Category Washington

I was walking with a ghost

December 9, 2008 20 Comments read Attractions, Everything is Terrible, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

It’s no secret around these parts that I have a thing for roadside attractions. Yet for some reason, up until recently, I had neglected to check the Roadside America website for the strange and unusual in my own backyard. This is how I ended up at the Seattle Museum of the Mysteries on Saturday night. Also, how have I not been to see the troll under the Fremont bridge yet? Or to the Spite House?

It’s really a museum in the the very loosest sense. They have a few bookshelf displays–a couple on the history of the location, one on ‘Mel’s Hole’ and one on DB Cooper. The rest appears to be the results of a lifetime of collecting books on the paranormal and occult, with one lonesome plasma ball hanging out on a table.

We had arrived about 20 minutes early for that night’s lock-in, where we would be “participating in our ongoing paranormal investigation of our resident ghost, Peter Alexander Dunnovitch” by playing poker with him. But before that, we had to sit through the remainder of the ‘Ghost Hunter’s Meeting’ which registered at about an eleven out of ten, hilarity-wise. One group fervently espoused the need for psychics on the ghost-hunting team to ‘assist in pseudoscience by peering over the cliff of the known, where scientists dare not see’, while the other group indicated that no, they were scientists, and would do things scientifically. The first group countered that the second can’t rightfuly call themselves scientists if they’re not endorsed by, or members of, an official scientifc organization, to which the second group angrily retorted “Oh, so YOU can do science, but we can’t?” I was struggling between two major urges at that point: the urge to laugh maniacally, and the urge to blurt out “NONE OF YOU ARE DOING SCIENCE. I KNOW THIS BECAUSE I AM A SCIENTIST.” Another woman was also facing an internal struggle, and her struggle became quite clear to us all when she started snoring on the couch. Clearly, scientific debate doesn’t hold everyone in thrall.

After the ghost hunters cleared out, there were just three of us left–a ‘gun-toting republican ghost-hunter’, my date, and me, plus the museum employee. The museum employee (one of the psychic scientists) sat us down in front of the TV to show us a little bit about the history of the location as a prohibition bar, and afterward, she took us on a tour. As a psychic scientist, she had a lot of theories regarding just about everything. She had a theory that liquor was smuggled into the bar via the women’s club next door. She had a theory that a lot of the areas that were walled off, yet should’ve been accessible via the blueprints, were all secret passageways. She also theorized that these secret passageways have been backfilled at some point during the last 100 years. She showed us the inside of a closet, and theorized about the gap in the wall. She took us into the women’s bathroom, and theorized about a secret passageway. She talked about the exposed brick in the men’s bathroom and theorized further. So I wasn’t at all surprised when she took us through a cluttered service closet into a back alley and said “I have a theory that this is the most romantic spot in all of Seattle.” I know that when I am standing in a freezing cold, filthy alleyway blocked off by a chainlink fence topped off with razorwire, I think ‘true love’.

Next on the tour was the Harvard Exit Theater, which is supposed to be the most haunted place in Seattle, with employees reporting doors opening and closing by themselves and patrons reporting feeling someone fondling their hair, bathroom doors locking themselves, and ‘balls of leaves’ floating down the stairs. The psychic-using scientist also took a moment to theorize on why there were so many women’s organizations in one block, and what purpose they served in the community. After we went back to the museum, it was time for some ghost poker. Although I am by no means a spectacular poker player, I can hold my own, and was looking forward to playing for a while, ghost or no ghost. Had I known we were only going to play two hands, I would have bet more aggressively.

After our two hands (during which the ghost made no appearance, scientifically or otherwise), the tour guide had each of us draw a card, and said she would return in a moment. When she came back, she had us flip over our cards, and the person with the high card got to be the leader of a ghost hunt. Showing my natural inclination toward dominating others, I had drawn an ace and subsequently got busy ordering the other two around, as is my wont. The tour guide handed me a thermal video camera, I had the other two conduct a game of rock-paper-scissors to see who would use the EMF detector, and the other person became the Keymaster. This video–I can’t even begin to describe it. It was comedy gold. Our mission was to go into the women’s bathroom in the dark, do a baseline EMF scan around the room (noting that there are electical wires and whatnot around), then implore the ghosts of the women’s club to assist us in finding the secret passageway, and do another EMF scan. Afterward, we were to look in the mirror if we dared. It was clear on the video that we were all pretty uncomfortable, unbelieving, and out of our element, and the sarcasm flew fast and thick. The gun-toting-Republican-Keymaster asked the ghosts to do something to make him shit himself. We stood in front of the mirrors and chanted “bloody mary” and “candyman”, respectively. I wish to Cthulhu we’d gotten in some ‘light as a feather, stiff as a board’ and all of the other sleepover activities from my youth, but alas, we were short on whipped cream, sharpies, and a freezer in which to stuff people’s underwear. I further wish I’d been able to coerce the psychic-using-scientist to give me a copy of our footage. Since I wasn’t, here’s a picture of me and their Sasquatch.

Who wants to go back on ‘Weird Science’ night?

Certain Doom, AKA Welcome to Craptown AKA Mount Rainier part II

September 8, 2008 21 Comments read Attractions, Everything is Terrible, Masticating With Mellzah, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

On our way back from the mountain, Anne and I made a series of mistakes, culminating in disaster. I wanted to stop in the wee town of Elbe, to take pictures of the big spooky train and Hobo Inn for uncledisgusting. This was mistake number one.

It was around this time that we both realized that we were very, very, very hungry, and hey! One of the trains is a diner train! Mistake number two.

When we approached the door, there was a sign that enthusiastically proclaimed they had the best food on the mountain. There were some important things that we didn’t consider. Best compared to what? Trashdiving behind the visitor center? Can you trust anything written on a impermanent surface such as a whiteboard? Not asking these questions? Mistake number three.

When we entered the train, it was like a goddamn Precious Moments store had exploded, spraying everything with a fine mist of creepy eyes and disembodied heads. Not turning around and immediately leaving? Mistake four. The dining area looked like something out of a John Waters movie, if only he were a bit more twisted; and immediately after we ordered, we noticed we were surrounded by the three most annoying Cs in existence. Loud wailing children, annoying lovey couples, and country music. I’m pretty certain Anne didn’t believe me when I whispered to her that the people seated across the train aisle to my left were acting like the tiny diner table was an enormous chasm for their love to cross, but she and I nearly died laughing when they pulled the waitress aside and asked to be moved to the lounge so they could be seated next to one another instead of across.

The wait for our food was interminable. I started asking Anne if we could please, please, please ditch before the food showed up, because I was pretty convinced that nothing good could come of this venture. Anne is much more good-hearted than me, one of those ‘born with a conscience’ types and resolved to ask the waitress if they’d made our food first instead of just running out into the night. Mistake five. The waitress snapped that it was almost done, and came out bearing plates of what should have been lasagna but instead were congealed brown masses of…brown flavored swill. Brown sauce? Brown noodles? Entire garlic cloves?What the hell kind of foul lasagna was this? Both of us were incredibly hungry, yet neither one of us could manage more than a couple of bites before pushing our plates away in disgust. I’ve never had to fight harder to keep my lips together when the waitress dropped by and asked how everything tasted. ARE YOU JOKING, LADY? This is the food of the damned! This food is too cruel and unusual to be served to prisoners! What sort of sadistic wench ARE you? She swooped by our table and asked if we wanted to take home our leftovers in a large foil swan–this, I momentarily considered as I thought it might be humorous to take a giant carving knife to the belly of the foil swan to expose the rotten lasagna guts, but I thought better of it and decided I did not want the car to smell like that wretched food for the remainder of the trip home. As soon as the check was paid, we practically ran out of the place and gunned it to the nearest gas station* for mints to rid our mouths of the foul lasagna coating. So, what have we learned? Do not stop in creepy little towns for any reason. Any cutesy meal place with a theme is going to be rotten. Anyplace that proclaims to have ‘the best’ ANYTHING is invariably lying. If a place is bad, it does not necessarily have to get better; we have not yet plumbed the depths of awful. Do not be plagued by matters of conscience when doing otherwise means feeling vaguely ill for two days afterward. I could hardly believe it–almost down the mountain, and the FOOD is where we make the misstep.

*Wherein I witnessed the most wondrous/horrifying Harry Potter velvet painting, but that’s neither here nor there.

Our visit to Mount Doom….er, Rainier

September 8, 2008 15 Comments read Attractions, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

On Saturday, poetrix618 and I hiked up Mount Rainier. To prepare for this outing, I checked out the national park website, which went a little bit like this: One does not simply walk into Mount Rainier. Its black gates are guarded by more than just orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep. The great eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire, ash, and dust. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly. But if you DO decide to brave it, you should bring: a map, a compass, a flashlight, extra food, extra clothing, rain gear, first aid supplies, a pocket knife, matches, and a fire starter. ‘Tee hee!’ we giggled, and packed cameras, tylenol, and a bottle of water apiece. ‘We are survivalists!’ Thus begins our fateful journey, wherein we came to a compact beforehand to eat one another should Anne’s snack size bag of Doritos not provide adequate sustenance and we were required to resort to cannibalism, and we each made a secret promise to ourselves to push the other in front of a hungry cougar, should one appear. Or maybe that was just a promise I made to myself. But before all that, we needed to find parking. We must have waited near the Pacific Northwest’s answer to Mr. Rogers for fifteen minutes while he changed his shoes, packed up his dorky hiking sticks, removed his ultra-dorky hat with the hanging cloth mullet down the back, and zipped his pants off at the knees to turn them into shorts. Not once in this entire time did he acknowledge us, though we were clearly waiting for him and his super passive-aggressive ass to leave. As he bent over and fiddled some more, obviously enjoying our frustration with him, I took a photo of his sweaty ass in order to mock him more thoroughly on the internet, where my power resides.

As you can see, he has sweated a river down his back, creating a delta near his asscrack, much like the one near the base of the Mississippi River, and likely as alluvium-rich, ensuring a diverse ecosystem of asscrack bacteria. SEE WHAT YOU GET FOR IMPEDING ME, SWEATY ASSCRACK MAN? Ahem. After we finally found another parking spot, approximately a mile farther down the road, we shook our fists in his general direction and proceeded to the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center for trail information and a high-quality cafeteria lunch. From their informational kiosks, like the one pictured below, you might be inclined to believe that Mount Rainier was named after some dude who wore x-ray spectacles long before they were in vogue.

I tell you here and now that is a lie. Rainier is Squamish for ‘Cold Filtered’, and I’ll prove it to you:

After the park ranger warned us about the numerous recent black bear sightings, we went on our way up Dead Horse Creek trail. It was glorious. The fresh scents of earth and trees and wildflowers and even snow hung in the air. For long stretches of time, all we could hear was nature–the wind rustling through trees and the gurgling of streams. No talking, or shouting, no electrical humming or the din of cars; just nature. That section of the park is named Paradise, and I would be loathe to call it otherwise.

We passed a number of animals, mostly unconcerned with our presence; the deer stayed a fair distance from the path, but the chipmunks and marmots chittered and ate an arm’s length away.

The higher we hiked, the more breathtaking our surroundings became. We hiked past the tree line, up past the snow line, and nearly as high as we could travel without a special permit.

As you can see, everyone else coming down has a big pack filled with survival gear, in contrast to Anne going up, who has left her fate to the gods who watch over the unprepared. We were eventually forced to turn around due to a fog rolling in–that, combined with the ultra-slippery snow covering the trail next to steep cliffs seemed a foolhardy venture, even to us. On the way back down, the fog broke in one area, spotlighting a glacier. I never in my life would have guessed when looking upon the mountain from a distance that it would be more than just rocks and snow, but now, having been there, I can safely say that it is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in my entire life, and in no way can the pictures I took even begin to do it justice. The sheer beauty provided an excellent contrast for the horror that came next. Dun dun DUN–CLIFFHANGER ENDING. (See what I did there?)

My name is Mellzah, and I approved this message.