Eventful weekend, stressful morning.
Friday night, we didn't do a whole helluva lot. The girls and I got 28 Days Later and I finally got to see the three alternate endings and deleted scenes.
( A few thoughtsCollapse )
Anywho, Saturday was nice and quiet. I watched some badly-acted Lesbian Noir (Bound) and watched Joey Pants go slowly psycho. Jennifer Tilly should have her actor's guild membership revoked. For real. But as that was the first lesbian sex scene I ever saw on film as a young, horny bisexual, that movie holds a special and dear place in my heart.
We left at about 7 for Gettsyburg to go ghost hunting. I only wish that we'd gotten there around twilight, but since it was dark and nothing was clearly marked, we got a bit lost.
Our plan was to hit Devil's Den (a craggy, labyrinthine rock hill where thousands of men died during the battle, but supposedly haunted even before the Civil War), the Slaughter Pen, and Little Roundtop. Through a series of detours, we actually ended up in the battlefield area first. I definitely felt an odd, haunting aura about the place. It was not a clear night, so all the lights from the town were diffused. They seemed to hang like purplish ghostlights directly over the killing fields, ominously silhouetting the tall, thin monuments and hulking mausoleums. Heather definitely got a rather freaked-out feeling, and I don't blame her.
While we were lost on one long, thin trail loop, I got the feeling myself. We didn't know exactly where we were, but I got the definite feeling that we were very close to the slaughter. Turns out, Little Roundtop had been immediately to our left.
We did climb Devil's Den, but sadly, that's where I felt the absolute least metaphysical energy. They were interesting rocks with steep, jagged crevasses that were frightening in and of themselves. The Slaughter Pen was slightly flooded and also full of crimson leaves from the shedding trees above, which looked quite eerie when when we shined our flashlights into the water-- it was blood red. We didn't quite get to the top of Little Roundtop, where the Union soldiers perched to take out much of the Confederate army, because of mud and standing water. Maybe next time.
On our way out, we did stop to look for a few more monuments. I sat atop one of the Vermont memorials, and the oddest thing happened. Fully formed, a fife melody popped into my head, crystal clear. I squinted across the empty field, but could only see the black outline of the trees.
Our next stop was a ghostwalk through the town, which gave a pretty good perspective of how the battle raged in the town. We stood on elementary school lawns that once was littered with the fallen forms of the dying. Our storyteller spun a few good tales, but the scariest thing I encountered was an old building that was once a field hospital.
"This whole place smells funny, like rot," I said to James, who in turn looked at me funny. We approached an old, unkempt building that just gave off the mst ominous, opressive, fearful air-- it made me feel physically nauseous just to get near it. That's when the storyteller stopped and told us that the surrounding buildings had been used as hospitals and amputation centers, and often had piles of limbs outside that would rise higher than the eight foot windows. Not to mention that they had to drill holes in the floor to let the human waste and blood drain out. Ick.
After the tour, we took a short walk around the town until we found a diner. The walk back to the car was eerily silent, as were the now-closed battlefields, darker than a forest, as we drove home. Gettysburg is a town that draws you in, and I'd love to see it during the daytime into the twilight. But as Racheal said, that night, even back in bed in Westminster, she had the feeling that she just wasn't quite far enough away from Gettysburg.
Friday night, we didn't do a whole helluva lot. The girls and I got 28 Days Later and I finally got to see the three alternate endings and deleted scenes.
( A few thoughtsCollapse )
Anywho, Saturday was nice and quiet. I watched some badly-acted Lesbian Noir (Bound) and watched Joey Pants go slowly psycho. Jennifer Tilly should have her actor's guild membership revoked. For real. But as that was the first lesbian sex scene I ever saw on film as a young, horny bisexual, that movie holds a special and dear place in my heart.
We left at about 7 for Gettsyburg to go ghost hunting. I only wish that we'd gotten there around twilight, but since it was dark and nothing was clearly marked, we got a bit lost.
Our plan was to hit Devil's Den (a craggy, labyrinthine rock hill where thousands of men died during the battle, but supposedly haunted even before the Civil War), the Slaughter Pen, and Little Roundtop. Through a series of detours, we actually ended up in the battlefield area first. I definitely felt an odd, haunting aura about the place. It was not a clear night, so all the lights from the town were diffused. They seemed to hang like purplish ghostlights directly over the killing fields, ominously silhouetting the tall, thin monuments and hulking mausoleums. Heather definitely got a rather freaked-out feeling, and I don't blame her.
While we were lost on one long, thin trail loop, I got the feeling myself. We didn't know exactly where we were, but I got the definite feeling that we were very close to the slaughter. Turns out, Little Roundtop had been immediately to our left.
We did climb Devil's Den, but sadly, that's where I felt the absolute least metaphysical energy. They were interesting rocks with steep, jagged crevasses that were frightening in and of themselves. The Slaughter Pen was slightly flooded and also full of crimson leaves from the shedding trees above, which looked quite eerie when when we shined our flashlights into the water-- it was blood red. We didn't quite get to the top of Little Roundtop, where the Union soldiers perched to take out much of the Confederate army, because of mud and standing water. Maybe next time.
On our way out, we did stop to look for a few more monuments. I sat atop one of the Vermont memorials, and the oddest thing happened. Fully formed, a fife melody popped into my head, crystal clear. I squinted across the empty field, but could only see the black outline of the trees.
Our next stop was a ghostwalk through the town, which gave a pretty good perspective of how the battle raged in the town. We stood on elementary school lawns that once was littered with the fallen forms of the dying. Our storyteller spun a few good tales, but the scariest thing I encountered was an old building that was once a field hospital.
"This whole place smells funny, like rot," I said to James, who in turn looked at me funny. We approached an old, unkempt building that just gave off the mst ominous, opressive, fearful air-- it made me feel physically nauseous just to get near it. That's when the storyteller stopped and told us that the surrounding buildings had been used as hospitals and amputation centers, and often had piles of limbs outside that would rise higher than the eight foot windows. Not to mention that they had to drill holes in the floor to let the human waste and blood drain out. Ick.
After the tour, we took a short walk around the town until we found a diner. The walk back to the car was eerily silent, as were the now-closed battlefields, darker than a forest, as we drove home. Gettysburg is a town that draws you in, and I'd love to see it during the daytime into the twilight. But as Racheal said, that night, even back in bed in Westminster, she had the feeling that she just wasn't quite far enough away from Gettysburg.
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