Episode 26: Haunted America: Midwestern States Pt. 1

Join us as we continue to explore hauntings in America by exploring the Midwestern states. Have a haunted experience or story to share? Send us an email to readytoconnectpodacst@gmail.com or reach out to us through our social media. Consider becoming a supporter through Patreon and get access to bonus content. Get Ready to Connect! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speakers' own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of their affiliated organizations.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I'm Heather. I'm Lisa.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

And I'm Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

And get ready to strap in. We're going to touch base with Missouri, Iowa, and oh no, Idaho.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

No, you were right the first time. It was Iowa.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

And what are you doing, Lisa?

unknown 0:48

Illinois.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Illinois. All right. Well, today we're going to touch in with some rich tapestry of eerie-filled stories, and we're going to talk about the tragic histories and whispered legends that are all around the United States. So I'm going to jump in right with uh Missouri. And haunted Missouri was quite interesting. There were so many places. Um, it's really hard to go state to state and narrow down like which ones are the dynamic campfire lore. And it's really hard to kind of pinpoint which taboo story you want to use and which legend, and of course, the ghostly women. But out of the nine that I found down there in Missouri, which I have never been to Missouri. Have any of you?

SPEAKER_04 1:37

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

I have. I've been to St. Louis.

SPEAKER_04 1:39

Ah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Okay. Okay. So I was looking all around, looking up Missouri, and it's Missouri's full of history of a blended kind of settlement energy, Civil War energy. There's a lot of like history around Missouri where it's all based around like war slaughter, which is unfortunate. Um, obviously, there's a huge indigenous pathway that is all seeded throughout Missouri, and plenty of hauntings, plenty of tragic tales of death and grief, and just simply eerie, you know, eerie structures. And of course, you know, every state that we're looking at does seem to have that former prisons that are haunted and mansions and cemeteries and whatnot. And Missouri is no different. Uh, one of the notable haunted locations I was looking at was actually in St. Louis, Lisa. It's the Lemp Mansion. And um it was built in 1869, and it was known that the Lemp Brewing family was very wealthy during the 1800s, and it is said that multiple members of this family took their own lives because of the fortune of the family collapsing. And so, because of this, you know, in the 19 early 1900s, coming out of the 1800s, the mansion saw at least three to four confirmed suicides from different generations of the family. Plus, there's just this tragic lore, and I felt so bad because this story comes with something that always really kind of punches my gut, and that is the hidden child in the attic. And, you know, we understand obviously that era, nobody knew what to do with someone who had an individual that had any form of uh handicaps, right? Whether it was Down Syndrome, and I'm sure there was autism back in that day, but uh they didn't obviously know what all of those different functioning motor skill functions were when they didn't work properly, right? So this story talks about how the child lingers, does come out of the attic, and it will come down. So people do report when they go and visit the uh Lemp family mansion that you know there's they see the shadow figure of this child from the attic, they hear the footsteps of a child running down. But there's also other voices apparently that are happening in this mansion where they're disembodied. And everyone that goes into this home, if you sit quietly, they're all saying that you can see apparitions in the different various rooms, including the basement, which basements are not my thing. So, but much like the dolls, nobody else. Yeah, dolls, clowns, basements go right up there.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

Understandable, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Especially dirt basements. I don't know. There's just something about when you crack that door open and the you know the dampness hits your face, and you're like, ah, and the stairs are creaking, it's like the full setup of the horror movie, yeah. But apparently paranormal people who have gone in and explored this call it the gates of hell. And um especially when you go to the third floor attic. But you know, if everybody knows Lisa and I and Ryan, we're we don't, you know, kind of buy into the the gates of hell stuff. But you can go there, it's actually a restaurant now, it's an inn, it's also a ghost tour site. So I wonder if some of this gets a little hyped up just because it is a ghost tour, right? Um, especially around Halloween. But they do say that psychics go in there and they are common guests there, and they continue to report unexplained phenomena. You know, people do say they feel an unseen presence tugging at blankets at night, often interpreted as the children's spirits, you know, kind of coming down from the attic and whatnot. So I guess this might be like a cross of uh maybe intellectual residual sounds a lot more residual to me, but maybe because you know, someone is reporting that there's you know, that whole feeling of the you know, the sheets being pulled and stuff. Maybe there is some intelligence there, but a lot of this says to me that there's a lot of residual energy that's left there for people to see and you know go and interact with, even though it's not gonna interact with you, but it's pretty cool. And then we kept moving, and you know, of course, you have the Missouri State Penitentiary, right? That's just gonna be full of doors gonna have stuff, no problem. Yeah, you know, people notoriously say like it it was one of the toughest maximum security prisons in Missouri, and of course, being a prison, it has that long history of violence and executions and stuff. Um, so lots of you know, empty, empty rooms full of shadow figures, empty hallways with like voices that are completely anguished. The paranormal investigators completely 100% say that this is all intellectual, it will interact with you. Um, it is a public access place. You can go on ghost tours overnight there. There is a schedule they put out for it. So, like if you're really into having um maybe the bejesus you know scared out of you, um this might be the prison or any prison. But yeah, um did find, you know, that there was um the Python Castle, which is in Springfield, Missouri, and its original use back in 1913 was an orphanage, and it was the night of um Pythias retreat, and then it later became a prisoner of war hospital. So you can imagine this castle has seen so much different styles of tragedy. First off, having orphan children, and that energy itself is you know, is so hard. You know, you get orphans who long for a family, long for love. So there's a lot of emotional chaos that goes into you know the energy that's into this castle.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Not to mention, but I think even the past orphanages sometimes those children weren't treated well.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

They weren't, they were locked in, they were left in their cribs. And I I mean, obviously, this is back in the 1900s where 1800s, 1900s, where you know, we don't have all the laws we have here, right? Like there's just you you can see where we've progressed in protecting our um our little ones, and and even orphans today don't receive that kind of care, or and nor do our individuals that are handicapped receive the same care that they would have received in the 1900s because it was so misunderstood. Um, but you can go there. It is a it is a full place where you can do tours, appointments are you can make, you can catch the disembodied laughter and the footsteps, and apparently someone walks around whistling, which is claimed to be one of uh one of the military men or women because it was also a hospital, so you would have had military uh you know nurses and presence there of triage, but in this castle, it is reported a lady in white. So she will be going on our board, and she is an apparition who actually poses for photographs, apparently. Really? No, now that I would like that. I would love. I love capturing, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:58

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Yeah, yeah. None of the reports so far have said that directly, like that she will actually pose in your picture for you. So if anybody from Missouri's listening and has uh has captured the white lady in your pictures, please, please, please. I would love to see that, and I know my co-host would love to see that. So, but definitely um she roams the night and she keeps she is said to keep the castle kind of lively, kind of like always letting that energy kind of zip through and whatnot. So that's pretty cool. Then there's zombie road, right? I love the names they give this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

I love it too.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Do we have a zombie road?

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I don't know, but maybe we can like uh there's gotta be some road that has apparitions that we can rename Zombie Road.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yes, yes, and Zombie Road is um actually the Lawler Ford Road in St. Louis County, um, in Missouri. Which did you go to Zombie Road, Lisa, when you were there?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

No, uh when I was in St. Louis the first time I was teaching and I went there for a national science and math teachers kind of convention thing. And then the second time I went was more recently with my husband. We we were doing the whole road trip to different baseball stadiums, and of course we went to St. Louis and saw the Cardinals. So I did not go. This trip was not one of those trips where I actually did a ghost walk or see a haunted place. Shocker, I know, because it seems like many of the places, at least up in the area closest to us, I have. But nope, this is not one of them.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Not one of them, huh? No, you you haven't found a zombie road yet, right, Ryan?

SPEAKER_03 11:55

Not yet. No.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

I don't know, but that sounds like a future waiting in London song. Like Zombie Road.

SPEAKER_04 12:04

Yep, yep. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Because you said that, he's already started writing lyrics in his head. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

See it going.

SPEAKER_04 12:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

When I read that, all I could hear is the cranberries, you know, the zombies.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

Oh, there you go. Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

But uh, so I guess this is nicknamed the zombie road because it's back, it started back in actually. This started in the the earliest story started back in the mid-20th century. So I don't know if this is as old as some of the other stuff we're looking at, but it's nicknamed for ghostly sightings. It includes shadow figures walking down the road and discolored. Now, here's one discolored apparitions. Not a specific woman, not specifically a man, just discolored apparitions. And I tried to like you know, narrow that down. Were they gray, were they white, were they pink, blue? What were going on? Fortunately, I wasn't able to find an actual like what the disquote quote discolored apparitions is, but apparently they've all dirty or something, yeah. Right. Well, I don't know, you know, maybe it's a dirt road. I I don't know. Um, but apparently this is an abandoned road near an old railroad crossing, and stories date back about abandoned roads near railroad crossing.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Sounds like a horror flick to me.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Yeah, it does, it does. That's the perfect setting right there.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

It is. Yeah, I'm just waiting for like you know the machete to come out of the air, right? But uh I would I would think some of this lore is attached to like the local trains and you know, spirits walking among the woods at night is another recall that is going on here at the zombie road, and it's an actual road apparently, but it is close to cars after dark because of safety concerns, obviously. And so all the reports I read about zombie road just say, you know, you exercise your caution if you're gonna go explore this. There were so many to choose from, it was really hard to kind of uh nail it down. But the one last one I'll talk about uh is Vale Mansion, and Vale Mansion is one of the places that got spoken about heavily when you're doing research from Missouri. So Vale Mansion is uh kind of said to that Vail is is an actual person. Her name was um Sophia, Sophia Vail, and she is the ghostly woman that haunts the halls of this mansion. And Sophia is reported to being seen peeking out from the windows, kind of like that child energy, you know, we see. I I I love when we drive around to like historical sites and you can always see like you know, people peeking out the windows. Um have I ever do you guys do that? Do you drive around and when you get to like the older parts of towns, do you look up in the windows to see if you can see anyone? Or am I the only one?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Not when driving, only because it goes too fast. But if I'm walking or near old houses and they look like they're dark, yeah, I look up and whenever we do do ghost walks or whatever, I'm always checking out the windows because you know, you get so many accounts of people saying apparitions are looking out windows or stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

What when I drive by uh old old houses and whatnot, I just I just enjoy just what it looks like. Like I'm I'm rarely looking at the windows, but now that you're imagining this, I'm gonna have to look at the windows. Gonna have to look at the windows. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, I'm I'm with you, Ryan, too. When we do historical, you know, when we look at historical buildings, the craftsmanship that is so rich, right? And the detail-oriented, you know, right down to like just the statues on the house or the beams on the house, like architecture is definitely not built that way in this day and age. And so there's an art there, and it feels almost like some of that art is getting lost, right? Because we don't put that kind of stuff into our homes anymore.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

You know, it and actually in Rockville, up where your recording studio is and stuff, it the homes that are around up there, some of those older homes are just really kind of neat. The architecture. Usually I'm driving and my eyesight's so bad to sit and focus, I'd probably get in an accident. But um no, let's not do that.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

I'll drive each other.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yeah, I do appreciate looking at the buildings and the homes for sure, but to focus on a window not gonna happen when I'm driving.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Definitely. Well, Sophia said that she loved her Victorian era clothing. Whoop whoop. Um, so she has said that she lurks around the mansion wearing, wearing classical black Victorian era clothing, and she is said to be not just residual, she will appear um in full attire. She's not taking pictures with you, but she is sighted and she does seem to have kind of a reverence for like the public. So she likes to be around the storytellers, she likes to be around um the you know, people who come into the mansion to tour and she likes to interact with them. So yeah, I I definitely, I definitely would like to see that or get a picture of that. I, you know, obviously I always find that very fascinating when we can document and give them their story back, right? Give back that apparition, their tragedy, and let someone hear that tragedy so it can heal. But yeah, there was a lot of you know tapestry that kind of wove all throughout Missouri. And there were several other places that, you know, obviously incorporated the folklore, the paranormal, but the good, you know, the tragedies, the real tragedies of the native history there, the tragedies of the war-torn um kind of ground that was soaked in blood there. Um, but definitely not on the first of my road trip list, but definitely if we have to drive through there, would definitely love to check out some of the rich history of haunted Missouri. So, with that being said, if anybody out there listening has pictures or a book they can recommend, we would love to hear from you. And I'm gonna pass the baton on over to you, Ryan. What'd you do?

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Well, I did Iowa, but first, you know, I'm curious. We're talking about, you know, spirits posing for photos and everything. I wonder if Gregory, the spirit in in our studio, would be interested in uh you know taking a photo, perhaps. We didn't ask him. So we might have to ask permission.

unknown 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Let's try. Well, when it's not 30 degrees in your office, we will meet there. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Or or when the as a or when the road is covered in ice. That too. You hear about the accidents this morning because of the roads covered in ice? Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah. Oh, it's weird to hear it falling all off the trees because last night it like it looked like a winter wonderland out here. All the trees were like in cup, you know, encased with ice. And when I got up this morning, you could hear it all falling. It's a it's a sound that it's a sound that's unexplainable, but it's like it makes you stop for a second and like really just take a reverence of like, wow, it was so beautiful. Though all the trees look like quartz crystals, especially here from my view. I can see the lake from my view. So you have the frozen lake, and then you just have all these trees around the lake just crystalline, you know, and it was it's quite a scene. It's quite a scene. But, anyways, Ryan, what'd you find?

SPEAKER_03 20:15

I agree with you. It is it is a scene. And when it melts, it just sounds like it's raining constantly. It actually sounds like a rain stick.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

So um it does, it does.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

Yeah, because uh the dog Watson, he ref he was nervous about going outside this morning because of that sound. So I can only imagine. It's probably louder for him. But so anyway, so in Iowa, uh I, you know, I I was curious if there was anything going on with cornfields, but I couldn't find any like hauntings, you know, in corn cornfields, really. It's mostly that people are setting up, you know, ex like fun activities for kids to do in cornfields.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Haunted corn mazes and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

But uh still kind of hoping you're kind of hoping for a zombie cornfield, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Is that is that where they filmed if you build it, they will come that that movie, what was that movie? Um dreams. Oh my god, we're so uh we're so dating ourselves, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:16

I mean, I don't know. There's definitely a cornfield in that.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

So yeah, and and the ghosts came out, right? They played baseball. It wasn't real, huh?

SPEAKER_03 21:30

No. So I couldn't find, yeah, I couldn't find any ghosts coming out of cornfields, or even I think of that movie Signs. I love that movie. And there wasn't any, wasn't any aliens coming out of cornfields.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

So like that. I know.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

I was like, this is a missed opportunity here.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Like so, but we had a false kind of you know, premonition about what's going on over there. We're totally wrong.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

So where are all the

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Well, I mean that that's a valid question. So basically, uh one of the places I found it's actually a schoolhouse. It's called Farrer Schoolhouse, or often called Farrer School. I'm maybe pronouncing that uh incorrectly, but it's a former rural school building in Iowa, uh Farrer, Iowa. It became uh one of the state's best-known haunted locations. It was built in the 1920s, operated for 80 years before finally closing in 2001-2002. Basically, it was constructed okay, it was constructed on farmland, so there's that. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Okay. Alright.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

But uh, yeah, basically, yeah, it just closed just because they're moving the students to local, more uh, more local district facilities. But let's see, but there's a lot of paranormal activity happening there. Uh for instance, there's a little boy in the stairwell. So he's actually, yeah, seen in the stairwells, witnesses see a child-sized figure standing or walking on the steps, um, suddenly disappearing. Then uh some witnesses have reported hearing footsteps or giggles near the area when no one else was present. Um they also hear children's laughter and voices, sometimes sounding like that uh the children are playing or even reciting lessons. That that's been picked up on recordings. So I thought that was pretty cool. There's also a uh a tall, shadowy figure, uh sometimes described as a former principal or a school authority, because they tend to be in that area where the principal's office was or the authority office was. Um and then in the uh boiler room or and gym area, they're saying that that's a a hot spot for uh paranormal activity uh here. But they hear voices, footsteps, noises. Uh sometimes they say that a spirit or some people say that a spirit of a former caretaker or janitor may linger there. Um just because they you can hear jingling keys or or tools. So I found that interesting. But yeah, so that's the schoolhouse. Uh then there's also the the Ruth Ann Dodge Memorial, also known as the Black Angel statue. So uh basically this is near the entrance of Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It's basically it created to honor uh Ruth Ruth Ann Dodge, who was the wife of a Civil War general and uh railroad pioneer, Grenville M. Dodge. Uh, but it's one of the most photographed and talked about landmarks in this area.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

So can I interject?

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

What is she called? What is this statue called? The black what?

SPEAKER_03 24:58

The black angel statue.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

How did how did how did they was there any history of why she's the black angel statue?

SPEAKER_03 25:07

Yes. Uh basically because over time it was originally created in bronze, but because over time it oxidized and now it looks darker, it looks black. So that's why. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:22

But um they're saying that, see, I don't know, I don't know if either of you would want to want to go see this though, because they're they're saying that when you go to see her, the eyes will follow you wherever you go. I don't know. Is that creepy like a doll? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

It's not a statue. The statue can't like get up and run after you think a doll could. So I'd be okay with that.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

You'd be okay with that, Lisa. Okay. What about you, Heather? No.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Well, I would have to stand there and make eye contact with this. If it's gonna follow me, like it better follow me for a good reason. Like, it better look at me.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

And and if you stare too long, I'm gonna get the E BGBs and then I'm out.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

You're gonna make me feel so self-conscious.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

Right, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

I don't know. Well, it's like all those, like uh, you know, portraits in the old mansions and stuff where they say it feels like they're watching you and following you, the eyes that follow you around in different castles and stuff like that. And you know, it's a little creepy, but you know, it's attached to the wall. It can't come out and grab you, but you know, I imagine I mean if the statue was to get up and start walking around, that'd be different.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

But my paranormal days would probably be over if a statue came detached and started walking. Check me in and here I come.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

All I can remember or think about is um oh, what was the statue that had the lady, the oh gosh, no, I'm not gonna remember. Um it was down in uh uh Sleepy Hollow, the one that would sit by her his her husband's tomb.

unknown 27:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Who was it, the brass lady or whatever? And she was known to or her spirit anyway, to get up and walk around the cemetery. Uh can't imagine the statue did, but at least her spirit did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Right. I don't know. Interesting. Yeah. People are saying that if you try to take pictures of the statue, at times like your your phones or cameras malfunction, die, or you lose the footage. Um they also see orbs, lights showing up in the photos taken nearby uh the statue. So I found that interesting. But then also they say, you know, if you go there at night, now they're saying that that the statue moves or flies around the cemetery, or her eyes glow red, or seem more like.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Okay, now we're different. You didn't say that. Now we're out. We're out. Come on. Come on. It sounds like a Scooby-Doo heavy song.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:10

It does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

I mean, I I've I've witnessed that too, where it's like it's a it's a statue or a painting, and you feel like it's following you around the room type of thing. Like that's you know, I I get that. But I don't know, I don't know if I believe that it's gonna get up and walk around or fly. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

It's it's it's giving me the the vibes of you know that movie Night at the Museum, yeah. Where they where the different displays and stuff come to life and the statues come to life during you know, when all the patrons leave and they're roaming the the museum.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Yeah. Yeah, it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 28:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

You see, I think if it was roaming around or flying around, maybe you stop and you say, Okay, what do you need to say? Maybe it's trying to find somebody to talk to, and everybody keeps running away from it.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

Okay. So, yeah, it'd be intriguing if one of our listeners happens to be there and gets a video of the statue.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Yeah, definitely want to know like what's going on. I agree with you, Lisa. Like, why is it flying around? What what do they need to say?

SPEAKER_01 29:17

So there's either gonna be a lot of alcohol involved afterwards or me getting on a plane as fast as possible.

SPEAKER_04 29:31

Yeah, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

Just like that, just like in Missouri, right? Like, I don't know. I don't uh she wants to pose with me. That's great, but let me see you before you pose with me because I'm gonna turn around and be like, what the yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

And honestly, how many of you've been somewhere where like you actually do feel like you've been you're being watched? I know it happens quite often for me all the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

But nobody's ever come out of the like woodwork or off the statue, or yeah, I've never had like and so come out of the walls and grab at you, or yeah, you know. Of course, now that's all I'm gonna think about when I walk near a picture. Is their hand gonna reach out and grab me? Or is I walk by a statue, are you gonna start to do you have wings? Are you gonna fly? Or I guess never. When was the when was the latest like um sighting of that? Like, or is it just like a legend that the statue comes to life and flies?

SPEAKER_03 30:34

I think it's a legend.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Okay, so the the the probability of it actually being reality, you know, it's probably if it's not a recent sighting, or at least in the 1980s, 90s or something like that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yeah, yeah, but who are we to say it's not happening, right? If maybe someone could have had this experience, we don't know them. This is a totally different state that I've never been to. I don't know about you, Lisa and Ryan. Nope. No, never had a reason to come and visit there. Exactly. Yeah, now we do.

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Yeah, now we do. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Now we do, yeah, because like, yeah. If I gotta get practice with uh the ghost coming with the statues, we gotta get we gotta get busy.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

That's a whole different level of what we do.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Very cool did you find, Ryan?

SPEAKER_03 31:34

Um, well, the last thing that I found here was the Franklin Hotel. It's in Strawberry Point, Iowa. So I was like, okay, this seems like a friendly hotel, like friendly place.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

It seems like a lovely town to visit. Strawberry Point sounds like a Hallmark movie town.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yep. I'd go there. It was built in uh 1902, opened in 1903. It's a Victorian era hotel, operating for well over a century. And let's see, so yeah, it was originally constructed to serve travelers arriving by railroad and then highway, and it has like all the antique furnishings, grand staircases. Like it sounds like a really nice place. I think I think we all would enjoy it just by walking in there. Uh but but they also have um some spirits that reside in there. So there is this spirit named Lily, who is also known as the woman in lavender. I don't think.

SPEAKER_04 32:28

Yay!

SPEAKER_03 32:29

We got a purple!

unknown 32:30

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:32

So uh she's gonna make us happy right now.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

It's like, what color? What color?

unknown 32:37

I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

I know when I saw that I was like, oh, I gotta I gotta do that, I gotta do this. Alright, so the most she's the most frequently mentioned spirit in um this in the Franklin Hotel. Um, often just often described as wearing a lavender or old-fashioned dress, and it kind of looks like the styles of 1920s, which makes sense. Uh, she's mostly seen walking in the halls or staircase late at night. Let's see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

So the 1920s, that's like the whole frapper right era where everything kind of had the fringe and the headbands, and it was a little more risque than the Edwardian period. That's cool. I could envision that. I could envision that with the big gloves up to the armpits. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Elegant, elegant.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

Right, right. Um they've they've seen her like in the lobby or wandering through the hallways. Um she's often sighted in room number seven. So uh that's when objects move on their own, TV switches on and off. It just feels like that she's there. But yeah, uh, visitors are wondering, you know, doing research as to who she was. Uh they said, you know, she may have lived there, worked at the hotel, um, but she clearly has a connection to it. Another spirit there is his name is Leo, and he's c he's called the Bell Ringing Spirit. So male spirit named Leo, um, he's linked to someone who has worked there, uh, and he's usually around in the laundry or service area. Um, and then many guests and workers claim that they hear the old hotel's old bell system ring on its own at night, um, which was used, you know, before telephones, uh, used to signal rooms for services, and um basically no one's there to ring it, but they think that Leo is the one ringing the bell. And he's just like a friendly presence, you know, just wanting to answer uh guests' requests and and questions, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

So as long as he's not ringing that bell at like three o'clock in the morning, you know?

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

You can hit that bell, you know, you can hit that bell nine to five, but after that, like yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Yeah, maybe they other needs are sleep.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Yeah, other knees are sleep. After 11 p.m., I better not hear no bells when I'm trying to sleep.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seriously. I know. That's gotta be something to yeah, I wouldn't want to hear that either.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Of course, it is gonna be at that time. Yeah, of course, it is gonna be at that time. So if you're going for the haunting part of it, you just know to sleep the day and stay awake at night. That's just sure.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Suck it up, Heather. Come on, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

I got it.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

But we got some bell ringing going on.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Got some bell ringing. Uh yeah, I know. Heather, now I'm starting to think, I don't know if this is a good place for us to go to because we'll just be hearing a bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

If he's ringing bells at 3 a.m., he better bring me a cup of coffee because I'm not even human.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

Yeah, this is where being not very clear audience is beautiful. Well, I'm just gonna get the feels and get the nose, and I don't necessarily have to hear the bell ringing.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah, and then there's me and Ryan who are just like, Stop already.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

The bell would be like across the hotel, we'd be hearing it and be like, Really? Like you're doing this.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Knocking on Ryan's hotel room. Do you hear that shit?

SPEAKER_03 36:25

Yeah, yeah. But the the place does seem pretty cool. They see other uh figures in old-fashioned clothing from that time period walking through the hallways, standing briefly in doorways. Um, but also, this is I think this is the coolest part. A few guests have report reported hearing an antique piano playing by itself in the hotel's dining area.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

I was like, Yeah, this sounds very similar to one I'm gonna be reporting on. Okay, very similar, you know, the music and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Right, like the 20s, they had those big long cigarette holders, they all had their like, you know, that really flashy kind of beaded garb, you know, the smoky lounge, which is kind of big around here in Connecticut right now. Um, I can think of six places right now in Connecticut that market themselves as a speakeasy. So you actually have to do like the coded knock, or you have to go through a secret passageway. So this feels very like speakeasy lounge coming, you know, yeah, atmosphere. Definitely.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Yeah. So maybe the antique uh piano playing that just outweighs the bell ringing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Oh, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

Dollars to donuts. I will hear the piano playing, but I won't hear the bell ringing.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

I'll get the good stuff, and it's amazing because as a Claire audience, right, Ryan, as Claire audience, even if we were to stick earplugs in our ears, we're still gonna hear it. Like we're still gonna hear it. So you have to do this whole, well, you can't beat them, so we're just gonna have to join them, which means when we go on this road trip, we're gonna be very sleep deprived.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Yeah, yep. Sleep during the day, man.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Sleep during the day.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

There you go. There you go. But yeah, but that's that's what I found in Iowa. So if any of our listeners have been to any of these places or witnessed anything, it'd be fantastic to hear about it. But yeah, so I'm especially intrigued if there's anything going on in uh cornfields.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Yeah, apparently we had the whole misconception that like all cornfields were haunted out there, and then they're not.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

No, no, or at least as much as we know they're not, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

True, yeah, true. Yeah, but yeah. But Lisa, what what did you find?

SPEAKER_02 38:51

In Illinois, well, I mean, it'd be easy just to go to Chicago, Illinois with the great fire that happened there. You could find a lot of hauntings and stuff. So I decided to take a different tack and see what I could find outside the Chicago area. And I did find this really interesting place. The it's called the Original Springs Hotel in Oakville, Illinois. So I I don't know if you've ever been to like a mineral springs resort or bathhouse or anything like that where you soak in mineral water. I happened to do one of those out in Saratoga Springs, New York, and it was absolutely lovely. But let me tell you the little history of this hotel. As it goes, in 1868, there was a tinsmith named Rudolph Plege, I think. And he opened a bathhouse in this area because he noticed the high mineral content in the water. And I think it was it's rumored or said that some woman who suffered from rheumatism soaked in this water and she was cured. So he opened the first bathhouse. In 1884, there was a woman named Anna Sheerbaum. She basically had a disability of some kind, which would have been termed invalid back in the day. Um, and she claimed that the mineral water fixed all of her ailments. And she was so taken with this that in 1887, Easter Sunday, her and her husband opened a hotel there. This hot which was the original Springs Hotel. Of course, this hotel had a fire, was and then rebuilt in 1893, um, and it had its share of tragedies. There were three hotel owners who died by suicide. Um the first being Ben, who was the son of Anna. And when Anna and her husband passed, of course, this hotel was inherited by their son Ben, who suffered heartbreak and is said to have committed suicide because of the heartbreak. Uh, the second owner that committed suicide, his name was Conrad Pabin, I think. Um, and he took over the hotel in 1920. And uh that's when the Great Depression got really worse for the area, for the hotel, everything. And so mental illness took hold of him, and it is said that he took his life because of that. And then the third owner, his name was Tom Rogers, and it is said that he enjoyed the hotel so much that it became an obsession of his.

SPEAKER_04 41:25

Really?

SPEAKER_02 41:26

Not only did he own it, but he was obsessed, and he would walk the halls all day, basically to the extent of ruining some of the guests' experiences there because I guess of his constant presence. I don't know. Um now, interesting enough, yeah, right? I mean, we all love our business and stuff, but to be obsessed to the point where maybe he was just into everybody's space, I don't know. Yeah, but interesting enough, he was found dead in room 350. And there was no explanation, no struggle, he had no struggle with depression that was least documented, and so they just wrote his death off as suicide.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

But the way you say that, yeah, you think that maybe there was more than natural causes at play there?

SPEAKER_02 42:17

I have no idea. There was nothing that I found in my research that to indicate anything, just that he was found dead. My guess is maybe he just died.

unknown 42:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

You know how people suddenly die.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Yeah, because if he loved it so much, why would he, you know?

SPEAKER_02 42:34

Well, he obsessively, obsessively loved it. So there was something, you know, a little OCD that would hearken to some sort of mental um issue happening, but um no explanation, no written documentation I that I could find. Um with my, you know, top-notch researching skills. Anyway, um, but these are the experiences that can be had at the Oak at the Original Springs Hotel in Oakville, Illinois. So the staff there will report that items will be moved around behind their backs. So they put something down, turn around, go back, and it's moved someplace else. Uh, they also have reported seeing apparitions. The third floor um has its share of issues there. The guests on the third floor will hear loud bangs outside their door in the middle of the night. So there you go, some more sounds for you guys to hear. Um say that they've been locked in rooms but with no locks on them. Rooms that have no locks on them, but they get locked into them. Really? So that's kind of creepy. Like, how do they lock them?

SPEAKER_01 43:48

The room doesn't have a lock. I go to open the door, and the door's not gonna open.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Correct. Wow. Now think if it's a hotel room, it's gonna have a lock on it because it's a hotel room. Yeah, true. You can go here, you can stay here, but so these must be rooms that are like, you know, closets or whatever, and they th they don't open. They get locked in rooms. Um yeah. Yep. So in room, there's an unsettling feeling at the end of the third floor hallway staircase. People have reported. Now, room 350 being on the third floor, uh, there is a report of a guest feeling as if someone was pressing down on her legs. So much so was the experience so intense that she immediately left the hotel, packed up and left.

SPEAKER_04 44:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Um so now you would think that might be Tom Rogers who died in room 350, but the apparition or ghost that is mostly aligned with room 350 is you guessed it, a lady in white.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

Um, she is seen around the building, especially in room 350. She is dressed in a flowy dress with a large hat. She's been seen in the office, in the hallways, in in this particular guest room. She's regularly seen on the second floor balcony, uh, but the face is hidden by the hat. Um, she stands at the ends of guest beds. So, how would you like that?

SPEAKER_01 45:16

No, probably the one pressing on the legs. If I'm sleeping, you should not be messing with me.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Now, being the Claire Sentinel of the group, I'm gonna feel her standing at the end of my bed. I get that all the time when I know there's someone in my room when I'm sleeping, and I feel them, they're just waiting there, and it wakes you up. I'd probably get my legs pressed on for sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Honestly, I have been in that position where there have been several times in in my life where um, yeah, I've woken up to just having an apparition standing in my room, and all all the times I can think of were they were very specific why they were standing there. At first, it's very confusing, but they weren't touching me. Thank God. Because like if I'm sleeping, don't don't don't do that. Um, but it's that clear sentence that kicks in, like you know, something's in the room, and you kind of come out of that hip, you go into like hypnagosia state where you're like, okay, I know something's not right here. And the one that stands out to me the most of someone standing at the bottom of my bed, there's some good, you know, there's a real stories behind those. So hopefully she's doing it because not just to be creepy, maybe she's actually doing it for a good reason.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Maybe my guess is curious as to who's you know in these rooms. It would be to me, if it's different guests coming in and out of the hotel, there's gotta be a curiosity factor. And it also says to me this is maybe an intelligent haunt if it's being seen, you know. Um so and the ghostly presence will show up in photos as well.

SPEAKER_01 47:00

Okay. Oh, here we go. We gotta go get our picture taken again.

SPEAKER_02 47:05

Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so that's interesting. And now the second floor of this hotel is the one floor that I found that the staff fears the most. The second floor, the staff will often hear noises coming from vacant rooms. So if you're part of the hotel staff, maybe you're the cleaning or maintenance, whatever, and you know there's nobody in the room and you hear things happening in that room, yeah. Of course, as a homeowner, my first thought goes into are there mice in there? But you know, um, one guest was that was given a room on the second floor, was asked uh asked to be moved to a different room because she said there was someone else already in there, even though nobody was. Huh. Interesting. Yeah. Now the laundry room of this hotel uh used to be part of an old casino back in the day.

SPEAKER_04 47:59

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

I guess they had a casino that operated back at the start of this hotel. And so you will sometimes hear old timey music. Oh, that piano playing. That's cool and staff will often feel a presence. So if you can imagine being the one in charge of the laundry, now you feel a presence with you, maybe watching her, then you hear the old timey music.

SPEAKER_03 48:21

That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

That's always good. Not the worst, always good to have a little music plan while you're doing laundry. Actually, I would be like, hey, you guys want to take care of this? I'm gonna do something more fun. You know, are you gonna get the laundry fairies? What what are we doing?

SPEAKER_02 48:37

Can you hit the rinse cycle for me? I'll be back. Exactly. Can you hit this in the dryer for me? I'm gonna go. With right where the original mineral, you know, bath pool was, you know. So um, you can go there and soak in the mineral water. So I think that wouldn't be a bad stop along the way, you know, get the healing effects of mineral uh soap, which is amazing. If you've never done it, I highly recommend. It's not the prettiest water because of the high content of mineral, it looks like you're in rust water, but it does feel amazing. Um, and you float. You float.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Man, we have that here in Connecticut, right? We have um we have Gay City, Gay City State Park in uh Hebron Bolton, Connecticut area. That lake is orange all year round, and it has high copper, it has high density minerals in it, and you'll go in there. So make sure you're not wearing a white bathing suit because you'll come out orange. Um, but yeah, there is something to be said. Ryan, have you ever been to a mineral springs?

SPEAKER_03 49:58

No, I haven't been to one.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Oh, yeah. So not just gay city, but up in Maine, you can go to the tourmaline um springs. And there's something to be said. I I would imagine in any era here, when your body's lacking something and you climb into this mineral-rich water, right? You're gonna receive those benefits. And of course, you feel like a million dollars um because you're lacking those minerals, and now all of a sudden you're you you've supplied your full your body with it, right? And uh there, and of course, when you feel great, you're open for everything, you're just gonna be open. We'll have to take a road trip. Maine's not that far from here, and the tourmaline springs up there are incredible.

SPEAKER_02 50:41

Yeah, the Saratoga springs are amazing too. I'm gonna tell you that was one of the best things. I actually walked out with some of the mineral sods to just duplicate that in my own bathtub. So yeah. All right, moving on. There is just a real quick, I just need to mention it, and you'll know in a minute why. Um in uh Carbondale, Illinois, I believe, uh, Southern Illinois. Uh, there was uh once a post office, but right now it's called the BPL Plasma place. I guess it's for blood draw and whatever. Um in Carbondale, South Southern Illinois. Um, you will find a woman dressed in white. Oh yeah, the lady in white has been spotted floating in the lobby of this building. Um, she's actually captured in photos standing behind employees. It's very yeah, it's very common for doors to open and close on their own in this building, and there's a massive chandelier that will swing on its own. So it's one thing to have like a small light that might catch some air currents, but a massive chandelier. And then uh one reporting of a night janitor who claimed he was locked in a closet. No one else in the building, just him, and he was locked in a closet. So um, yeah, that sort of like that, you know, uh, what was that, the bathroom of non-believers where you get locked in the bathroom of non-believers? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, closer to Chicago, or actually in one of the suburbs of Chicago, is the Bachelor's Grave Cemetery in Midlothian, um, Illinois. Um, this cemetery was established in 1847, and um it was it's actually an abandoned burial ground. There's only 82 people buried there, so it's pretty small. It fell to vandalism. Um, there's been a cult rituals that have happened there, and apparently it's a uh a site for mob body dumps.

SPEAKER_04 52:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

So isn't that lovely?

SPEAKER_01 52:50

I was gonna say you must have found a lot of uh mafia related stories, probably closer to Chicago you got, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:01

Well, um, this one actually, aside from that one reference of a uh a location of a of a mob body dump, um, no. Oh wow. Um I well there's probably there probably is for sure. I just didn't go down that route.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Um anyway Chicago like home of Al Capone, right?

SPEAKER_02 53:22

Yeah, yeah, yes. And you know, I certainly could have found all of those, you know, kind of thing to talk about, but I just kind of want to get something different. Um, so it this bachelor's grave cemetery, which obviously is a cemetery for bachelors, but there are some women, I guess, buried here. Uh, so this is the story of this uh this cemetery. It's a small place, right? But it's witness to phantom cars um or carriages, uh, a vanishing house, orbs that appear in daylight. Wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

A vanishing house?

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Like uh a vanishing house, yeah, and disappears. I'll tell you all about it. And of course, of all that, it has a wet white lady.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

White lady, yeah. Uh she is said to have been buried next to her young baby, and she's oft she has been reported being seen wandering the cemetery carrying a child. Um she was first captured in a photo in 1979, and in 1991, there's an infrared photo that was taken by the Oak Lawn Ghost Research Society of this white lady. Yeah. So the Phantom Farmhouse, let me tell you a little bit about the Phantom Farmhouse on this area. Uh it is a one-story Victorian home. It's white, it's got a porch swing and a picket fence, and it appears transparent, and it is it looks that the windows are candlelit. It's got the flickering kind of golden light in the windows, like like there's candles behind it. It shrinks and disappears as you approach it. It's reported to have uh look at Heather's like, what? Uh it is we're doing some Harry Potter here. What are we doing? It's reported to have a mist around it as it fades in and out. So there's a mist that's all around it as it's fading in and out. Yeah. And it is, of course, there's a rumored legend that if you actually can walk into it, uh you will be cursed or whatever like that. But it has been known that you will see this house, a white Victorian one-story home. I didn't know Victorian homes were one-story. I thought they were always multiple stories.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

I'm really trying to get my head around that too. How is a Victorian?

SPEAKER_02 55:53

I don't know. Uh porch swing picket fence. It's gonna look transparent, maybe in a mist, and as you get closer, it just dissipates.

SPEAKER_03 56:02

Wow. Maybe we gotta go there. Maybe the second story is just kind of hidden or something. It's I don't know. And that's why it looks one story.

SPEAKER_02 56:12

I know. I don't yeah, it could be hidden in the mist. I don't know. All right, so here's another story in 1870. Uh related to this, uh adjacent to this cemetery. In 1870, a farmer was plowing his field, but you know, and his horse became startled. The farmer got tangled in the reins and dragged. The horse plunged into a nearby pond, and they both drowned. Tragic, right? Now you're gonna see the ghostly figures of both on the surface of the pond, which is right next to the cemetery.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

Oh wow. What this is some interesting plot of land going on. There's a lot going on.

SPEAKER_02 56:55

And here's some more disappearing things. There is a ghost of a very l of a large black and tan dog that's sitting at the entrance to the cemetery. So you might see that dog, and you might also see this dog running down a path where it just fades away, fades into nothing.

SPEAKER_01 57:15

I've seen that. I've seen that many times actually. Where you you know the the animal is attached to its owner and you know goes and bees with that owner, or yeah, and I I have seen dogs just run out into thin air because they they you know stay where they lived, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Yeah, yeah. And it makes sense that it would be um a dog protective standing sitting by a the entrance to the cemetery. Sounds like a really interesting cemetery. Um small, again, only 82 people buried there. It is open sunrise to sunset to this day. You can go and visit it. Um, but police do come in the evening because it does get vandalized. And um, so I think if you're gonna be there at night, you would need um special permission, that kind of thing. So that was interesting. And then the very last one I went down is a place called the Crenshaw House Inequality. It was built in 1842 uh by John Hart Crenshaw, who was a businessman who had his hand in pretty much any kind of business, banking, lots of different things. Um it was originally known as a Hickory, uh known as Hickory Hill. The house on Hickory Hill. Also, uh it has the the name the old slave house because it was used in the reverse underground railroad. So basically free black people captured and then sold into slavery by this man, John Hart Crenshaw. So it is rumored um that the well it is rumored he kept some of the slaves to work on the assault tracks that was owned by by the uh Crenshaw um businesses. Uh the attic of this house is rumored to be a torture chamber that uh slaves were shackled and um shackled up in makeshift shells and whipped. Um however, I did read somewhere that there was some more recent research that says it was more likely that those were hotel rooms, but it's got this reputation of the old slave house. And I guess it has been documented that this man did do this reverse railroad, underground railroad. In the 1800s, rumors started around this house of ghosts in the attic due to the very real due to moans and screams that they would hear. Unbeknownst to them, those weren't ghosts, those were very real slaves up in that attic, very real people that they were hearing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:57

You know, we can't rewrite history, but it's definitely good to talk about the history and the suffering because now we can make better choices, you know, and exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

Exactly. Yeah. In 1920, it reopened um as a place for people to, you know, tourist place to visit. You'll hear strange um noises all throughout the house, especially the attic. Um, it's also had is also said that uh bloodstains appear and disappear on the walls of the attic. You'll hear chains uh rattling too. Ghostly shapes are seen. Uh you're gonna get areas of extreme uh cold, even on the hottest days in August in in this house. So uh that's another place I picked up on. And um, you know, we often will find stories of hauntings of slaves like we did in the south that that were kept on plantations and things like that, slaves. Um but this particular one is just so tragic because these were free people. You know, well, they were all free people before they were slaves, correct? So yeah. But there are so so many more um places and haunts and things, particular particularly in Chicago, that you could look up. I I mean there was one that I I read about uh that used to be called the Murder Mansion. Um and it was basically a home. I forget the name of the guy, I could look it up again. Um but he had this home built, like a labyrinth that had dead ends and staircases that went nowhere and rooms that didn't have, you know, a way out, and he would use it basically to murder people in. Um he proposed it as a hotel, and of course, this whole mansion is knocked down and gone, but the plot of land is partially used by a post office and stuff like that. So there's a lot of stories around that and just some really macabre things, you know, in Chicago. Uh so you know, we could certainly just, you know, maybe we should do after haunted America the most haunted cities. Of course, we'd probably find so many of those, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

Absolutely. What city wouldn't be haunted?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

I know. I mean, it just goes to kind of show you that there is something there, right? Um, with so many stories that are very similar. The music playing, the presence that you feel, people at the end of your bed, or or whatever they are, you know, these different places, how many different ladies in white, you know, kind of thing. It can't just all be made-up imagination stuff, you know. There's there's a very real there behind these hauntings, right? Um that spirit world does exist, and whether it's residual or intelligent, it's still there.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

Yeah. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

But I look at I look at a lot of our history. I mean, the stories of the Egyptians, the story of the Anunnaki, the stories of you know, folklore and legend, they they were real. You need to listen to the locals and the you know, the local tribes and the local people. Those stories were all real. They didn't just imagine, you know, it wasn't just imaginary. So like dragons, right? They they were real at some point for all the big stories they have. So this is no different. Like there is there is something to that. There is some basis there that it came up into this, you know, all this way in time. So you're absolutely right. Very cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:36

Well, anyway, that's Illinois. I I just keep going back to that house. Like I can't think of that. How is that house appearing, disappearing? How does a house even disappear?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:50

Well, you know what? I don't think it's any different than you see, you know, you get these clairvoyant visions and you can see something, and then all of a sudden it's not there. You know what I mean? Okay. I I think I I think it's very much sort of like that. Uh I mean, a house isn't just on its own, this living being that you know, but there must be a lot of energy in that house, that that farmhouse, for that to happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

Well, I mean, technically it is living, right? I mean, they they used live trees to build the, you know, the build the home. It it I I mean if it's a few.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:25

Well, it came technically it came from living things, sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

Yeah, yeah. It's just all that energy, right? All the energy you put into your homes. And yeah. Speaking of, this weekend, it happened again. I had a guest over for the weekend, and uh we were sitting there watching TV, and uh actually we're playing Mario Kart, and uh uh all of a sudden you heard the ghost right across the floor up the stairs, and the cat meowing in the loft area, and my guest was just like bug-eyed, jaw-dropped, and just like gripping my chair, and she she was like, What what what what was that? I was like, it's okay, it's just Serafina. And just as I said that, Serafina must have jumped in her lap and she just put her hands up and she was like, I don't know if I can stay here. I was like, you're good, it's just a cat. So this full moon is definitely uh helping Serafina make her presence known in her home.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:40

That's wonderful, that's wonderful. Yeah, you know, we didn't talk about what happened over the weekend. What about you, Ryan? We had Serafina visit Heather. Any anything happened with you over the weekend? How was your weekend?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

Um, it was decent. Saw my parents for dinner, so that was good. Um, but yeah, interesting thing, like my phone randomly died. I think Mercury and Retrograde. I I don't know. Whenever that happens, I have a lot of issues with technology. I don't know. Maybe I just have bad luck at certain times throughout the year. But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

So you know how you can fix that, Ryan, is go on to YouTube and pull up the sound of Mercury.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:17

Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

And listen to the sound and resonate with that sound. Because it might be uncomfortable at first because you're against it. Like it's like two polar opposites. But if you listen to it and try to kind of meditate with the with the sound of it and the energy of it, you might be able to kind of smooth that over.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:37

Yeah. No, that's you could find a resonance with it. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

Or or if you like mantras, maybe you can find a um a Mercury mantra that it reminds your body that you can be in sync with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:50

That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. But I will say, I mean, something good came out of it too. Um, like I was able to get a new phone just because it it's a glitch with the company and they were able to send a replacement, which was nice. I didn't realize that was a thing. But it is. And but basically, I was I was able to get into the old phone and I went through like all types of files that I had on it for years that I didn't realize I had on there. And I'm like, oh, I found all these old songs that I wrote. And I'm like, you know what? I want to bring these back. So whenever our band starts performing again, maybe I'll be playing some old songs that I wrote, like, you know, 10 years ago. And nice. Yeah, it was pretty cool. I was like, wow, I forgot about these. So I do like to think everything happens for a reason. I try to find positivity as well. And yeah, that was nice to be able to find that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

Any of those songs include a harmonica?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:43

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:45

That's a good idea. It can. They they can have harmonica in there. That's fine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:52

We could do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

That'll be cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

I need to jam out with you.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:57

Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:58

I've been taking harmonica lessons. So a lot of fun. Yeah. I can actually make it sound like a train now. So that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:06

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:07

That's great.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:09

That's awesome. Well, happy to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

Yeah, so it's going really slow, really slow. But because I can't read music, so I have to do it by tone, you know. And uh yeah, so yeah, thank you for the pieces. And you know, those pieces need a harmonica.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:28

I'm down.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:29

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

How about you, Lisa? What'd you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

Yeah, family together. We try to get together once a month and just kind of be together, play some games. Totally creamed my whole family with a game boggle. I usually do. I'm not allowed to count my score. You know, we'll we'll we'll do a round and you know, the highest score so far by everyone else is 19, and here I am with 78.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:55

So wow. That's impressive.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:59

I am a I'm a grand champion of boggle. So we play we play. I think my youngest son kind of chose boggle to play just as a nod to me, just to give me a like, you know, a little something. But you know, um just watching my grandson interact with my husband because he doesn't get a chance to see him as often as I do as I babysit. And um, that was kind of fun. And seeing him interact with his Uncle Kevin and Aunt Maggie is fun and you know, that kind of thing. And and big news, I think this kid's gonna crawl soon. He's getting up on his tippy toes, he's on his knees, doing a little wiggling. He's just gotta take that first crawl step. It's gonna be, I'm gonna say, within a week. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:41

Well, he just had a milestone, right? What is he? Eight months, six months.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:45

Nine months. Nine months. Nine months. Two days ago, nine months. I can't believe it. Time goes so fast. Yeah. All right, so are you ready? I found a Mercury retrograde affirmation.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:59

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

Are you ready? Sure. Thinking you don't have a choice is a choice. Ahing you don't have a choice is a choice. So I guess you know, choose wisely. Choose wisely, yeah. Sometimes we do darkness and sometimes we feel like there's just nothing we can do, but really when you think there's nothing you could do, then that's your choice. Do you have nothing to do? You know? You were faced with a phone that went crap and you could have just thrown up your hands, but you found a workaround because you certainly were able to get in touch with us.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:41

Without your phone.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:42

So you know, yep. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:46

Like it. All right. Well, until next time, everybody, stay ready to connect, and we look forward to our next episode with you. Um we'll continue to move on, right, Lisa? We're moving, moving on up or moving on down. What are we doing? Which way are we going across the United States at this point?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:06

I do believe we might still be in the Midwest or going across the Northwest, maybe to come back down. We'll see. Well, actually, uh, we will have to backtrack a little bit to hear a little bit more about Tennessee since you're heading down there and seeing what you can find when you're visiting.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:21

Absolutely. I uh had a great conversation uh with a few people down there, and uh I have been alerted to some really great spots that are within driving range of where we're staying in Tennessee. So looking for praying, because right now it says it's gonna rain every day that we're there, but praying that we get some um maybe moments of time where I can sneak out and go do some videoing and recording for what I'm gonna bring back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

Awesome. All right. Well, we're definitely looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:56

Yeah. So until then, we stand ready to connect.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:10

Thank you for tuning in to Ready to Connect. If you're interested in exclusive behind the scenes content, be sure to like, share, and follow us on social media by searching for Ready to Connect Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And for those looking to further support our podcast, consider subscribing to our Patreon at patreon.comslash ready to connect podcast. And until next time, get ready to connect.