Welcome To Cindy’s Blog!

Posted on March 14th, 2006 by cindysco.
Categories: About Cindy's Blog.

This is where you will find my monthly column, back issues, reviews and other interesting stuff…I haven’t even figured out all I’m going to put here yet…but I will… stay tuned!

 CINDY

ABOUT

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The Whaley House

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by cindysco.
Categories: Haunted Adventures.

The Whaley House - San Diego 10/1/07 (see my website www.cindyscolumn.com for pictures!)

After we gave up on Balboa Park, we decided to go to Old Town. We were going to take a ghost tour (we paid for it) yesterday, but the tour got cancelled. So we decided to drop by the tour at 6:30 pm and see if we could get in today. We got to the hotel where we were supposed to meet and when it got to be 6:15 we asked the hotel desk about the tour. They said the guy who ran the tour was not reliable and didn’t show up sometimes. We waited until 6:30 and he didn’t show up.

Now the most famous place on the ghost tour was a real haunted house – The Waley House. Check out their website for some of its history.

(http://www.whaleyhouse.org/)

Now THIS WAS EXCITING ! I started getting butterflies in my stomach as soon as we walked in the door. I got a lot of weird sensations when I was there. There were a few rooms that were a little more scary than the other ones and I just got like bad feelings in them.

There were these costumed people, docents, who worked there and gave tours and explained things to people. They were dressed in all black with veils. They were scary enough just by themselves. We talked to one of them and asked her questions. She said the docents saw things all the time but were more scared by things that they heard rather than what they saw because they hear things more often or something like that .

She was all dressed in black and I felt like she was a LITTLE bit suspicious, well I don’t know… She probably does pick up things but I felt she was trying to be more scary than anything else…I don’t know…I don’t know…Then later we saw this other docent. She was even more scary. She had a veil on in front of her face so you couldn’t even see her face….and she was all scary and when you’d try to take a picture of her she would walk away.

I guess she wanted to be scary and she didn’t want to be available or whatever. And then she started sitting on window sills and things and she scared someone when she moved.

Then there was this painting that’s in one of the bedrooms and it looked like the smile was moving like — smile, not smile, smile, not smile, etc. Then a couple of the other rooms were really scary, and the dining room was really scary….got weird feelings in there.

The courtroom wasn’t really scary…to me. And the upper rooms I felt were more scary than the bottom rooms. They just had this scary feeling on the top floor. I felt like some presence in certain spots.

Then we went outside to where the garden was and it was a little bit scary there. There was a gazebo and that was a little scary. I didn’t wait there too long when we were taking a picture. Something was weird about the seats.

So then we left, but we wanted to go to the old grave yard down the street before we ended our ghostly tour. We entered the wrong way and had to jump over a wall. So we did. That area, where it was really dark, was pretty scary, but the rest wasn’t so bad. Some parts were scary and had a weird feeling, but some were not. So we just walked through and looked around and took pictures. Mostly the graves were from the 1800’s.So then we ended the ghostly part of our Old Town visit and checked out some shops. More like a tourist section than Gaslamp Quarter, so we didn’t buy anything but dinner at the Creole Café (http://www.neworleanscreolecafe.com ) This was located on the Waley House grounds (which made going to the restroom a little scary) but even though I LOVE gumbo, the food wasn’t that great. Just OK.

 

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The Korakia Pensione

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by cindysco.
Categories: Haunted Adventures.

We arrived in Palm Springs at about 10 p.m. on a Friday night, but this was definitely our weirdest adventure yet. My dad and I decided to go “GhostHunting” and mom stayed at home.

We found a hotel with a “haunted” reputation and even a“haunted room.” It was the hotel KorakiaPensione http://korakiapensione.com and the room was the “Jasmine Room.”

Now the Korakia is a Morrocan Style Bed and Breakfast builtas a house around 1924. Some years ago they annexed some apartments that werenearby.

Allegedly the hotel is haunted by the wife of a former ownerwho has been seen walking along the road on the anniversary of her death. Otherstrange occurrences include reported cold chills on extremely hot days andclothes that have been rearranged while guests are gone from their room.

Reportedly the annexed apartments are even more haunted.Certain rooms (including the Jasmine Room we stayed in) have reportedly hadnumerous sightings, unexplained sounds, cases of items moving in the room, andother pranks by a couple of ghosts who lived there in the 1940’s.

Information on the exact nature of the hauntings is sketchybecause the current owners (unlike many hotels with ghost legends) are not veryco-operative. When my dad called and asked them about the legends they claimedthat they knew nothing about it.

So when we arrived it was all a little spooky. It wasn’tlike a big hotel or anything. It was this house and apartments in a residentialneighborhood.

When we walked into our room, it was small and creepy. Therewas a heavy feeling in the air or something. I was a little scared and wouldn’tlet go of my dad’s arm for some time. I also kept my back pack on for aboutfifteen minutes because I felt like it was protecting my back….funny, but I wasscared. This was much scarier than the Whaley House because we were going tosleep here overnight….

My dad went to the bathroom and I was petrified the wholetime he was in there. I was so scared I didn’t even move. I didn’t even turn myhead…. It seemed like he was in the bathroom forever, but it was only probablya minute…. Anyway, we put our stuff in the room, got settled, and after aboutfifteen minutes decided to take a walk to see if we could bump into the ghostwho sometimes walks up and down the street.

As soon as we walked out of the room, we both noticed thatit felt better. So we walked around for a while up and down the street, sawnothing, then decided to go back to the room and put in our time ghostwatching.

When we got back to the room, we explored for a while,looked into all the nooks and crannies, and discovered there was no TV and nophone. So then we decided to turn off the lights and just lay there for a whileand see what happened. There was this really creepy feeling in the bathroom. Ididn’t like going in there at all. And after we turned the lights off, I could still sense that part of the room asbeing the creepiest of all.

We lay there for about an hour waiting to see some ghostlyvision or something weird, but nothing too weird happened. There were someunexplained lights every now and again, and my dad thought he saw this blackmass kind of at the end of the bed – I could kind of see it too, and I was100%sure there was something in the bathroom….But other than that there was nothingreally weird.

I actually started getting a little bored with it all andwas tired and ready to go to sleep. I put my lotion bottle on the table andinstructed any ghosts who may or may not be there to knock it off on the floorso when we woke up in the morning we would know they were there.

Then I went to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, my dad was already up. He washaving trouble with the internet again (like all the other hotels except theHyatt.) He said it worked sometimes then didn’t. We apparently were on the edge of reception.(Or the ghost didn’t want us to communicate with the world!)

I went to the bathroom and that’s when I noticed that thelotion bottle was knocked over. It was not on the floor but it was knocked overon the table.

That kind of freaked me out and I asked my dad about it buthe didn’t hear or see when it happened. He did tell me he saw a weird lightthing above the bed in the morning while I was still sleeping, and he heardsomeone cough right at the foot of our bed - twice. He said it was real freaky!

So we kind of freaked out about that for a while but in themorning with the daylight and all, it wasn’t very scary….So then we decided to takesome pictures at the hotel before we went shopping. My dad tried to use thesafe, but he could not get it to work, so the manager came over to fix it andher keys got stuck in the lock and she couldn’t get them out. That was reallykind of weird too. And then my iPod broke and wouldn’t work … crazy!

The Karokia is a really photogenic hotel. The furniture andthe whole place is really kind of old and run down, but when you take a pictureof it, it looks absolutely gorgeous. So we went to take some picture of me at variouslocations on the grounds.

We talked about our experiences of the night before as weworked. We noticed after a while that because we did not actually see anyghosts walking through the room in ghostly splendor, we could rationalize allthe odd little incidents away………..

The second night wasn’t as scary as the first night. It wasstill scary to be in the bathroom alone and one time I was in there and thetoilet started making noises and that really scared me. It was probably thescariest thing that happened to me personally. There was no reason for thetoilet to make those noises…..creepy…. but over all the second night wasn’t asscary. (Probably because I was getting use to the experience of ghost hunting.)

However, there was definitely stuff going on in that room.The black mass was at the end of the bed again, and this time I could see ittoo. It was just sort of blacker than the rest of the room. Then suddenly afterabout 20 minutes we both saw it disappear. I fell asleep pretty fast afterthat, but I did wake up once during the night. I kind of looked at the bathroomarea, and boy the bathroom at night…. well that was still just as creepy asever.

In the morning, my dad reported that nothing much hadhappened. He saw the light thing hanging over the bed again in the morning, butno coughs or anything like he had heard the previous night.

In the morning when it is light, the room just isn’t scary.It is mainly a nighttime phenomenon. So we got up early Sunday morning so wecould have breakfast at the hotel. (We missed it the day before. You have tomake it to the main lobby before 11 a.m.

The Karokia is a bed and breakfast and your meal is includedwith your room rate. (Which was $279 for our “ghost” room by the way.) So theyjust give everyone the same menu. We had soft tacos with eggs, salsa and beansin them. They were a little crunchy and actually it was really, really good.

We came back and packed up so we could head out to the Living Desert.I must say the stay at the Korokia overall was quite an adrenaline rush. I hadnever done anything like this before. Ghost hunting and all. I don’t think Iwould stay at the Korokia again however. No TV, no phones…..unless you want todo a photo shoot and you want to stay at the same place. (Or unless you want to“Ghost Hunt.”) It would not be worth it.

Dad and I have decided to pursue our “GhostHunting” some more. We want to actually SEE a ghost. So next month we are goingto stay in a haunted room at what is reportedly the most haunted place in theworld - The Queen Mary – in Long Beach.

Stay tuned for our next ghostly adventure.

If you have a ghostly adventure. Let me know about it here.

Cindy

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The Queen Mary

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by cindysco.
Categories: Haunted Adventures.

The Queen Mary

Well, we arrived at the Queen Mary (www.QueenMary.com ) at about 4 p.m. on a Saturday Afternoon. Mom does not like ghosts or boats so Dad and I decided to make a short weekend of it.

As I was walking up the gangplank, I was wondering if there would be many people there. After all, who else would want to go to a boat-ghost-hotel?

Boy, was I surprised. There were about a hundred people waiting in line in the lobby.

So we stood in line about 30 minutes and got our keys to our special “haunted room.” (They’ll give you one upon request.) The desk clerk said the last time he gave out this room the people left real quick because the porthole opened by itself.

My first impression was that I liked it. I felt like I was in the past. Like I was on the Titantic or something. (I loved that movie!) I liked the overall style of it.

It was not real scary, though, just a little - maybe. I guess I knew it was supposed to be haunted so that scared me a little, but it was nothing like the Korakia. (see 11/1/07 column.)

But shortly after we settled in I sat on the toilet seat to tie my shoe string and it moved while I sitting on it….That was weird.

My Dad tried to set up his internet and guess what? It did not work….as usual.

So after a few minutes of settling in, dad took his computer and we went out to the lobby so he could use the wireless there. I looked at some brochures while he did his thing, then we took a walk around the boat before dinner.

We had reservations to go to a special dinner with a “ghost” tour afterwards, called “Dining With the Spirits” (http://www.queenmary.com/index.php?page=ghosttour )with this lady named Erika Frost (http://www.erikafrost.net/ef/ .) My Dad thought she was very pretty. (Yeah, mom, he did.) I liked her. She seemed very honest and sincere. She didn’t have any predetermined ideas that she forced on other people.

During dinner Erika told us a little bit about the tour and what to expect. She said it was always different, but weird things had happened. A few times the whole group was sent running. Frequently people felt like they were touched, or felt a presence near them. One lady had a hand print on her neck that everyone could see after an encounter. And very often cameras and other electronic devices did not work.

After Erika finished talking we got our main course. I have to say the food at the Sir Winston Restaurant (http://www.queenmary.com/index.php?page=sirwinstons ) pretty much sucked. Neither one of us finished it. It was not because we were full.

But we were really here for the ghost tour so who cared. After dinner we all got together in front of the restaurant. There were about twenty people who went on the tour.

We walked down a lot of stairs and entered through a door marked “employees only” into the bowels of the ship.

It was not real scary with the whole group of people and all, but if Dad and I had been alone, I’m sure it would have been extremely creepy and scary. Dad had been here once before, and he had gone on a self-guided tour down in the engine room section and he said he felt some real creepy things. So we were looking forward to doing something like that on Sunday.

Anyway, Erika stopped at this one spot and told us about a “friendly” sort of a ghost named John who died playing chicken with one of the doors in the engine room. I didn’t feel much, but there were some people who were creeped out. Then she brought out the dousing rods and asked for a volunteer.

Dousing rods are supposed to pick up energy and things like that. So a volunteer would hold them and she would ask the ghost questions and ask him to move the dousing rods apart or together or to point out where he (the ghost) was at.

Well the dousing rods were sure very active, moving all over the place in response to her questions. Then another person held them, and they did the same thing. We did not know what to make of this. You know, whether the people were moving them subconsciously or what. Dad suggested that one of us volunteer the next time she asked to see if it was real.

We went into another creepy area where Erika no longer wanted to go, so the other guides took us while she waited. Again it was creepy but not that creepy with twenty people milling around you. There were supposed to be ghosts here named Sarah and Henry.

However, on the way to the next area we were walking down stairs and both dad and I got this real weird feeling from this one floor that we didn’t stop on. We both got it at the same time. We asked what the area was used for and she said it was one of the areas they held prisoners of war in when the Queen Mary was used as the “Grey Ghost” during the war to transport troops and prisoners.

We went to this other area where they threw the bodies of the prisoners after they died or something. It was a little bit creepy, but I didn’t perceive anything.

We went to several other areas and concluded our tour around the pool area which is supposed to be famous for paranormal activity. I was off wandering around looking at things when Erika asked for another volunteer to hold the dousing rods.

Dad was standing right next to her (I think it was only because he wanted to hold the rods mom) and volunteered. She picked him. She asked some questions of this young female ghost named Jackie, and the ghost supposedly made the rods move away and together just as before and then she asked for the ghost to make them point to where she was and the rods both moved in unison slightly to my dad’s left.

Afterwards, I asked my Dad what it felt like. He said it was definitely weird. He said that there was like a vibrating energy kind of encompassing his whole body. Then he said he could feel the rods sort of wiggling and moving in his hands the whole time. He said he was holding them very loosely and did not influence them at all. And definitely couldn’t have made them go together and apart and then act in unison. He was definitely impressed. In fact, he wants to buy some now. He said he never experienced anything like it in his life. He said it felt like they were almost alive.

She then took us into the dressing room and we all stood there in dark stalls for a while. She told us about the shadow people who have been caught on film and stuff. They are just shadows that people see moving around in the pool and this area. My Dad said he saw a shadow figure at one point (other people said they saw it too) but I didn’t.

So then we concluded our tour. We talked to Erika for a while. And we heard one lady say that her camera didn’t work in that one area, but as soon as she came out, it started to work again. Then this guy showed Erika a picture with a mysterious globe in it. And she said it was interesting and he should submit it to the Paranormal Institute for analysis.

Afterwards we checked out the music in the lounge, looked at a few shops, then went to our room to see if we could experience any more paranormal events.

We set up our camera and took pictures in the dark and stuff, but overall it wasn’t very scary. We looked at the portholes. If that guy’s story was true, I know why those people left. The porthole was very heavy and extremely hard to move. There is no way it could move on its own. You have to pull very hard to open it. I couldn’t even open it pulling with one hand. My dad had to do it.

Well nothing freaky happened that night in the room. At least I didn’t think so then. But I did discover something freaky a few days later at home. While in the room that night I debriefed my self by talking into a tape recorder about what happened on the tour. I did it in our room that night.

A few days later at home when I was listening to the tape to type this column. On the part when I was talking about the tour, the tape starting slowly speeding up going faster and faster until I couldn’t even understand what I was saying. This happened when I had recorded the information – not when I was playing it back.

I don’t even have a fast speed on my tape. When batteries are weak tape recorders slow down – they do not speed up. (I had fresh batteries anyway.) My Dad and I listened to it several times. It was really very odd. So maybe there was something in that room that night.

I don’t know. But this was definitely weird.

Any way, the next morning we decided to do the Queen Mary Buffet for brunch, and do our own little self-guided tour of the Queen Mary and perhaps bump into some real ghosts.

The buffet was mediocre again. Definitely not worth what we had to pay for it. There was lots of food and lots of people though. I liked the pasta but not much else. My Dad didn’t like his food much either.

So then we went on our self guided tour. We started in an area where they gave the history of the Queen Mary. Quite an impressive history and played a big part in World War Two. The Queen Mary is even bigger that the Titantic, which I didn’t know until I took the tour.

We were very disappointed, however, the engine room portion of the self-guided tour

was closed. This is where my Dad had had a freaky experience years ago and we were so looking forward to going there. So we sort of just went on the regular tour things.

We saw the wedding chapel, and the isolation ward. We went to the captains quarters where they entertained guests. We went to the sun deck, saw the lifeboats, and walked all around. There was an art exhibit featuring women’s pictures that we went to. That was cool. There was a promenade deck with a bunch of stores. Actually there was some cool stores there and I bought a few items for myself. One was called the Queen Mary Courtier. The had cute clothes and other items. That’s where I bought some stuff.

All and all everything was sort of alright. But there was nothing like wooooooaaahhhh about it.

We continued walking around and I went to the bow of the ship and reenacted the scene from the Titantic – “I am King of the World.” ….but I guess that should be “Queen”…..

Coming back from the bow we were almost done and a little bored and disappointed when my Dad saw this little room that said “Immortal Chaplains Sanctuary.” Didn’t look interesting at all, but out of boredom we decided to go in.

It was just a normal room but to the side there was this little room (maybe 10 by 15) that said “Paranormal Institute” or something like that. We just went in the doorway and it was SO FREAKIN’ SCARY. My Dad I both felt it at the same time. We didn’t even talk. We just looked at each other. I didn’t even want to go in. I turned around and wanted to run away….. But we went in anyway….

I was freaked out and scared and I couldn’t let go of my Dad’s arm. I hung in there though. After about five minutes of inching around, I was still scared, but we decided to take pictures, to see if anything freaky came out on them.

We took a lot of pictures and we didn’t see anything, but wow you could really feel it. There was something in there for sure. It was SOOOOOOO CREEPY. It had such bad vibes.

We ended up staying in there a long time. The creepy feeling never went away. I was holding on to my Dad’s arm most of the time. I took a lot of pictures but nothing came out on them when I looked later on.

But I was REALLY SCARED! That is the scariest place I’ve been for sure. I guess it makes sense because that is where they do paranormal research….. I guess the ghosts or whatever it is, feels at home in there. IT WAS SOOOOOOO SCARY.

That concluded our self-guided tour with a surprise bang. We went back to our room to pack and get ready to leave.

So we left Queen Mary.

I was expecting more out of the Queen Mary in terms of Ghost Hunting. And to be fair we might have gotten more out of it if the Engine Room tour had been open. But in the end that one experience in the Paranormal Institute was the scariest place I’ve been so far.

Now at least I have something new to top.

Until next time….

Cindy

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The Paso Robles Inn

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by cindysco.
Categories: About Cindy's Blog, Haunted Adventures.

We arrived in Paso Robles rather late at night on a Friday. We were scheduled to stay at the Paso Robles Inn in the famous room 1007. Yes, yet another reputed haunted hotel and room.

As you probably figured out by now if you have been following my column, Dad and I are determined to see a ghost. Mom on the other hand opted to stay at home again. (Seeing ghosts is not one of the highest things on her list. In fact it is probably one of the lowest.)

Early history relates that Paso Robles was known by native Indians and Mission Fathers as the “Hot Springs” during the Mission Period. Annual pilgrimages were made from the missions of San Luis Obispo, Santa Ynez and San Antonio. People who were sick were brought to be healed by drinking and bathing in the thermal waters.

The Paso Robles region became known for its mineral hot springs in the 1800’s. Travelers on the Camino Real trail indulged the healthful, therapeutic springs.

The first Paso Robles Springs Hotel was built in 1864, next to the natural artesian Hot Springs well. In 1891, the hotel was replaced with a magnificent new all brick hotel. The new hotel was constructed of over one million bricks and took over two years to build. The Inn became known worldwide as a health resort. (http://pasoroblesinn1.reachlocal.net/ )

The Story: In 1940, night clerk J. H. Emsley found a fire in the hotel. He rang the alarm and then died of a heart attack. Thanks to his quick action, the hotel was evacuated and no one else died, but Emsley didn’t live to find that out.

The Haunting: It is suspected that Emsley is behind the odd occurrences in Room 1007 and the other rooms. The front desk often receives calls from the phone in that room when no one is staying there. The head of maintenance once went up to inspect the phone, and saw the line light up as it called the front desk. He picked up the phone to call himself, but his call was disconnected and the second line called the front desk. Once, the phone in the room dialed 911, perhaps to report a ghostly fire.

So that is the story but when we got there, the desk clerk and night guard started talking to us about the room. The night guard said that room 1007 got all the press, but that he had been there about 3 years now and he had never seen anything weird there. He said there were way more haunted places on the property and offered to take us there if we would like. We said great and to just let us get settled in and get something to eat and we would take him up on his offer.

So we went up to our room and got settled. Our first impression was that it didn’t have any bad vibes, just a little strange feeling in the bathroom.

And yeaaaa! The internet worked. That made my Dad happy.

We were hungry and it was getting late so we went down to the local bar and grill inside the Paso Robles Inn. And it was so cute. There was a band playing and all these old people dancing.

It was fun. It was a really good band. I didn’t want to leave but it was closing time (11 p.m.) so we left and went back to see the security guard who took us to the most haunted place on the property (according to him) which was the ballroom.

He would not tell us much at this time. (He would tell us much more later.) But he did say he would no longer take the elevator next to the ballroom. When he needed to go up the upper floors, he would only take the stairs

So the security guard opened up the ballroom for us. He told us not to go into the kitchen. (He made us give him our solemn promise we wouldn’t.)

So after a few minutes we turned the lights real low and then the security guard left and showed us how to lock the door after we left.

It was definitely spooky and really scary in there alone. We walked around and took pictures, but we kept our word and didn’t go into the kitchen. There were some really eerie feelings coming from the back kitchen door and some side closet-type rooms, but other than that we didn’t really see or hear much more than the usual creaks and groans. It was just the feeling in there that was really creepy. We stayed in there about a half an hour then decided to leave.

We went upstairs and yes we took the haunted elevator and nothing happened on the way up, but I felt like there was something in there with us.

After walking around the top floor (which was occupied by guests) we decided to come back down. And on the trip down the elevator seemed to take a lot longer than it was supposed to, to go down one floor. I felt like there was something else controlling it. We road it up and down one more time but oddly enough the numbers didn’t change inside the elevator, even though we opened the door and were on the second floor.

It was weird. I did not like the elevator and I understand why he doesn’t go in it.

We checked out the bathrooms on the first floor next to the ballroom and the men’s bathroom had a very definite creepy feeling to it. Even more creepy than the ballroom. (We did not know it then but were to find out why later.)

We decided to leave the ballroom building and went to the next most haunted spot (according to this security guard) which was the garden areas around the pool. He said there were frequent reports of seeing ghostly apparitions in this area.

Again we spent 15 or 20 minutes out around the pool but we saw and heard nothing. So we decided to go back to the hotel lobby. We bumped into the security guard again.

We told him what happened and he now seemed to open up a little. He said none of the security guards like the ballroom. He said he just checks it once then locks it up for the rest of the night. He said one time some drunk got locked in there after closing and called 911 screaming about ghosts and things late at night.

Another security guard died in the bathroom next to the ballroom from a heart attack. (Yeah, the same one we had the creepy feeling in.) Apparently he was always afraid of the place and hated going in there, and one night he just had a heart attack and died next to the ballroom.

After much prying we finally got him to tell us what happened to him in the elevator. One night he got in the elevator and then everything got totally disoriented. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down and the whole experienced took him an eternity to reach the second floor. Another security guard got stuck in the elevator and he won’t go in it anymore either.

Then he told us about the tunnels under the hotel that Jesse James apparently used when he was hiding out. I did not know whether to believe that or not, so I went and looked it up on the internet before I wrote this and by golly it was true. Check out the Paso Robles/ Jess James connection here: http://studioclub.com/Travel/Paso%20Robles/jesse_james.htm .

Anyway he said the basement of the hotel was really creepy and the tunnels had been closed off. No one ever wants to go down there.

So after all the stories we went back to what the security guards called the overrated room 1007. My Dad and I stayed up for awhile in the dark and we both heard a couple of like human coughs coming from right next to our bed. It was pretty weird. Not really scary just sort of weird. I went to sleep after a while, but my Dad said he heard it a couple of more times throughout the night.

Then in the morning I found a towel that I had put securely on the bathroom counter on the floor. Neither my Dad nor I had been near the counter during the night, so it is not like we could have accidentally knocked it down or something.

Weird!

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The Madonna Inn

Posted on June 10th, 2008 by cindysco.
Categories: Haunted Adventures.

So after Hearst Castle we headed out to San Louis Obispo. We checked into The “Madonna Inn” in – you guessed it – another supposedly haunted room.

Now both my Dad and I picked up a weird vibe as soon as we walked up to the door of our room. It was weird when we opened the door, but after we turned on the lights it wasn’t as bad. The floor and most of the walls were made out of stone. The bed was red velvet. And they had a really neat couch. But no chairs and of course the internet didn’t work.

It still had a little bit of a creepy feeling but not too bad.

But before we got settled we turned on the heater and ran out the door because we had a reservation for dinner at the “world famous” Apple Farm. ( http://www.applefarm.com/ )

But dinner really wasn’t that good- just okay. I really wasn’t impressed actually. My Dad didn’t really like his pot roast either, but he did love his apple pie. (I tasted his pot roast and honestly my Dad makes a lot better one than that.)

Afterwards, we walked through the Apple Farm shops then drove around San Louis Obispo but I guess at this time of the year nothing is happening. There were like three people on the streets. It was so dead.

Anyways, so then we went back to the hotel. We stopped off and looked at the post cards of all the crazy rooms in the lobby, then went to our room.

If you have never been to the Madonna Inn, (http://www.madonnainn.com/ ) it is something you have to see to believe. They have all these different themed rooms, like a “Cave Man” room, and a “Cowboy room” etc. Our room was the “Swiss Rock” room.

The Madonna Inn is a flamboyant motel in San Luis Obispo, California. Opened for business in 1958, the motel was the creation of Alex Madonna, who died in April 2004, and his wife Phyllis. The motel is a monument of unremitting kitsch, a Swiss-Alp exterior, and lavish pink common rooms. Each room in the Madonna Inn is uniquely designed and themed. Its famed rock waterfall urinal is a fixture along California’s Central Coast. Many tourists come to visit the urinal, to the embarrassment of males who genuinely need to use the facilities.

In 1966, the Inn’s original units were burned to the ground in a dramatic fire. It was reopened a year later, and by the end of the decade, all of the rooms had been rebuilt in all their luridness as they are known today. There are 109 rooms.

Haunted – the Madonna Inn is believed to be Haunted by spirits from the fire of 1966 and more recently by the Spirit of Alex Madonna himself who died in 2004.

Visitors have reported many unusual sights, sounds, and occurrences in the Carin Room, the Caveman Room, the Edelweiss Room, the Swiss Rock Room, and the Traveler’s Suite.

Management of the Madonna Inn does not acknowledge or encourage such reports.

So we obviously got one of the haunted rooms. The Swiss Rock Room to be exact.

We had trouble with our room from the very start. As soon as we got back, it was still freezing cold in our room even though we turned on the heater before we left. Well, the heater didn’t work. We called the management and they couldn’t walk us though getting the heat on over the phone, so they sent a maintenance man.

Well guess what! He could not get it to work either. He called the head maintenance guy at home and he couldn’t do anything. Finally they brought in some portable heaters to warn things up and then they gave up. Suddenly a half hour after they left (they must have been working on the heater for an hour) the heater just started working on its own.

Then the TV was doing strange things too. It would go on and off by itself. Yet my Dad’s computer was on. Then the clock would stop every now and then too. Definitely strange things.

We stayed up for a little bit then decided to go to sleep. I slept soundly as usual but my Dad had some strange nighttime and morning time experiences.

During the middle of the night he woke up and went to the bathroom. He came back to bed and looked at the clock and it was 4:31. He couldn’t sleep and lay there tossing and turning and thinking for what seemed like and hour then he looked at the clock again and it wad only 4:32. He tried to sleep some more and lay there again for what seemed like another hour then looked at the clock. It was 4:33.

Finally he managed to get back to sleep after that, but he woke up again about 8 a.m. in the morning. He got up and went to the bathroom again and when he came out he was startled momentarily by the figure of a man standing by the door looking in towards the bed. The figure vanished quickly but my Dad had the figure framed in his mind and the doorway he could see the relative size of the figure. When I got up (much later) he showed me and told me about it and we figured out it had to be a short man about 5’4” to maybe 5’7” or so.

We both wondered if it might have been Alex Madonna but we had seen a picture postcard of him and he looked to be a tall, slender man, much taller than what my Dad had seen in the room. So we discounted that idea and figured it had to have been someone else.

We went to order room service only to find out, much to our dismay, that the Madonna Inn offered no room service. So then we got up and got dressed so we cold go to the restaurant for a Sunday Morning breakfast.

I guess this turned out to be our biggest complaint and upset with the Madonna Inn because we went to the restaurant only to find out there was a waiting line for over an hour to get in. No one told us on the phone when we called earlier that we had to have a reservation and they had no system to give their hotel guests priority to eat in the restaurant. Apparently it is a local favorite for Sunday morning breakfast.

The only good thing that came out of our fruitless walk to the restaurant, was that we walked around the restaurant and shops in that building. We saw many pictures of Alex Madonna and the pictures had other people in them. It was quickly obvious that Alex was the same height as most of the women in the pictures but none of the men.

He was a short man. By comparing what we saw in the pictures to the height of known celebrities that we saw in the pictures. It appeared that Alex Madonna contrary to our first belief was indeed a short man in the 5’4” -5’7” range.

Was this the man my Dad saw briefly in our room? Well my Dad couldn’t see him long enough to see all the details of his look. But clearly the general description and height does fit Alex Madonna.

Strange things happened in this room. Perhaps the strangest yet of all the places we have been.

….I liked the Madonna Inn, but not the service. And I guess all things considered it did seem a little haunted – the feeling, the electrical problems, the figure my Dad saw. Yeah it was definitely haunted.

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