11-01-2007, 04:59 PM
What started as a silly road trip to investigate the Scarlett O'Hara restaurant in Saint Augustine, Florida, transformed into an epic night of close calls and paranormal experiences.
First? The strip. Never before had I seen so many drunken college brats, and I found it all the more amusing because of it. Some of em' had some really creative costumes, others fell into the typical "trendy fictional heroes" of male attire and "dress like a whore" for the ladies. It wasn't until late night when the jolly resturant owner arrived did we get to set things up proper.
And then? The fun begins. This resturant has two notable areas - upstairs, and down. Simple. Downstairs has the bar and kitchen, upstairs being the old feely sort of room with the usual creepy photograph of a past proprietor. Provoking the historic figure by abusing his glass framed photograph by moving it form the mantle of honor and dancing it around the room, sometimes even making out with it, provided results. I'll bother to show those later once we check out all of the random captures.
Moments of madness:
Flying Styrofoam container from the kitchen.
Plastic Cup being dunked from an investigator's hand upstairs.
Batteries draining to dead every few minutes downstairs.
Usual touchy-feely phantom nonsense upstairs.
Supposed entity targeting an investigator, and stomping on his foot. Despite this, investigator stayed in the room and defied it to "fight like a man" - when challenged to do so once more, nothing occured the remainder of the night.
After completion of the investigation, we set home at around 5 am with plans to sleep in our own beds by 9 am. This was a bad idea, as the driver who insisted he was not drowsy ended up sending us on an offroad detour which resulted in our SUV doing a 720-degree spin, stopping inches from the edge of the forest brush. From this point on, I drove. Everyone who wasn't supposed to be watching the road seemed awake at last due to the shock of waking to find the car spinning like a top in the grass.
A good Samaritan stopped to see if we were okay - and he must have been shocked to find us all performing a Chinese fire drill after thanking him before once more driving off. Nice guy, would've shaken his hand or given him a hug if he hadn't been so weirded out by the fact we'd just survived by nothing short of providence. Our Italian driver has one hell of a Guardian Angel.
As you'd imagine, God has one hell of a sense of humor. At the next rest stop, we found our car suffered more damage than previously thought from the spinout, as it needed to be towed to a shop to get it's tire fixed. Fortunately, I found a good alternative for 75$ tow and a mere 25$ to fix the damn tire. The only problem? Waiting to be picked up. The Lord's way of saying to enjoy this new day, and that we did, killing time around the rest stop with bizarre conversation and inflection over the O'Hara resturant's hauntings and future possible places to check.
I've been awake 36 hours. Fun times, and without a drop of booze involved. I can't say the same for the resturant owner, though. The entire time we were there, he was boozing in the back so he could sleep soundly despite our provoking.
First? The strip. Never before had I seen so many drunken college brats, and I found it all the more amusing because of it. Some of em' had some really creative costumes, others fell into the typical "trendy fictional heroes" of male attire and "dress like a whore" for the ladies. It wasn't until late night when the jolly resturant owner arrived did we get to set things up proper.
And then? The fun begins. This resturant has two notable areas - upstairs, and down. Simple. Downstairs has the bar and kitchen, upstairs being the old feely sort of room with the usual creepy photograph of a past proprietor. Provoking the historic figure by abusing his glass framed photograph by moving it form the mantle of honor and dancing it around the room, sometimes even making out with it, provided results. I'll bother to show those later once we check out all of the random captures.
Moments of madness:
Flying Styrofoam container from the kitchen.
Plastic Cup being dunked from an investigator's hand upstairs.
Batteries draining to dead every few minutes downstairs.
Usual touchy-feely phantom nonsense upstairs.
Supposed entity targeting an investigator, and stomping on his foot. Despite this, investigator stayed in the room and defied it to "fight like a man" - when challenged to do so once more, nothing occured the remainder of the night.
After completion of the investigation, we set home at around 5 am with plans to sleep in our own beds by 9 am. This was a bad idea, as the driver who insisted he was not drowsy ended up sending us on an offroad detour which resulted in our SUV doing a 720-degree spin, stopping inches from the edge of the forest brush. From this point on, I drove. Everyone who wasn't supposed to be watching the road seemed awake at last due to the shock of waking to find the car spinning like a top in the grass.
A good Samaritan stopped to see if we were okay - and he must have been shocked to find us all performing a Chinese fire drill after thanking him before once more driving off. Nice guy, would've shaken his hand or given him a hug if he hadn't been so weirded out by the fact we'd just survived by nothing short of providence. Our Italian driver has one hell of a Guardian Angel.
As you'd imagine, God has one hell of a sense of humor. At the next rest stop, we found our car suffered more damage than previously thought from the spinout, as it needed to be towed to a shop to get it's tire fixed. Fortunately, I found a good alternative for 75$ tow and a mere 25$ to fix the damn tire. The only problem? Waiting to be picked up. The Lord's way of saying to enjoy this new day, and that we did, killing time around the rest stop with bizarre conversation and inflection over the O'Hara resturant's hauntings and future possible places to check.
I've been awake 36 hours. Fun times, and without a drop of booze involved. I can't say the same for the resturant owner, though. The entire time we were there, he was boozing in the back so he could sleep soundly despite our provoking.