awesomeroadtrips

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October 23, 2016... FINALLY! Chels and I (and Len) got out together (FOUR years after our last post here, wow!!) Instead of buying a candle or some other dust collector, I bought tickets to The Haunted Walk for Chelsea's birthday this year. Experiences over things has pretty much defined our friendship, anyways! The walk was fantastic. A warm night in late October, walking around buildings we hadn't really seen before, and at night, with ghost stories... what's not to enjoy?! The group consisted of about eight people, and our guide Christina was well versed with her stories! I personally loved the story of the two men in love with the same woman... and one was killed - allegedly, with the "proof" gouged into the wooden door! (Ref: The Legend dof Diabolos and Reznikoff)

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this is totally a conversation that Chels & I could have someday. It's a similar thought process, for sure.

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August 5, 2011 We stopped in at Ithaca Falls to find a geocache. Or we went geocaching and found Ithaca Falls. Either way, it was pretty awesome to see! -Lisa

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The amazing water tower in Florence, KY doesn't speak out of place at all, y'all.

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Who are you? (Lisa...)

that's me!

Spontaneous, adventurous, and bold, Lisa is the (Canon) photographer and social media g33k (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr-duh), who can't seem to keep this blog updated on a regular basis, but she has no problem running towards fires, riots, or strangers that look like possible serial killers. With an above-average need for control, Lisa does 99%* of the driving on the road trips, while Chelsea controls the music. (Except for the Glee soundtracks. Seriously, Chels, make it stop.) We tend to generate most of our inside jokes and one-liners from this arrangement. It's win-win. (*99% because that one time at 2am on the Interstate just north of Columbus, OH, there was a traffic jam because of "construction". Non-existent "construction", where we did a Chinese fire-drill and swapped drivers. Yeah, I did. I stopped the car in a 2mph traffic jam to switch drivers. I'm pretty sure the other cars were cheering us on.)

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Who are you? (Chels...)

So meet Chelsea. She's fun-loving, Jeep-driving, easy-friending, and spontaneous-planning. She's my best friend. It's amazing that only in the last two years that we've known each other, it's been this summer we're discovering just how similar we are. We make up our own jokes in daily conversation, enjoy slushies from Mac's (or Slurpees from 7/11), can pack a bag and take off for a day, or weekend, at a moment's notice. We both have two cats (and generally a soft spot for any animal), enjoy geocaching, spontaneously cutting our hair (truth be told: I've cut 6" of my own off before, and just recently snipped a few inches from Chelsea's head), and movies (ESPECIALLY Super 8). We have a liking for piercings, and have been known to stop in at Tora 'just because'. It would seem our only differences are she's toting an Android smartphone iPhone in her hand and a Nikon dSLR around her neck. I've got an iPhone and Canon. It's okay - we're cool. ;-)

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wow wee!

my my, how this blog quickly became neglected. I have a collection of photos and videos that should be added and shared. We haven't been traveling lately, but that doesn't mean we don't have stories to share. Even if the stories are just reminiscent memories for us, so be it. We'll still be here for the laughs ;)

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May 19, 2012 | Louisville, KY Chelsea snaps a photo of our traveling chicken, Jose, on the grave site of Colonel Sanders at the Cave Hill Cemetery in Lousiville, Kentucky.

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Hey Chelsea

next idea: fly to memphis. drive to jackson, mississippi. sleep/rest. drive to new orleans. enjoy. fly to canada. think of next trip. yes?

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Heading home.

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Waverly Hills!  First of all let me say that you double and triple check how to get there on the map.  We got lost (ending up at the Dixie Rd entrance - afterwards we realized we found ourselves at the end of the "Body Chute") and finally arrived about 15 minutes late.  The sheer size of the structure is breathtaking and intimidating at the same time.  We are met by attendants, taken to the parking lot, and then escorted into the cafeteria and gift shop to meet up with our group.  Divided into smaller groups we are instructed to visit each floor for a certain time, then meet to switch.  There are no ifs ands or buts about this:  BRING A FLASHLIGHT.  It is pitch black inside and the hallways are incredibly long.  Despite all this, I was surprisingly calm.  

Now to the good stuff.  People are always wanting to know if it is really haunted.  Did we see or experience anything?  Yes, we did.  Our first experience was less than half an hour after being inside.  One of our group mates, John, had what is called a "Ghost Box", essentially a piece of equipment that produces "white noise" which is suggested ghosts or spirits can use to manipulate into words.  They were concentrating on one of the rubber balls left at Waverly for the little spirit "Timmy" to play with.  It was asked "Can you tell me what colour the ball is?"  After a long pause, through the white noise, you can hear clearly someone, sounded to me like a child, say the word "Ball."  Thankfully I had my digital recorder running at the time.

I also, in a moment of pure insanity lol, crawled onto one of the slabs in the morgue and laid there for a while.  Though nothing overly intense happened, I did notice I was feeling rather lightheaded.  Can't say I wasn't particularly glad to be on my feet again. 

Our best experiences, however, came on the third floor.  Firstly, as a large group led by our tour guide Dee, we stood in the hall in pitch darkness and watched what are known as the "shadow people."  Though the very faint light coming through the doorways, you can see shadows cross in front of them, or very frequently, peek their heads out of doorways and quickly dart back.  It really is quite a remarkable thing to see.  Secondly, a while later while it was just four of us, on the far right hall of the building, we stood in silence watching the shadow people once again.  At the very far end of the hall, in the doorway to what we found opened up into a larger common space, we saw what appeared to be a figure, poke out from the doorway.  Then almost without warning we all noticed what appeared to be two red eyes attached to the figure.  We were all kinda like "ok, are you seeing that?"  One of the guys with us lifted his flashlight to point at the figure and to our immense shock, the figure STAYED in the light.  It did not intimidate whatever it was whatsoever, and the two red eyes remained.  Several seconds later, the figure stepped to the right, behind the doorway, and was gone. Overall we had a great tour with great people.  If I could offer any advice to future Waverly Hills visitors it would be this:  please be respectful to those on your tour attempting to conduct their investigations.  The hallways echo and it is sometimes quite hard to concentrate.  Most importantly, don't be afraid.  I truly believe that whatever  roams the halls of Waverly Hills is not there to cause harm.  As Dee said to us, they're just as curious about us as we are about them.

What a great night.    

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Test post

Testing testing!

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Driving thru Fort Knox, KY

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Well that was quite a night.  Definitely a night of ups and downs, that’s for sure.  Let me recount it briefly, or not so briefly for you.  We get to Cleveland, fine.  Get stuck in traffic but it’s ok because we don’t have to be at Peabody’s for the VIP early admission for another 20 minutes.  18 minutes later we’re finally in front of Peabody’s.  Lisa tells me to go ahead and get in line while she finds parking.  Ok, I can do that.  Less than five minutes later I have our VIP passes around my neck.  I look for Lisa.  She’s not back yet but that’s ok because he says they’re not going to let us in for another 15 minutes or so.  Oh good, so we’ve got time.  10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes.  We’re still not in but that’s ok because Lisa is not back yet.  We’ve been texting and there is no parking to be found (doesn’t help that the whole Peabody’s lot was filled with people for the graduation ceremonies- raaar).  Finally, at 5:48, Lisa has found a parking spot.  Sigh of relief.  Oh no!  They’re letting us in and she’s not back yet.  I nervously follow the crowd.  5 minutes later, a text from Lisa that she’s outside.  Phew.  It’s ok, I tell myself, we still have the meet and greet.  We meet, we greet, we smile for pictures, we get autographs.  Awesome.  Now we wait for the opening band.  What?  There are 3 opening bands?  Sigh.  I hope they’re good.  They’re not.  And they get louder with every band.  What time is it?  Oh, it’s 9:45.  Come on Eve6.  Time again, please? It’s exactly 10:11.  Here comes Eve6.  Finally.  They play, we sing, some jump, I take lots of pictures.  I enjoy myself.  It’s been worth it.  11:15 we decide that since they’ve announced this will be their last song, we’re going to vacate and beat the traffic.    We do.  We walk two blocks to the parking garage.  We stop for gas.  No, I don’t have a US zip code.  Can I just pay and leave?  Thank you.  We drive.  We’re both tired but conversations and tunes keep us awake.  It’s 1:15.  We’re 30 minutes away from The Country Inn and Suites, Columbus, Ohio.  The traffic slows down.  It stays slow for an hour.  For what, you ask?  We don’t know.  We never found out.  At 1:45 Lisa is way too tired to keep driving.  We do a quick switcheroo on the highway (you can do that when you’re moving 5 miles an hour - I mean, we stopped, parked and switched, we didn’t switch while the car was moving, that would be silly.)  I keep driving.  Stop, go.  Finally we pull into the hotel’s lot at 2:45. There is a creepy dude waiting at the front desk.  The attendant tells him it’s a fake credit card.  He leaves.  Yeah that’s right, keep on going.  We get our key, it’s a smooth check in.  We plug in all important electronic devices (we know our priorities).  We sleep.  The End.

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Fuel friendly car indeed

After driving from Buffalo to Pittsburgh to Cleveland, we're finally on empty (500 miles later) good for the brand new Cruze I'd say! Gas is $3.75!

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I MET EVE6 AT PEABODY'S!!!

What an awesome experience! VIP tix into Peabody's, sound check and meet and greet! What an awesome set of guys! I told them that they made my concert going experience because I thought I'd never get to hear them play. Lol Tony was like "I'm sorry we did that to you, it wasn't on purpose...well, it kinda was...but not.." hahahah. Can't believe I actually met them! AND they signed my Horrorscope cd booklet! Hahahahahahhaa I'm so ecstatic right now! Can't wait for the show!

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Weirton, WV

Wow.  What an incredible stop.  So neat to see so many places from the movie.  First, our waitress at the Eat n’ Park said that “They guy who played Simon on 7th Heaven came in here all the time.” Then we met some biker dudes (literally, they owned the motorcycle shop next to where the car sales lot was in the movie) and they were so forthcoming with information about the filming and what was changed in town for the movie (For example : four different signs were painted on the sides of buildings for the film and are still there). It was really neat to hear a local talk about it.  Would have been so cool to be here for the filming.  Oh, and let’s not forget the yellow curbs.  ”Ah, those were the good old days…when there were yellow curbs.”