuffing the other prisoner’s body beneath a bunk.

Since its closure, many swear that the spirits of tortured inmates who died in the prison fill the halls, unable to escape the prison's bars.  Even now, when those halls are empty and mostly in ruin, the overwhelming consensus is that something still walks here, restless and enraged.  Maybe it’s the spirits of those from the hole or the cells, but just maybe it’s Warden Glattke or his wife Helen.

The paranormal activity in the administration wing where Warden Glattke and his wife Helen resided is well documented.   Helen, while supposedly reaching for something in a closet, knocked a gun off the shelf close by and it hit the floor, causing it to fire a bullet into her chest.  How convenient. She died at Mansfield General Hospital from her injuries.  Rumors were aplenty that Warden Glattke actually killed his wife, but there was never enough proof to substantiate it.  Ten years later Glattke suffered a heart attack and died at the same hospital where Helen died.   Former employees attest that their bodies may have died in the hospital, but their spirits are still around the prison.

 

Today the reformatory is being slowly and meticulously restored.  A lot of work is going on there to keep this monumental structure intact for future generations to experience.  The Mansfield Reformatory Organization is working diligently to prevent any future deterioration, and they have plenty more information on the prison's history if you're interested.

BTW, if you feel particularly brave and are of a mind for travel in the next month, the last few days before Halloween they will reopen for 'ghost tours' - the mother of all haunted houses!  They are busy recruiting right now for ghouls and prop/make-up/costume help.  I would SO volunteer for this if I were going to be in the area!  But to go through the tour?  I'm afraid my ticker wouldn't stand it!  Later, friends!

Go, OHIO!

Hello all:  I've been enjoying spending several days in Wooster, Ohio with my close family.  Remember my sadness and frustration seeing the decay through parts of America while on this trip?  Well, hometown America is alive and thriving here in Ohio!  

Wow, the fields, the farms, the amber waves of grain, the . . . Amish? How cute it is to see their families out and about in their horse and buggy.  I've never encountered a friendlier group of people in all my travels. And no wonder.  They get up each morning, work hard and accomplish much, then go to bed saying to themselves, 'Sufficient Unto the Day.'

They don't worry about Democrat versus Republican, Obama versus Romney, gas prices or the state of the Middle East conflict.  Could I live that life?  Probably not.  But as I stare at their sunny warm, content faces as I pass by in my 21st century mode of transportation, I find myself thinking that, while America may not have been better off in the simpler era in some aspects, she certainly was more at peace.

As are these people, and I'm not just speaking of the Amish. Thank you, sis and hubby, for taking us around to see this blissful slice of beautiful America that soothes my saddened heart for the other parts that are so besieged.  The countryside exudes a quieter time and place and it puts me at peace.  Love to you both.  Later, friends.

THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD

Hello all:  We're cruisin' along the Great Lakes, first Lake Superior and now Lake Michigan, and I can't help humming the tune to Gordon Lightfoot's song; "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald."  When you start to see the scope of these lakes, the waves crashing to the beaches, no land as far as the horizon line on the opposite side, their sheer size makes Roosevelt Lake in Arizona look like a mud hole.  It suddenly becomes very believable that so many unfortunate ships like the Edmund Fitzgerald didn't make it across.  The pics below were shot at the very northern tip of Lake Michigan.  Can you hear the melancholy notes now?

  "The legend lives on from the Chippawa on down, 

of the big lake they called Gitche-gumee.

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead 

when the skies of November turn gloomy.

With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more 

than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.

That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed 

when the gales of November came early."

"The ship was the pride of the American side 

coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.

As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most, 

with a crew and good captain well seasoned.

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms 

when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.

And later that night when the ship's bell rang, 

could it be that north wind they'd been feelin'?"

"The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound 

and a wave broke over the railing.

And every man knew, as the Captain did too, 

twas the witch of November come stealin.'

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait 

as the gales of November came slashin.'

When afternoon came it was freezin' rain 

in the face of a hurricane west wind."

"When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck 

sayin,' Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.'

At seven p.m. a main hatchway caved in, 

he said, Fellas, it's been good to know ya.'

The captain wired in he had water coming in, 

and the good ship and crew was in peril.

And later that night when his lights went outta' sight 

came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

"Does anyone know where the love of God goes 

when the waves turn the minutes to hours.

The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay 

if they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized, 

they may have broke deep and took water.

And all that remains are the faces and the names 

of the wives, the sons and the daughters."

"Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings 

in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.

Old Michigan steams, like a young man's dreams; 

the islands and bays are for sportsmen.

And farther below Lake Ontario 

takes in what Lake Erie can send her,

and the iron boats go as the mariners all know, 

with the gales of November remembered."

"In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed, 

in the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral.

The church bell chimed 'till it rang twenty-nine times 

for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The legend lives on from the Chippawa on down, 

of the big lake they called "Gitche-Gumee."

Superior, they said, never gives up her dead, 

when the gales of November come early."

          Written by Gordon Lightfoot

The difference between life and death on the lakes can hang by a real short thread up here when Mother Nature gets in one of her moods.  Later, friends.