This will be exciting. I always describe myself as an open-minded skeptic about such things, so will be interested to see if I discover any answers.
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Vote now for "Add 5" extra goals Sunday, July 13, 2008
There have been hundreds of suggestions for extra goals which could be added to my list, many of which sound absolutely fantastic. It has been pretty tricky to narrow it down to only 20 to choose from.
There are so many wonderful places to go too, many of which I have never considered before. I think that is one of the big problems when you start travelling, and see some great places, and meet others who have travelled too. The more you see, the more you realise that there is out there that you would like to see. So instead of getting shorter, your list gets longer and longer.
Anyway, there are a few travel goals on the list, a few activities, and a few experiences too. This list of twenty needs to be trimmed down to five, which will get added to the 95 that I already have.
Cover yourself in honey bees Climb Big Ben Learn to ride a unicycle Spend a week in a silent retreat See an active volcano Live someone elses life for a week See Kakadu National Park, Australia See Angel Falls in Venezuela Climb "7 peaks in 7 days" from the 53 Colorado 14ers (14,000ft+ mountains) Spend a night in a haunted house - alone! Ride an ostrich See the giant redwood trees in California See the Red Paperclip house Attend a live concert at the Hollywood Bowl Visit Red square in Moscow White water rafting See Burg Hohenwerfen, 'Schloss Adler' in film Where Eagles Dare See a plane land at St Maarten Island Become vegan for a month Adopt an animal (preferably an endangered species)
My favourites are (but don't let this influence your voting!!): Learn to ride a unicycle Ride an ostrich See Burg Hohenwerfen, "Schloss Adler" in the film Where Eagles Dare
"Add 5" voting now ended!! Monday, July 21, 2008
Voting for the "Add 5" extra goals has now finished. I have been watching the voting with interest, and have not been too worried about which ones make it into the 100 list, as I think they are all pretty exciting.
However some of the movements are interesting, and it would seem that some people have their own particular favourites, and are very keen for them to be in the top five. A couple of the goals seem to have come from nowhere to appear at the top of the list, whereas others which were early leaders for a while have dropped away. On a couple of occasions a goal has appeared to have several hundred votes in the space of a couple of hours, when other goals have received none!
So in the interests of fairness I asked my web-designer-guru to weed out all the multiple votes from the same IP address, and the final results are as follows.
The five goals added to the other 95 to make up the total 100 goals are as follows (click on the link or the picture to find out more):
Ghostly Goal 23 completed. Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Ghost Cottage has an interesting history, and apparently has quite a reputation in the local area. Debbie had introduced me to Kelli and Riley, who live there, and on our first evening together they told us tales of things they had seen, felt and heard in the house. They seemed to be a reasonable and sane couple, and that night I went to bed with an air of expectation, but as reported in yesterday's blog, heard or felt nothing.
Bill was a previous owner of the house, born on 6th December 1945, and died at the age of 32 in late 1978. As reported in the local newspaper, The Curry County Reporter, he died of head injuries caused by a car accident when on a hunting trip with friends. However, all is not as it seems, and Bill now haunts his old home, with a tale to tell, somewhat similar to the movie Ghost. Apparently in town, what really happened to Bill is fairly common knowledge. Kelli and Riley moved here 2006, and Bill told Kelli the true story of that night. A group of friends on a hunting trip, having had more than a few drinks that night, decided to throw axes at a tree. Unfortunately Bill was hit by a thrown axe and died. His death was covered up by his friends, who put his body a car, rolled it down a hill, and reported the accident. Bill has told Kelli all of this, and she has had many things she has discovered confirmed by people at the hospital who examined his body, and with many of Bill's friends in town. All sorts of little details that she could not know any other way. Bill is not upset about the coverup, but that his his favourite pickup truck was sold, not to one of his friends as he would have liked, but bought a complete stranger! This pickup truck buyer eventually married Bill's widow, who had received a large life insurance payment, bought a plane and set up a local business with the proceeds. He then proceeded to rip off many of the local people, alot of them Bill's old friends. The pickup truck buyer apparently died on the anniversary of Bill's death, by flying his plane into the side of a mountain. Bill is currently writing a book, dictated to Kelli, who acts as his secretary.
So last night I was left to my own devices, and from about 9.30pm onwards I sat in the house alone, writing some stuff on the computer. I didn't put any music on, just worked in silence, the only noise being my slow pecking on the keyboard. A couple of times I had to go outside to get something from the RV, and it was cold, quiet and dark out there.
By midnight I was ready for bed, but before turning in for the night I wandered around the house a bit. As Kelli had suggested, I talked to the ghosts, and asked Bill if he could make some noise if he was there. I also, as suggested, played guitar a bit, and invited the lady ghost who lives in the back bedroom to pluck a string on the harp in there. Finally I turned the house lights off, and took some photos in the dark, and before bed I went to the bathroom with the door shut, lit just by candle light, another of Kelli's suggestions.
Nothing! Nothing at all! I was disappointed. Although I had felt some trepidation about the evening alone, I was keen to experience something unusual or unexplainable. The only thing that did make me jump a bit was a scrabbling noise at the patio window as I had worked on the computer. Just a possum, my logical mind says.
I wonder if people are like radio receivers, and I am just tuned to the wrong channel? I guess for now I remain an open minded skeptic!
Thanks again to Debbie for her marvellous last minute organisation on such short notice from me, and to Kelli and Riley for being kind enough to leave me alone in their lovely house.
Gold Beach, Oregon. Thursday, December 11, 2008
On my last day in Gold Beach Debbie took me on a tour of the area. She is very proud of where she lives, and rightly so, as it is a beautiful coastline. We drove south along the coast, and could see that there was a big fire in the hills above the beaches. As the smoke spread across the sky it shrouded the sun, and made a very strange orange light on the ocean, which looked quite spectacular, like a sunset in the middle of the day.
We followed the beaches and ocean lookouts back to the north, and ended up in town to see the sun set behind the bridge that spans the Rogue River.
After sunset we went for something to eat, and headed back to Ghost Cottage for my last night there. Kelli had arranged for a group of psychic investigators to come around for the evening to do some studies and take some readings at the house.
When we arrived, the investigators had set up all sorts of meters and cameras, and were listening with a variety of microphones and recorders. As the "investigation" got underway, it became pretty obvious that there was little in the way of objectivity in the way things were being conducted, as all present seemed to be complete believers in all things ghostly.
And yet once again there was no evidence of anything going on, apart from the occasional ticking or creaking, the usual noises of a house cooling and settling for the night. Each tiny noise was attributed to Bill, and as proceedings wore on, I became more and more amused, and frustrated.
Eventually Debbie had to leave, and soon afterwards, worn out after a long few days, I made my excuses and headed off to bed. I woke up occasionally during the night, roused not by any ghostly noises, but by the exclamations of investigators asking, "Did you hear that?" I soon fell asleep again.
I remain skeptical on the whole matter, perhaps even more so after three nights that for me were completely uneventful. I will however, keep an open mind, as some of the stuff Kelli told us is quite interesting, and some of the facts she knows are quite compelling.
Ultimately, I was disappointed not to experience anything at all, but still feel happy that the goal has been thoroughly completed, much more so than I could have ever hoped thanks to Kelli and Riley's kindness, and to Debbie for her wonderful hosting, overall organisation, and enthusiasm for the area.
Spooky Hotel. Friday, August 21, 2009
Yvette had mentioned a nearby hotel to me that she thought I might like to visit, and when I found that it was the original inspiration for Stephen King's book, and later movie and TV mini-series, "The Shining", I insisted that we change plans, and go there for the tour.
It would be cutting things a little close, but it would be well worth it, I thought. We drove for an hour or so into the mountains, through more beautiful scenery, and eventually came to The Stanley Hotel, at an altitude of 7,500 feet in Estes Park.
The place was in a spectacular location, but did not seem at all familiar from the movie. We had booked in for the informative ghost tour, and I soon found out why! The hotel was the original inspiration for Stephen King's book, and was later used as the location for the 1997 TV miniseries, but was not used for the better-known 1980 movie by Stanley Kubric, which starred Jack Nicholson in one of his most chilling roles.
Apparently King had not liked the movie version of his book, which was inspired by his ghostly visit to The Stanley Hotel in 1973, and decided to re-film the story later, using the original location, and staying more faithful to the book.
When King stayed here on October 31st 1973, he and his wife booked into haunted Room 217, juat as the hotel was closing down for the winter. His wife Tabitha experience ghostly "Mrs Wilson", who haunts the room, while King himself had several ghostly experiences, including seeing an old fashioned dance in the main ballroom, when nobody was there.
Apparently Jim Carrey also stayed in Room 217 when filming Dumb and Dumber, and only managed to spend three hours there before leaving and refusing to set foot in the hotel again!
The tour, led by our enthusiastic guide Tyler, was very interesting, and I am now very keen to see The Shining TV series that was filmed there. Tyler encouraged us to take many photographs in one particular location, explaining that many people found unusual shadows, or strange balls of light, called orbs, in their pictures, and many cameras clicked.
Being the open-minded sceptic that I am, (read more about my earlier ghostly experiences-or-not on my Haunted House goal here), I was interested to find a couple of pictures with unusual lights on them. The middle picture below is the best one, and shows a faint ball of light at the bottom of the stairs. Dust on the lens? A reflection caused by someone else's flash? Or ghostly energy? You decide! For me, the jury is still out, but I have never noticed my camera produce this type of effect anywhere else, but it did so a couple of times here! Oooooo!!!
After returning to Yvette's home in Boulder, I hurriedly packed my bag, while Yvette very kindly gave the RV a quick vacuum - much needed because the carpet was still full of salt from the Bonneville Salt Flats. Thanks again to Yvette for being a wonderful Colorado host.
I made a quick dash across to Denver International Airport, where I left the RV in long term parking, and caught the direct overnight flight to London, enjoying an interesting chat with my fellow passengers Jim and Betty, off to visit family in Norway.
It is quite surreal to be suddenly back in the familiar surroundings of my brother's house in London again, after many weeks of travel, and I am struggling to adjust to the 7 hour difference in time zones. My body has no idea now of when it should be awake and when it should be asleep. I am typing the last of this blog, wide awake at 5am London-time, the equivalent of 10pm yesterday in Denver!
I hope I get properly adjusted by the time of the big jump on Sunday afternoon. "Flying" takes place for me from 1pm on Sunday afternoon at Worthing Pier for anyone that wants to come along.
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Gold Beach United-States - No specific date
