A True Ghost Story

Today I saw a ghost.

This morning I decided to bike to most of the batteries (big guns that can shoot miles used to protect this harbor). It’s hot and muggy, so I go very early around sunrise. 

One of the batteries has a sign talking about Pvt. Paap who died in a tragic accident in 1920 at the batteries. Others died on the island during Civil War battles. There’s a small cemetery here with members of the Chase family. Major William Chase supervised the construction of Fort Pickens and later commanded Fort Barrancas as a Confederate and fought against the Union soldiers in Fort Pickens.

Most of the batteries are hidden under a hill of sand and brush. I found this on one of the doors. 

I was walking through the brush and sand around a hill when suddenly something white with dark eyes moved right where I was about to put my foot. I screamed! I normally jump when something scares me, but screaming out loud meant I was really startled. 

After a second, I realized it was a ghost crab that ran into the bushes. No picture of this one, but here’s a previous picture I took. See…I really saw a ghost!

Fort Pickens

We’re back in the Pensacola area at Fort Pickens and Gulf Islands National Seashore. We were able to pick up mail, get our car & RV registrations updated, drop off more stuff we really don’t use at the storage unit, and get the Chevy car in for recall work. Some of this required hours of waiting. The car work was nice because the Chevy dealer provided free internet so I could catch up on some work. They even provided a computer in the waiting room, which I used after I used the full charge on my laptop.

The original plan was to enjoy the beaches, but the weather has been rainy all week with heavy waves. In between rains we’ve done some bike rides and plan to hit the beaches our last day.

Here’s some details from around the fort and batteries.

Camp Sites

A few pictures to share from walks around campgrounds….

Tennessee’s Warriors Path State Park – Lots of deer in Tennessee. I saw these two one morning. Later at Harrison Bay State Park, I almost hit a deer when riding on my bike as I started on one of their bike paths!

Alabama’s Gunter Hill COE - I found the bridge and pipe interesting. I don’t know what is pumped through the pipe, but the whole thing looks cool. But I really like the swallows that are nesting under the bridge. In the morning, birds are flying and swooping everywhere. It is very difficult to take pictures of swallows flying. At best I can get a blur.

Chattanooga’s Point Park

I thought this would be a quick stop on Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga to walk around a small park and look at the views. We ended up spending several hours looking through the two small museums, reading a lot of signs, talking to the workers, and even chatting with our neighbors (from the campground) who turned out to be also visiting.

The stone entrance was built in 1905 as a replica of the Corps of Engineers insignia.

The views were definitely spectacular. You can see the town of Chattanooga, the Tennessee River, and multiple sites of a Civil War battle.

This is the New York Peace Memorial. The statue on the top shows a Union and Confederate soldier shaking hands. Interesting, but I liked talking to a couple of workers even more. They were finishing up a restoration of the memorial. They had been cleaning the bronze, marble, and granite for months and were happy to be finishing up. They had used high pressure water with sand for most of it, but also used a laser to clean the statue at the top. I asked them if they were scared of heights..”Not any more.”

Blood-Stained Mausoleum and Other Oddities

Nina Craigmiles died in 1871 when she was only seven years old. She was riding in a buggy with her grandfather who was on his doctor’s rounds when the horse was frightened by a train. The horse reared up and threw her little body on the train tracks in front of the oncoming train. In memory of their daughter, her rich parents built a church in their town of Cleveland Tennessee. Behind the church they built a marble mausoleum with Nina remains contained inside a sarcophagus. Later, a baby brother was interred here followed by her father when he died from blood poisoning and her mother when she was killed by an automobile.

Soon after Nina was buried here, red stains began to appear on the white marble walls. After each tragic death, the stains grew darker and larger. It’s said that all types of cleaning methods were used and sections of the marble was even replaced, but the ‘blood’ stains returned. There’s a continuing tragic story that the plan was to display a bust of Nina within the church. The European artist shipped the completed bust to America on the Titanic, where it now sits on the ocean floor.

 

On a lighter note, John saw this copperhead (I think that’s what it is) at one of the RV parks in Virginia. Cool!

On an even lighter note, here’s an interesting place we saw in the Chattanooga area.

Spring

We’re in Pennsylvania enjoying spring. These pictures show the same spot when we arrived and a week afterward. It’s been enjoyable sitting outside seeing the beautiful green of growing leaves.

One of the places in Virginia had a duck nest right by the RV’s.

And here’s some ducks walking through our campsite.

Yes, I made my husband stop to take this picture of an ape on a roof. Nothing to do about spring, just my weirdness.

Bill’s Old Bike Barn

This place is just amazing. It is sort of a motorcycle museum. When I say “sort of”, there are a LOT of bikes and many are unique and historical like this World War II German Kettenrkrad. The addition of treads allowed the motorcycle / tractor to help climb mountains, sand dunes, cross mud flats, act as a tug for airplanes, and carry loads. They say that the museum is the largest display of vintage bikes in the east coast.

    

I say “sort of a motorcycle museum” because it’s not all bikes. The eclectic nature of the displays are amazing. There is everything here! This started out as just one man’s collection (well..his wife helped too!). As people visit and see what he has, they’ve donated whole collections. For instance, a wife donated her deceased husband’s camera collection.

Collections are mostly from the 1900’s and include phones, door knobs, scales, radios, military hats, toy cars, Christmas, musical instruments, mouse traps, and Elvis.

Special items include a bar from the 1939 NY World's Fair, John Wayne commerative guns, Nazi items, dentist chairs, a room made of beer cans, and who knows where these horses and knights came from.

Berwick Speedway

A long time ago (1930’s to the late 1970’s), the town of Berwick Pennsylvania had a racing speedway. The story is that the inventor of a machine that takes our dents out of beer kegs built the speedway (George Perluke). I’m not into racing, but the place is within walking distance from where we’re staying. In google, you can see the racetrack clearly with a pond in the center.

The racetrack was ½ mile long. Somebody is still keeping the general track mowed and cutting down encroaching trees. Maybe they still race informally every once in a while? 

  

The place is supposed to have the remains of an amusement park, but I couldn’t find any rides left. Maybe if I looked further. What I did see within the woods were a bunch of equipment and vehicles that were used back then.

The bleachers were designed to hold up to 5,000 people and still remain (seen through a fence). The story is that very few people actually attended the races. The prizes weren’t much and the field was too dusty.

There are a lot of “No trespassing signs” here. I’ve heard they can be aggressive in keeping people out. And I also heard it was no problem. I hoped for the second version and didn’t have any problems while I was there. Fun hour walking around!

The Carolinas and President James Polk

After a winter of palm trees and 80 degree weather, it feels weird being in an area going through spring. Flowers are blooming and nights are cool (wonderful for sleeping).

We stayed for a few days at the McDowell Nature Preserve near Charlotte, North Carolina. Biking was difficult due to the steep hills, but the hiking trails were good. The nature center was small but I always learn something from them.

I don’t know about you, but I knew next to nothing about President James Polk. So it was interesting going to a museum about him. Outside we could take pictures of the restored homestead while we were on a private tour. They had a really nice small garden. We spent some time speaking about the plants to a volunteer who was working the garden.

Inside the museum we couldn’t take pictures. My biggest takeaway was the difference between how we imagine “the good old days” and reality. For some reason we believe things were simple back then. There were no fights between political parties and life was stress free. The reality is that, while the president didn’t have to worry about internet and the constant news cycle, there were great stresses. People in politics fought. This was the time period (he served1845-1849), when the Democrat parties had just formed less than 20 years before due to these fights. There were great accomplishments (opening the U.S. Naval Academy, Smithsonian Institution, Washington Monument, and the first postage stamps) and securing most of the Southwest as U.S. territory. Yet he essentially started the Mexican-American War to get that territory. He tends to be ranked in the top ten of presidents.  James Polk was a young president (he was only 49 when he started his term). However, the stresses of office meant he only served one term and he died 3 months after he held the office.