No Ghosts, But Pretty

The bridge the jilted Emily supposedly jumped off of.  Weight Limit does not apply to ghosts.

We Expected More from this Ghost Tour

 Before we left for Stowe, Lizzie and I had done a little research on places to visit.  I read a review of Emily's Bridge on trip advisor ("No ghosts, but pretty") and Lizzie found this flickering lantern tour, so we figured it'd be a good way to cover it all.

As Lizzie noted, we should have known better from the flickering lantern tour website.  As Lizzie and I mused about what our ghost-tour guide might be wearing, a man who identified himself as Shawn (hereafter known as Shawn of the Dead) wearing a lime polo shirt and khaki shorts carrying several plastic bins of lanterns showed up.  He began the tour by telling us that he is a history teacher, and the tour used to just be straight up about history, but no one cares about history (I BEG TO DIFFER) so he shoe horned in some ghost stories to make more money.

Okay. So neither Lizzie nor I believe in ghosts, but we like good story telling, and it's fun to get spooked by scary stories while walking around in the dark.  Unfortunately, in his hour and a half tour, Shawn of the Dead told us more about his various employments than he did about history or ghosts.  We heard about two ghosts, Boots Barry, and Emily of Emily's bridge, who was the creation of a high school student playing with an ouija board.  (No ghosts, but pretty.) 

Boots Barry supposedly haunts the Green Mountain Inn.  A groomsman who lived in the servants' quarters on the third floor in the mid 19th century, he was deemed a hero after saving a coach from runaway horses (by lying in the road in front of them.  Shawn of the dead swears this works, but I wouldn't try it) and was given a medal, and free food and drink for life at any Stowe establishment.  This went to his head, and he was fired from his job at the Green Mountain Inn when he became derelict in his duty.  He became a hobo, was eventually arrested, and learned how to tap dance from his cell-mate, earning the nickname "Boots."  Eventually he made his way back to Stowe, and supposedly saved a little girl who had climbed out on the roof of the Green Mountain Inn to retrieve her doll that had blown out the window.  It was snowing out, and after saving the girl, Boots slipped off the roof and died.  And now he haunts room 302, and a toilet. 

Shawn of the dead doesn't seem to know that his 'evidence' of the haunting of 302 casts doubt on the story more than it bolsters it.  It is this long-winded ramble about a former student of his who was a practical joker, and put her future mother-in-law in room 302 the night before their wedding.  He told us former student's fiance is also a practical joker, and then says that Mom hears "tap dancing" several times during the night, and then when she wakes up, all of the items that had been on her night table were arranged in a circle on her coffee table.  Definitely a ghost, and not her mean son and daughter-in-law fucking with someone who is scared of the paranormal.  The toilet part is even stupider.  Apparently he recommended the Green Mountain Inn to the Gonzales family, and Mrs. Gonzales called Shawn of the dead, and put her husband on the phone who yelled at him for recommending "the most expensive breakfast ever."  WHY YOU ASK?  Maria Gonzales went into the bathroom with their child, and A STRANGE FORCE PULLED HER RENTAL CAR KEYS OUT OF HER POCKET AND INTO THE TOILET!  Some might call this strange force gravity.  Obviously Maria didn't want to get in trouble for accidentally flushing her keys, so she convinced her superstitious husband that a ghost did it so he wouldn't be mad at her.  Shawn of the dead was like "AND THEN MORE PEOPLE REPORTED LOSING KEYS DOWN THE TOILET" oh I don't know, maybe because they were trying to recreate your stupid boring story?  Anyway, Lizzie and I had breakfast there the next morning, and no keys were sucked into the toilet by ghosts.

The second ghost story was even more boring, and involved a kid hugging the gravestone pictured above ("What do you see?" Shawn of the dead asked.  "A pac man ghost?" says Lizzie.  "A pokemon?" says Shannon).  The kid had gone on a tour of the Vermont Teddy Bear factory, bought a teddy bear, named it Emily, WHICH IS THE VERY SAME LUDICROUSLY UNCOMMON NAME OF THE GIRL BURIED UNDER THE TOMB STONE THE CHILD HUGGED LATER, SCREAMING EMILY, EMILY! which Shawn of the Dead tried to convince us was the Emily of Emily's bridge (not true--it's never been proved she existed.  If you're going to lie, make up some good, entertaining lies, dammit.)  Anyway, apparently the kid's lantern also blew out, which was supposed to be meaningful.  At the beginning of the tour, Shawn of the Dead made a joke that non-believers tended to disappear on his tour, and he's right, because as soon as we got back to the visitor center, we dropped off our lanterns and left before his final shill. 

Stowe has such interesting history with great potential for fun paranormal stories.  There was a giant hotel, a city block long, which burned in a giant fire, all except the bowling alley.  Bowling alley + ghost = A+ material.  What about the poor person who died in the fire at the von Trapp family inn?  He could float along on the wind yodeling at people who forget to extinguish their cigarettes properly.  Maybe Lizzie and I will start a competing tour and steal away Sean of the Dead's clientele until he ups his game.  (Tap dances to the next post, spookily...)

Corngratulations are in Order

 After visiting the von Trapps, Lizzie and I stopped to take on a corn maze.  There was an older woman and a teenage boy at the admissions kiosk, and the older woman told us that there had been bears coming up to the river behind the corn maze at about this time (it was 4pm) but that as of yet no bears had made it into the corn maze.  Reassuring.  Lizzie asked if they had any advice, and the teenage boy said in a kind of booming and terrifying voice, "IF YOU CAN MAKE IT TO THE BRIDGE YOU CAN MAKE IT OUT."

Not if the bears find us first.

We started by just going left, and eventually were forced into a dead-end, and on the way out of the dead end, we passed by a man whose children were pooping in the corn rows. (We knew because we heard rustling in the stalks, and a little boy standing near his father said "they're pooping" while giggling, and Dad gave us a creepy affirmative chortle.)  No.  Don't do that.  I don't know what happens to the corn in this maze, but what if people are going to eat it?  Pop-Corn, not Poop-Corn.

As most things do, this started off really fun, but kinda began to stress us out about 10 minutes in.  We eventually did find the bridge, and went up to navigate, but ended up turned around several times, sometimes following the dragon flies without another good idea of what to do.  Eventually, I began an earnest prayer to the corn god.  We were cornfused, in a maize of sin, and only the corn gods, with their delicious bread, could lead us out, and just a few moments later, we arrived at the exit.  It only took us 20 minutes, which is probably a Shannon and Lizzie world record, if not a corn maze world record.  We did not have to call the fire department to chopper us out, and we did not give up and decide to live in the poop-filled corn rows.

Hallelujah.

What's up?

High on A Hill Lived a Lonely Goatherd

 Because the 30th anniversary is the diamond anniversary, Lizzie and I decided to continue the celebration of our friendiversary to Stowe (VT).  We went up on a Friday afternoon, so didn't arrive until after 7, leaving just enough time to eat dinner and polish off a bottle of pre-mixed margarita.  Classy!  Saturday we crammed in quite a few activities, including exploring Mt. Mansfield and Smuggler's Notch (used for smuggling booze and what not back in the day) and of course, the Von Trapp Family lodge.

Here you see me coercing Lizzie into doing her best "THE HILLS ARE ALIVEEEEEE" spin with the mountain backdrop.  After fleeing nazi Austria, Maria and Georg settled here in Vermont in 1942.  Poor Georg died in 1947 (lung cancer.  don't smoke, kids) and Maria and the kids (including the three she had with Georg--That's like 10 total) expanded their house into a ski lodge.  This ski lodge burned down (killing at least one guest) and on the site they rebuilt an "Austrian-style" lodge because the von trapps super know how to monetize everything.

So the Sound of Music is obviously fictionalized, but interestingly, Maria wasn't super stoked about marrying Georg--he was 25 years her senior--but she did love the kids, and so ended up marrying him anyway.  In her own words:  "I really and truly was not in love. I liked him but didn't love him. However, I loved the children, so in a way I really married the children. I learned to love him more than I have ever loved before or after."  Glad that worked out.  I was always kind of team Baroness von Schraeder and the boarding school idea.

Georg and Maria are interred at the lodge, in a fenced off area I initially thought was reserved for on-lodge weddings.  No.  I was very, very wrong.

USA USA USA Temple Bar

 Happy Independence Day!  As I mentioned, the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays, and today we drove from Galway to Dublin, dropped our bags off at our hotel, and walked around Temple bar, before coming back to the hotel to watch "Independence Day" while drinking white wine from the bottle.  Note:  I am the only one drinking white wine from the bottle.

Temple Bar is bordered by the River Liffey and Dame St, and preserves its medieval set up.  It was the location of the first performance of Handel's Messiah (1742), and is a huge touristy destination in Dublin. 

We went to a nearby pub to hear some live music (we joked about requesting the Star Spangled Banner), drink some whiskey, and engage the adorable bartender, Josh, in conversation. He told us he was in his final year of university, and is working towards a degree in forestry. 

One of the things Lizzie and I enjoyed the most in Ireland were our fabulous cab drivers.  Any time we took a cab, we engaged the amusing and knowledgeable drivers in conversation, and in the way into Dublin this evening, our driver, Gerard, told us about an adult store which had been recently built.  It's open until 3 in the morning, and when it was first constructed, a group of 80 year old men would be out in front protesting, counting their rosaries, and Gerard was like "someone needs to take the old fellows home."  Maybe they could stop and get a movie or something first.  ;)

On the way back from Dublin, our cabbie wasn't quite as friendly, until he learned that Lizzie had driven us all through Ireland, and then he suddenly opened up, proud of her pretty impressive acheivement.  The western part of Ireland isn't easy to navigate through. 

Before I left Boston for Ireland, I talked to my friend Lisa, who will be going on a duck tour, as to whether they'd have similar tours in Dublin.  They do, and they're called viking splash tours, and the tourists wear faux viking helmets and scream as they pass by large groups of people.  Lisa--if they don't give you a horned helmet, they aren't doing right by you.  Yarrrrrrrrr.

In any case, it's back to Boston tomorrow.  Hope you all have survived Andrew okay.  Can't wait to see you!

The Floor is Made of Lava

 Walking out to the Poulnabrone dolmen here was like playing "the floor is made of lava."  You had to hop from stone to stone, and as you can see from the tree a few pictures down, this area is hella windy, and it was raining gang busters.  Lizzie hung out there, and I popped around like a goat while she watched  to make sure I didn't fall in one of the pots. 

The Poulnabrone dolmen (Poll na mBron, meaning "hole of the quern stones") is a portal tomb, a neolithic structure consisting of two more more upright (portal) stones supporting the capstone, which here is 12 feet long.  Between 16-22 adults and children were buried here, and excavation also revealed a polished stone axe, weapons, pottery, quartz, pendants, etc as well. 

It's unclear if it was just a territorial marker, or used for celtic rites and rituals but it was most likely the latter.

The Giant World Cup

Apparently some folks used to think that these big ol' isolated rocks were footballs (or soccer balls, as we yanks would say) for Giants.  Lizzie and I posited that perhaps instead, they are fossilized giant poop, and you will see the fossilized, squished remains of regular humans underneath if you were ever to move them.

The Burren

 The Burren:  not just a bar in Davis Square that I spent most of my mid-to-late 20s in!

Burren means "great rock," from the Irish boireann.  Back about, oh, 350 million years ago, this landscape was under the sea, which helped to create the limestone we see.  Eventually it was run over with glaciation, deepening the criss-crossing cracks in the limestone pavement, and creating neat little pots for flowers, meaning that both Mediterranean and alpine plants can live in the area.

There are over 90 megalithic tombs in the area, portal dolmans, and ring forts.  The sad donkey you see was at the Caherconnell ring fort which we visited, but it was pouring out so we couldn't stay long.  Some of the pictures are obscured with rain drops, because it was coming down sideways, and it was hard to keep the lens clean.

Kilfenora Cathedral

 After the cliffs of moher, we took a rainy drive to the burren centre, and saw the Kilfenora cathedral here.  It was built in 1189, on the site of an early monastery.  It has five High Crosses (sorry I am a heathen and don't know what that means.  Catholic readers?) which makes it an important religious site, and the Pope is their bishop. 

Jesus take the wheel and whatnot.

Cliffs of Moher

 So has anyone here seen the Princess Bride?  If you have, these here are the "cliffs of insanity," i.e. the Cliffs of Moher.  (They also show up in Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince, FYI.)

The gorgeous cliffs are made of beds of shale and sandstone, and at their highest point reach 702 feet, and go on for five miles.  The rocks were formed over 300 Million years ago, and they are mind bogglingly beautiful.  The rock you see sticking out a little is the branaunmore sea stack, and the birds SUPER love it, as well as the cliffs and inlets. The wildflowers are gorgeous, and there is no where to look that isn't breath taking (plus it is very steep, so....)

In any case, it is very easy to fall off the sides of the cliffs, and there's a memorial to people who have died here--I don't think ghosts can blog, so it looks like we made it.

Roads to the Cliffs

So this is a two-lane road on the way to the cliffs of moher.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but we had to lean forward to help our poor little micra up the hill.  This is actually one of the nicer roads, but we ended up with half a bush in our bumper anyway.  By the time we got to our B&B near the cliffs, it was raining, so we'll have to visit those tomorrow.  See you soon!

No Dumping

Or you will be subject to a 3,000 Euro fine.

The River Shannon

 It's my river, everyone!  One time I asked my Mom where she found my name, and she said it was the name of a character she liked in a book who's "eyes were as blue as the Shannon river."  Pre-pollution, I imagine.

Lizzie and I drove up from Dingle, our eventual goal being the cliffs of moher.  We followed our GPS, who eventually said, "board ferry."  We were like, "okay," as going through Limerick would've added an additional god-knows-how-many hours to our trip, and the ferries come ever 30 minutes.  You all know how much I like to touch stuff, so after the ferry crossed the river, Lizzie drove us down a terrifying cow path so I could touch the actual river.  It was a little treacherous, just like me, because it was low tide and the rocks were covered in slick algae (comparison does not extend that far) but I stuck my feet in.  Shannon-in-Shannon complete.  After accidentally smacking Lizzie in the head with my camera (it's probably because she found a rock shaped like the devil--THE POWER OF CAMERA COMPELS YOU) we continued on our way to the cliffs.


Just a little info on the River Shannon.  It's the longest river in Ireland, and cuts off the West from the East and the South.  It is named after a woman named Sionnan, who went to Connla's Well to seek herself some wisdom.  Because as we all know, women get punished for seeking wisdom, she, having caught and eaten the salmon of wisdom, was carried away to sea when the well's water burst forth.  Now Sionnan is the goddess of the river, and gives life to the land.  I would be much more vengeful than this if I were a goddess.  This is important to keep in mind. As you all know, I am a feminist killjoy, and it must be noted that when the male warrior-hero-hunter Fionn mac Cumhaill ingested the salmon of wisdom, he was imbued with its powers.  No instant death punishment for him.  Check out the comic entitled "also it is my personal fetish."

The River Shannon is also supposedly home to Cata, a river monster "with a horse's mane, gleaming eyes, thick feet, nails of iron and a whale's tail."  As far as I know, I am not home to any river monsters, but sometimes I get super bad heart burn if I eat doughnuts.  Just thought you'd like to know.

Dingle's Famous Dolphin

 Dingle is a little (and the only) town on the eponymous peninsula.  It's main industries are tourism, fishing, and agriculture.  And also Fungie the Dingle Dolphin.

You should probably say that to yourself a few times.  We'll wait.

So Fungie is a bottlenose dolphin who has broken contact with his own kind to hang out with humans.  He hangs out with the tour boats who go out to see him, and there's a sculpture of him near the harbor. (See?)  Fungie is 25, which is old for dolphins, so if you want to see him, you should probably go sooner rather than later.

We did not, unfortunately, have time to see Fungie, so we drank whiskey and ate some of Dingle's famous sea-salt ice cream instead. 

Dolphins murder for fun.