Woke up and decided that Edgefield reminds me of rich folks who go to poor places to stay, or “play poor” because it’s the cool thing to do.

There is a sink in our room, but you use shared baths and toilets. The bedding is plain, not even fitted sheets. The decor is spartan. Obvious sprinkler systems, dim lights etc.

Breakfast was eggs and bacon for Bryan and a mushroom, brie and herb omelette for me. I liked the filling more than the eggs, but the red potatoes were delicious.

We got 3 bottles of wine that will be shipped to our home, as well as some other nik naks.

I asked the desk clerks for any good ghost stories. Apparently the administrators house is supposed to be haunted. I guess the admin’s daughter died young and is supposed to haunt the place. At one point a woman had placed a cassette recorder in her room there and got faint noises of someone walking about. A nurse is supposed to wander about the infirmary ward.

The black rabbit motif was because when the Mcmenamin Brothers came to the site a Black Rabbit crossed their path. The motif is fairly common in the main building. The restaurant even has a small figure of a child offering a carrot to a black rabbit on one of the sprinkler pipes.

We took the camera and cassette recorder to the Admin house as a last effort to get something and then got in the car and headed to Tacoma by route of Portland.

Lemon Drops are now called “fish food.” A few days ago, Bryan made fishy lip motions at me, and so I gave the fish a lemon drop (from Ferndale). Thus now when he wants a lemon drop, he turns to me and makes fishy lip motions. I love this man, he’s silly!

We’ve detoured to Longview. Gee, it’s…sleepy and grey. However it has Nutty Narrows, The only bridge built exclusively for squirrels.

We called Bryan’s dad, since he was born there and then tried to find the house his dad was raised in. After getting to 28th and Cypress, we realized that there are 2 intersections with that same signage! Apparently 28 ends on 1 block and continues 1 block away.

I took pictures of each house and then Bryan called his dad back. He let us know which house was his. When we pulled up in front of it, the old man inside looked thru the window at us, so we pulled up out of his view to take the picture,but an old woman has stood up to stare at us. I think we’ve spooked them. Imagine, if someone took a picture of your house and drove off…
We left before they could get a shotgun.

We stopped in Olympia for lunch. I think I’ll add this city to my list of places to avoid in the future. After a few miles and a 1/2 hour in Wendy’s, we saw quite a bit of PWT, a female beached “whale” which would make a good “say no to crack” advert, and a really Ugly transvestite wearing a pink and white and black outfit, including leg warmers.

I have to agree with Bryan: Vacations can make me appreciate living in San jose.

When we got to Lakewood we got to Thornewood Castle after only 1 u-turn. After bringing up the bags, Bryan rested and I went exploring. Our room, the “Rose Room”, is on the 3rd floor.

There is a hall of mirrors on the other(east?) side of the stairs from us (west?). Identical mirrors facing each other in a small hallway. It’s too spooky for me. I’m superstitious about mirrors in haunted places, but even more so of mirrors facing each other in eternal reflections. Bad juju.

On our side of the stairs is the Lord Byron suite, which also left me feeling a bit off. I think that is because I felt like I was trespassing.

The feeling went away as soon as I got passed the doorway to the sewing room (right across from Rose-historical note- it used to be Anita Thorne’s room)

I still took lots of pics, but I won’t go into the hall of mirrors.

I went back to the 2nd floor and listened to Gigi talk. She’s the owner’s mother. (Owner- Deanna)

I was talking to Beth, who has worked in the castle about a month, and I could have sworn one of the paintings on the wall of the stairway winked at me as I turned away from it.

Gigi has loads of tales to tell, including ghost stories. Apparently the carpet runner in the hall of mirrors keeps moving to the side even though the staff kept centering it.

There was a wedding downstairs, so I didn’t go to the first floor. I stayed and talked with Gigi for about 2 hours. Bryan came down and we eventually went for food.

Old Country Buffet. What is it about buffets that bring people who really don’t need an all-you-can-eat meal??? There was one girl there: black clothes and chains, mod hair, spooky eyeliner lining down one cheek… She looked young and pure, yet gothy. It’s nice to see there’s hope for the future. We kept catching each others eye and smiling. I’m glad I can set a good example of ” You, too, can retain your gothy image when you get as old as me without looking like a complete sell-out!”

Back to the Castle. Bryan decided to move the carpet in the Hall of Mirrors. He’s also walked up and down the 3rd floor with a cassette recorder. We’ll listen to these tapes whilst on the ferries or something, but I’ll have to wait in the film pics and the camcorder until later…

I looked at the Room Guest book. Some people don’t mention anything about ghosts, some say there are none, and others insist there are. I refuse to taint my mind and dreams by reading it ahead of time.

He Said

We woke up, had breakfast, bought some wine that we liked from the tasting and explored a little bit more of the grounds. Kryis asked the people at the front desk about some of their ghost stories and got some more leads on where to go. We went to the Administrator’s house and poked around in there for a bit before exploring the grounds a little more and heading off to Longview Washington, birthplace of my Father.

We first went looking for Nutty Narrows, the only bridge built for squirrells. There is even a statue of a giant squirrel and a plaque in honor of the man who created it.

After that, we called my father and asked him what his address was when he lived here. He did not remember the address, only the intersection.
So we go there, and find out there are two intersections. One street ends, goes along the other for a while, and picks back up.
We did eventually find it, but it was confusing. I called my dad back and asked him to describe the house, we eventually found it and took a picture of it (to the apparent dismay of the people who now live there) and were on our way to Lakewood.

We stopped off in Olympia for lunch. It was okay. Some scary looking people, but the town seemed alright. I took a picture of the Washington Capital building.

Thornewood Castle is amazing. We got to the gate and we were asked if we were there for the wedding. Apparently a lot of weddings happen at Thornewood, and I can understand why.

We got there and it was beautiful. Gorgeous in fact. When we got to our room, I was beat, so I took a nap while Kryis went and talked to Gigi, the mother of the owner. A few hours later she comes into the room and tells me some of the stories. By this time, we are both hungry and decide that we are going to go get something to eat in town.

When we get back, the wedding is still in full swing. In fact, the bride (who we ran across earlier as we were walking in, she was waiting to start down the aisle) asked us to join in their dancing. We passed and headed up stairs to explore more. We wanted to avoid downstairs because we did not want to intrude on the the wedding.

Kryis was freaked out by the hall of mirrors. There is a carpet runner in the hallway that supposedly keeps getting moved off to the side by the ghosts of the castle. I moved it halfway to the middle to see if it would move by the morning. I kept going into the hallway to check on it. I don’t think that there is anything all that freaky about the hall of mirrors, but it was interesting.

I explored a bit with the tape recorder and the video camera to see if I could see anything. And nothing. Carpet still where I moved it. Anyways… time for sleep. Better not watch the two Stephen King movies that were filmed here anyways.