Join us on the mountain

[Deleted User]

Look what I found while we were taking a hike! 

[Deleted User]

spar2

I want a picture sitting on top of the statues head. Hope all is good on top of the mountain this morning.  It is very chilly but am going to take a hike and warm up before I sit by the fire and drink my hot chocolate with marshmallows.

such a beautiful day in the woods, colors are magical, Good day to all.

julz4

Spar ~ Here's a Treat for You!

 

More Hot Chocolate for everyone....

socallisa

Here we are in the mountains of Spain..

This was the view from our hotel room in Ronda..

spar2

Oh Julz, that is such a good treat, thank you.  You know how to get my heart. LOL

Lisa absolutely beautiful picture, how exciting to get to visit all of these places.

Hope all has a wonderful night and rest of the week.

what glorious colors for this sweet bird

spar2

perfect place to hike and canoe.  Fish and enjoy what God has created.

spar2

here we go off on our canoeing trip.  What fun What excitement.

spar2

This is the place we are headed to and it ismaking it even more exciting.

Heart for the love I feel and beautiful wolf for the wildness in me.

socallisa

Wow spar..you found some neat places..

I wanna go,... 

spar2

since it is getting close to halloween, I think I will take a trip and find some haunted houses.

met several ghouls along the way

Everyone watch out on the mountain today, their may be ghost and goblins after your hot chocolate.  Hope everyone has a good day.

spar2

figured out how to keep the sun just a little longer

spar2

Everyone have a really good evening. I am done for the day.

[Deleted User]

spar2

spooky waves.  Everyone have a great day.  Trick or treating is tonight and am hoping the grandkids load up and will share with nana. LOL  Just today the dr. told me I finally got my blood sugar under control sure glad they did the lab today and not after halloween.

Looks like an interesting drive or hike.  For the Brave

[Deleted User]

Halloween Eve!  The mystery of trick or treating.  Not only do some people celebrate the day before halloween, there are many that celebrate the day after Halloween.  I watched the "Howling" last night and thought about the mountain.  Can you imagine how scary it would be trick or treating in the mountains at night?  Cool!

Spar hope you had a great time with your grandchildren and trick or treating.  Treasure them while they are young as they grow up very quickly.  My grandchildren could make me a great grandmother lol.

Nicki

socallisa

How about an orange posey for Halloween

spar2

That is beautiful picture of an orange posey

I didn't get to see my granddaughter trick or treat but hopefully a picture was taken, my daughter made her witches costume and made the pointy hat with silver glitter around the brim.  I heard from my mother how cute she looked.  My grandson, bless his kind heart, decided to hand out candy for the fire department instead of going hisself.

There were a few houses where I grew up that I was too scared to knock on their doors, it was just too spooky.  I did make all the decorations for my daughter to decorate the house for the grandkids.  It looks really good.

[Deleted User]

Have a wonderful day, enjoy your time with your children and grandchildren.  SoCal I loved the orange rose.  Today I will be bring treats to all the patients I visit in the hospital.  Should be lots of fun.

House is all decorated, and as the day ends - I'll be coming back to the mountain and making a special brew just for YOU!

Nicki

spar2

Goodmorning on the mountain.  Happy halloween to everyone. 

seen these glowing in the dark last night so stayed close to the campfire and tent

woke up to hundreds of pumkins and don't even know where they come from, spooky

socallisa

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

[Deleted User]

spar2

Mountain climbers and visitors I want you to really think hard over the next couple of day and on Monday I would like us each to post a spooky story, we can make it up, or tell a family story.  We can have hot chocolate and smores and sit around the camfire while we do our story telling.  Happy halloween to all.

 We are being watched all the time. Enjoy, make a face, smile, or just plain old stick your tongue out. 

spar2

Hiking and looking for a few mountain items.

found a perfect arrowhead, my dad always collected arrowheads, we went hunting for them alot.

found a few fossils

I walked by this and it creeped me out, it is made of bones.

[Deleted User]

MT. CARMEL CEMETERY & JULIA PETTA... "THE ITALIAN BRIDE" HILLSIDE, ILLINOIS

Besides being the burial place of Al Capone and a number of other of Chicago's greatest gangsters, this cemetery is also the final resting place of Julia Buccola Petta. She has also become known over the years as the "Italian Bride" and she has also become famous because of the fact that over the course of six years...her body never decayed! Julia died in childbirth in 1921, at only 20 years of age. Shortly after her burial, her mother Filomena began having very strange dreams in which Julia told her that she was still alive and needed her help. The dreams continued for over six years, during which time Filomena tried without success to have her daughter's grave opened. Finally, she was able to get permission to have her exhumed and when the casket was opened up, Julia's body was found to have not decayed at all. Julia Petta's grave monument shows the life-size figure of her in a wedding dress, a portrait of this is also mounted on the grave stone. There is also another photo here....that of Julia's body after her grave was opened. If you look closely at the photo (posted above), you will see that the coffin is muddy and in poor condition, although the woman herself appears to only be sleeping. It is not surprising that reports have circulated over the years that claim a woman in white has been seen in the vicinity of Julia's grave. Late-night travelers on the nearby street say that this women appears to wander across the cemetery and that she seems to be wearing a glowing bridal gown. Mount Carmel Cemetery is located in Hillside, Illinois and can be reached off Roosevelt Road. Julia's grave is located near the old cemetery gate and is easily recognizable thanks to the life-size stature of her on top of the monument.

[Deleted User]

Chicago is a city filled with ghosts, from haunted houses to ghostly graveyards. But of all of the tales, there is one that rises above all of the others. I like to think of Resurrection Mary as Chicago's most famous ghost. It is also probably my favorite ghost story of all time. It has all of the elements of the fantastic from the beautiful female spirit to actual eyewitness sightings that have yet to be debunked. There is much about the story that appeals to me and I never tire of hearing or talking about Mary, her sightings and her mysterious origins.   Although stories of "vanishing hitchhikers" in Chicago date back to the horse and buggy days, Mary's tale begins in the 1930's. It was around this time that drivers along Archer Avenue started reporting strange encounters with a young woman in a white dress. She always appeared to be real, until she would inexplicably vanish. The reports of this girl began in the middle 1930's and started when motorists passing by Resurrection Cemetery began claiming that a young woman was attempting to jump onto the running boards of their automobiles. Not long after, the woman became more mysterious, and much more alluring. The strange encounters began to move further away from the graveyard and closer to the O Henry Ballroom, which is now known as the Willowbrook. She was now reported on the nearby roadway and sometimes, inside of the ballroom itself. On many occasions, young men would meet a girl at the ballroom, dance with her and then offer her a ride home at the end of the evening. She would always accept and offer vague directions that would lead north on Archer Avenue. When the car would reach the gates of Resurrection Cemetery, the young woman would always vanish. More common were the claims of motorists who would see the girl walking along the road. They would offer her a ride and then witness her vanishing from their car. These drivers could describe the girl in detail and nearly every single description precisely matched the previous accounts. The girl was said to have light blond hair, blue eyes and was wearing a white party dress. Some more attentive drivers would sometimes add that she wore a thin shawl, or dancing shoes, and that she had a small clutch purse. Others had even more harrowing experiences. Rather than having the girl vanish for their car, they claimed to actually run her down in the street. They claimed to see a woman in a white dress bolt in front of their car near the cemetery and would actually describe the sickening thud as she was struck by the front of the car. When they stopped to go to her aid, she would be gone. Some even said that the automobile passed directly through the girl. At that point, she would turn and disappear through the cemetery gates.   Bewildered and shaken drivers began to appear almost routinely in nearby businesses and even at the nearby Justice, Illinois police station. They told strange and frightening stories and sometimes they were believed and sometimes they weren't. Regardless, they created an even greater legend of the vanishing girl, who would go on to become Resurrection Mary.   But who is this young woman, or at least who was she when she was alive?   Most researchers agree that the most accurate version of the story concerns a young girl who was killed while hitchhiking down Archer Avenue in the early 1930's. Apparently, she had spent the evening dancing with a boyfriend at the O Henry Ballroom. At some point, they got into an argument and Mary (as she has come to be called) stormed out of the place. Even though it was a cold winter's night, she thought, she would rather face a cold walk home than another minute with her boorish lover.   She left the ballroom and started walking up Archer Avenue. She had not gotten very far when she was struck and killed by a passing automobile. The driver fled the scene and Mary was left there to die.   Her grieving parents buried her in Resurrection Cemetery, wearing a white dress and her dancing shoes. Since that time, her spirit has been seen along Archer Avenue, perhaps trying to return to her grave after one last night among the living.   It has never been known just who the earthly counterpart of Mary might have been, but follow this link to several suggestions that have been made.     Over the years, there have been many sightings and encounters with the ghost alleged to be "Resurrection Mary". Dozens of young men have told of picking up the same girl, or meeting her at the ballroom, only to have her disappear from their car. Perhaps the most believable encounter with Mary took place in 1939 and involved a young man named Jerry Palus. Click here to read about his close encounter!     The majority of the reports seem to come from the cold winter months, like the account passed on by a cab driver. He picked up a girl who was walking along Archer Avenue one night in 1941. It was very cold outside, but she was not wearing a coat. She jumped into the cab and told him that she needed to get home very quickly. She directed him along Archer Avenue and a few minutes later, he looked back and she was gone. He realized that he was passing in front of the cemetery when she disappeared.   Click Here to Read about Other Sightings of Resurrection Mary!    The stories continued but perhaps the strangest account of Mary was the one that occurred on the night of August 10, 1976. This event has remained so bizarre after all this time because on this occasion, Mary did not just appear as a passing spirit. It was on this night that she left evidence behind!   A driver was passing by the cemetery around 10:30 that night when he happened to see a girl standing on the other side of the gates. He said that when he saw her, she was wearing a white dress and grasping the iron bars of the gate. The driver was considerate enough to stop down the street at the Justice police station and alert them to the fact that someone had been accidentally locked in the cemetery at closing time. An officer responded to the call but when he arrived there was no one there. The graveyard was dark and deserted and there was no sign of any girl.   But his inspection of the gates, where the girl had been seen standing, did reveal something. The revelation chilled him to the bone! He found that two of the bars in the gate had been pulled apart and bent at sharp angles. To make things worse, at the points on the green-colored bronze where they had been pried apart were blackened scorch marks. Within these marks was what looked to be skin texture and handprints that had been seared into the metal with incredible heat.   The marks of the small hands made big news and curiosity-seekers came from all over the area to see them. In an effort to discourage the crowds, cemetery officials attempted to remove the marks with a blowtorch, making them look even worse. Finally, they cut the bars off and installed a wire fence until the two bars could be straightened or replaced.

spar2

Very frightening and interesting stories.  Even in daylight in my own home it gives me goosebumps.  I can't see the italian bride picture. Thanks for those stories.  I have heard that chicago and new orleans has lots of ghost.  Me and my mom stayed in a haunted hotel in eureka springs but had no ghostly encounters we were hoping for.  When I have a lot more time will post some stories also.  It probably will be Monday since I have the grands over for the weekend.

Have a hike, enjoy the mountains, maybe someone will find some interesting things to post.

dreamwriter

 I looked up some scary places in Toronto, since that is where I live:

The Royal Ontario Museum/McLaughlin Planetarium

The McLaughlin Planetarium has sat empty in recent years. But for nearly three decades, it was a destination for students and other budding astronomers.

It was one young girl, however, who caught the staff's attention. On several occasions, they reported seeing her sitting alone in the theatre, long after the other children had left. And when they called out to her, she would vanish. The girl became such a common sighting that the staff even gave her a name, "Celeste", after the celestial shows in the planetarium.

Sightings of "Celeste" continued even after the planetarium closed. When it became the Children's Own Museum in the late 1990s, staff reported seeing toys tossed around, and a shadowy figure lurking in the building's hallways and storage rooms.

Queen's Park

There have been numerous strange sightings in Ontario's 117-year-old legislature building, but one is particularly disturbing to those who claim to have seen it. Below the government complex sits a tunnel that takes government employees from the legislature building to an adjacent one across the street.

Many are afraid to walk through it.

According to Fiennes-Clinton, some who have crossed through the tunnel claim to have seen a woman, in tattered clothes - and dangling from the end of a rope.

Soldiers' Tower, University of Toronto

Situated beside the University College building on U of T's St. George campus, Soldiers' Tower is a monument to the school's alumni who have served and died for their country. In the 1930s, legend has it that a caretaker who was cleaning the bells in the room at the top of the tower died when he lost his balance and fell out the window.

Since then, some students have claimed to have been startled by the sight of a man falling from the upper level of the tower to the ground below. After calling for help, however, they realize that the man has vanished.

Still others have reported a paranormal presence in the room atop Soldiers' Tower - from which the man presumably fell.

Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre

The legendary theatre complex at Yonge and Queen has been around since 1913. But while the Elgin became a movie theatre in the 1920s (and remained that way until 1981), the upper-level Winter Garden Theatre stood unused for 60 years before re-opening in the 1980s.

But that's not to say the Winter Garden remained silent over all those years. Theatre workers claim to have seen - and heard - the ghost of a musician named "Sam", who played there in the 1920s and died when he fell into the orchestra pit.

"He is still said to wander around from time to time, and his saxophone can sometimes be heard as if he is still performing for audiences 80 years after his death," said Fiennes-Clinton.

Mackenzie House Museum

Once the home of Toronto's first mayor and leader of the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion, this house is also where William Lyon Mackenzie died in 1861.

Some believe he's still there.

According to Fiennes-Clinton, visitors to the museum have reported seeing some strange things. "A rocking chair in the basement kitchen moves of its own accord, the piano in the parlour is played by unseen hands, and people have even reported seeing the ghost of Mackenzie in his upstairs master bedroom!" he said.

spar2

WOW, you guys are coming up with some good stories. Goosebumpy stories

[Deleted User]

Spar:  Here's the picture.  I was afraid to post it earlier.  Both my parents are buried right near here at Mt. Carmel - it's even scarier in real life.