Archive for June, 2009
As night falls over Valley Forge and Montgomery County, the winds whisper stories of America’s past. You can sense the spirits of the men at Valley Forge National Historical Park, Brandywine Battlefield and Washington’s Crossing.
In daylight hours, historic sites bustle with cooking and spinning demonstrations. Re-enactments of battles and guided tours preserve and illuminate the past for visitors. But in some places, those echoes of the past turn to whispers of ghost stories, apparitions and strange happenings.
Visit Graeme Park one clear, moonlit night, and you just might see the ghosts of Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson and her husband, Henry Hugh Fergusson, embracing by the glittering pond – together in death though separated in life.
At historic Waynesborough in Paoli, sounds of glass shattering and a woman screaming have unnerved visitors unable to find the source of the sounds. Smells of bread baking fill Grumblethorpe when the ovens are cold. At Cresheim Cottage Cafe, an attic door mysteriously opens and shuts, and a young girl in Victorian dress mysteriously appears.
And it’s said that if you dance with your true love in the Mirror Room of Arcadia University’s Grey Towers Castle, you’ll see a ghostly couple joining in. Another legend says you can feel the presence of a little girl on a stairway where she was accidentally strangled when her scarf caught on a banister as she ran down the stairs.
Related items
Have you ever wanted to do something crazy?
Have you ever wanted to walk on the wild side?
Have you ever wanted to leave the office environment and never return?
Driving up to Manchester one autumn’s evening in 1995, I decided something had to change.
The three hour journey from Leicester had turned into a six hour marathon, again.
It was cold, damp and desolate stuck in the endless lines of slow moving cars.
In my briefcase sat an unsigned and rather overly negotiated contract extension for my job in Leicester. When I finally arrived in Manchester at 11pm, bored, hungry and miserable – I knew that I could not face another winter of living and working out of a suitcase. It was time for serious change.
The week before, I had been stuck on a train for hours heading down to London.
The woman sat opposite me had left her travel magazine on the seat when she alighted at Luton. I had read my newspaper back to front and on the second time of reading, I found nothing new.
I reached over and killed a little time by flicking through the glossy magazine, but each time I thumbed the pages, my eyes returned to page 34 which advertised a five month trip to South and Central America. Setting off from Ushuaia in Argentina (the most southerly City in the world) and finishing in Mexico City. The itinerary read like a Who’s Who of top travel destinations.
Buenos Aires, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Punta Arenas, Pucon (Mount Villarica – 10,000 feet active volcano), Bariloche, Esquel, the Argentine lake district, Santiago, Valparaiso, La Serena, the Atacama desert, Arica, Nazca, Arequipa, Cusco, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca, La Paz, Manaus, Angel Falls and so on…
Do you get the picture?
Travelling on a converted truck and free camping, the lucky adventurers would experience the full range of South and Central America’s charms. Having never been camping before and with my thirty-fifth birthday celebrations still ringing in my ears, I suddenly realised that I was confronted by a serendipitous ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity. Would I break the mould of my boring office life or step out bravely into an adventurer’s world?
I was single, no obligations and I had the money. What is the point in having a big bank balance while life was passing me by?
The following Monday morning, I handed my notice in. Contract discussions had been delayed and I had only ten working days to endure. It seemed like forever before I was released from that working purgatory.
Once the deed was done, I was walking on air. Skipping down the corridor and whistling ‘El condor Pasa’ – I never whistle?
It was a euphoric experience – the weight of meetings, ironing work shirts and driving those endless miles up and down he M1 had dissipated into nothingness. Top priority on this project manager’s list was buying outdoor gear, expensive sleeping bags, boots and all weather jackets.
And there was one place, one destination that I was focussed on – Machu Picchu in Peru – I had read so much about it and I knew that it would be the highlight of my journey?
If you want to find out exactly how my crazy decision turned out? then click on the link and follow my path on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.
People who looked at this item also looked at…
Related items
In this continuing series, we cover my decision to move from San Diego to Chita, Siberia to be a professor at Chita State Technical University. We pick up the story aboard the flight from Anchorage to Khabarovsk, Russia.
Day 3 Still
As I lounged in my huge Aeroflot seat, the stewardess announced that we would be arriving in Khabarovsk in the next 30 minutes. Khabarovsk is located in the deep south of the far east of Russia on the border with China. It is the home of the Far East Military of Russia and is the largest city east of Lake Baikal. I was primarily interested in how hard it would be to find a hot shower.
Well, this was it, the first day of my year in Siberia. I had my phrase book, electric blanket, traveler’s checks and a solid rush of adrenaline. Of course, I had never actually taught a class before, but I would deal with that later.
We descended out of the clouds into a rainstorm. The view was still incredible. We were flying into a flat valley surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Everything was a deep green. A few cabins could be seen on the ground.
There was a very clear view of the airport as we banked through the valley to approach from the West. Umm, aren’t airports usually lit up? This one looked like a ghost town. The runways looked fine, but there were no lights in the buildings. There appeared to be a dearth of activity on the ground. I had never backpacked from a plane to the airport, but maybe this was the way it was done. When in Rome?
Finishing off an incredible flight, our Russian pilot set us down with a light touch. As we taxied up to the airport, I could only think that if the rest of Russia was as good as the flight, it was going to be a great year.
Blink, blink, blink?lights started coming on in the terminal! Despite being no more than 50 feet from it, we were herded onto a transport. We started, did a wide u-turn and stopped at the gate. All I could think of was “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”
“The Gods Must Be Crazy” was a hilarious movie released in the eighties no jokes about my age. The first scenes of the movie are biting satires of our modern way of life versus the indigenous tribes of Africa. In one scene, a woman gets into her car, backs down to the end of her driveway and puts a letter in the mailbox. Ah, progress! The journey from the plane to the airport couldn’t have been much longer.
The airport terminal was pretty industrial. That is to say, no effort was made to sell you fast food, booze, ice cream, “Khabarovsk Hard Rock Café” shirts or duty-free crap you really didn’t need. Frankly, it was a relief.
Russian customs worked pretty much the same way as customs at any airport. You grabbed your bags, bummed pens off of strangers to fill out forms and stood in long line with other tired travelers. Eventually, you got to the front of the line and tried to see how the person standing eight feet in front of you did it.
Unfortunately, my turn was also my first chance to experience the Russian language. I passed my passport, custom forms and visa through the little window. I also tried an innocent smile, which worked about as well as smiling at an IRS agent. Everything went smoothly until the customs agent started speaking rapidly and pointing at my customs form. Something was wrong, but I hadn’t a clue as to what. I turned to Grae with a quizzical look and he came forward to interpret.
All international travelers quickly learn a fundamental rule. The “wait here” line at customs is sacred. To prematurely cross the line is to commit an act of war. Russian customs was no different. Grae was loudly instructed to get behind the line and wait his turn. The customs agent then gave me a stern lecture. To this day, I can’t tell you if he was discussing my forms or the weather, but the tone was definitely stern. The lecture was capped by the universal customs agent expression known as “stupid foreigner?why did I take this job?I really wanted to be a painter?”
Eventually, the issue with the form was resolved. I would like to tell you that I took an active role in this, but I basically stood there while the agent grumbled and aggressively stamped the documents. I did actively pray that the stamp wouldn’t explode, but that was about it. Grae moved through customs without incident and we walked out into the cool, wet air of Khabarovsk, Russia.
To be continued?
