Day 5: IL to MN

Day Five began horribly but ended up being one of the best days of the trip yet. I got stuck in a mind numbing traffic jam in Chicago. I went 40 miles in 2 hours (not even moving for about 45 minutes). I couldn't find Archer Cemetery and finally gave up and took Lake Shore Drive around the freeway and out of town. Running majorly behind and having failed at yet another haunted location (my score, at that point, was 11 failures and 8 successes) I was in a dark mood. I found the old TB sanitarium in Madison, WI. The woods behind it were a public park, so I explored them for the better part of an hour. In the graveyard that was my target, a deer came out of the woods and let me get really close. This is a picture I took when I first noticed it (note that it looks fake)...




I felt really calm and happy leaving Madison and drove on to Minnesota. I showed up at Forepaugh's Restaurant and immediately noticed a large group of women dressed in mink stoles, long tweed dresses and those hats from the 1930s that are black, round and have veils. I was rocking about a week's worth of beard and had on a wrinkled, untucked shirt. I felt very under dressed. The staff sat me in a dining room that was once a bedroom in the old lodge. Once the other diners and wait staff left, I took some pics in the room. My waitress let me look all around and I went upstairs into empty rooms where the lights were off and took photos. She also explained to me that the women in fancy outfits were part of a mystery club that meets once a month to do a How to Host a Murder thing. I ate an 8 ounce ribeye, Dauphined potatoes (quite tasty) and seared scallions. For desert, a blueberry and key lime cheesecake (I know, right?). It was all great. When I got to the hotel that night in Fergus Falls (my favorite hotel so far) I looked at my photos from Forepaugh's and found...




Orbs! That's right, all you Ghost Hunter fans, orbs usually indicate either ghosts or dust. However I can attest that there was no source for floating dust in the air in that dining room. Did I capture my first ghost photo? I remain skeptical.

Josh