six girls and their favorite guy: May 2022

After leaving Cape Cod we drove to Newport Rhode Island.

What a beautiful city, we loved it here!

We checked into our hotel and then went on the "Cliff Walk"... a beautiful trail that runs behind the Newport Mansions along the ocean cliff.

Dinner @ The Red Parrot was delicious.

Swimming and ice cream from the machine followed.

The next morning we headed out to tour the Mansions.

We first went to "The Breakers".

Holy cow... INCREDIBLE is the only way to describe it.

Learning about the people and the lifestyle and the fact that this "summer home" was only used 6 weeks out of the year.

The second house we went to was the Marble House... man those Vanderbilts knew how to spend money!!

We spent a good chunk of time oohing and aahing at those houses and then headed to Castle Hill Lighthouse.

We then said goodbye to Newport Rhode Island and headed back to Plymouth MA.

We checked into our hotel and were deciding where to go to dinner and what we should do that night.

I suggested a ghost tour.

Now, Shane and I have done Ghost Tours before... one in San Antonio and one in Charleston South Carolina that I can remember...

From our experience they are informative walking tours...

filled with history and legends, and second hand accounts of ghost hauntings in hotels, houses or cemeteries etc. (while standing OUTSIDE the hotels, houses or cemeteries.)

So I told the girls it wouldn't be scary... just FUN.

Shane called and booked it for us... The "Dead of Night Tour".

It was remarkably cheap for a ghost tour actually and we were ready for the adventure. So when they asked if we wanted to add the haunted houses for a total of $35 more... we said sure!

And an ADVENTURE it was.

To start off... our family are really not Halloween fans.

None of us like "Scare Houses".... my girls have all been made fun of by friends for not daring to go... or for being super wimpy while going.

We just don't like scary stuff... In fact it's only been a year or so that Jadyn and Lydia would even WALK into "Halloween City". Just last October Lydia closed her eyes and I guided her past the creepy stuff at the door... In other words we were not looking for scary stuff.

OOPS

This was the "creepiest night of my life."

And I can GUARANTEE my girls.

Shane wasn't "buying it" but he just didn't want to admit it. hahaha

But NONE of us will ever forget it.

From the start something didn't feel quite right... the "house" we checked in at which was actually the "haunted house" we'd be touring that night and there were all these weird ghost and witch items to buy in their little shop. We quickly realized that the tour guides were pretty weird too.

Bob, was missing a couple teeth and I couldn't completely understand what he was saying.

And Jan, was SUPER eccentric... like she started out telling us that she, "sees dead people all the time and she has all her life."

Then she tells us that this house that we'll be touring will be debuting in two weeks on a show called "Portals to Hell"..... ?????!!!!! (Season 3... the Taylor Museum if you want to look it up and watch it).

Here's the house... promise we would have acted more scared if we knew what was ACTUALLY going to happen that night.

We picked up our kerosene lanterns and headed out.

Just the 5 of us... our 2 tour guides and another couple.

Jan was telling us how to take pictures and to watch our "live videos" and that we might see something later... Honestly I didn't buy much of it at first. She was showing us pictures and telling us stories that we were all looking at each other thinking, "this lady is WEIRD!"

We did learn a lot of history of Plymouth because she was a non-stop TALKER.

We walk up to the old cemetery from here.

This cemetery was in use from the 1600- 1950 when it was closed to new burials.

She's telling us, "not to be alarmed because there are a lot of Coyotes in the cemetery... so when she's stomping she's not trying to wake up the dead just scare away the Coyotes." Ummmm OK... at that point we were all more afraid of the Coyotes than the dead anyway.

We were in the cemetery for a LONG time...

Like probably 30-45 minutes and after a few minutes it was pitch black... zero lights anywhere except for our lanterns.

It was eerie as it would be in any cemetery at night.

But we pretty quickly realized we were not on a ghost tour... we were on a legit

GHOST HUNT.

I mean crazy Bob had his EMF reader (Electromagnetic Field Reader) going all over that cemetery and he'd point out spots where it was going off and tell us to take pictures right here. etc etc

Lydia was SOOO confused. I asked her if she was scared and she said, "Um yes, but I have no idea what is going on here."

Anyway Jan told us story after story after story.

It was really interesting and we sure learned a lot about a LOT of people buried in that cemetery.

Then Jan cackled... like witch cackled.

And I almost cried.

My girls too.

We spent the whole night looking at each other saying... "WHAT IS THIS?????"

See that ghost like form in the middle of this picture... I'd really like to know what that is?????

I'd also like to know what this thing is streaking through the air that we found when looking through videos when we got home.

(It's repeated twice)

Videos explain Jan better than words.

And this "orb" is apparently "Hannah"... she loves the men... so these two were used as "bait" to lure her in. Yep that's how the night went.

(I took this picture off Bob's old point and shoot camera right after he took it... I don't think he could have doctored that)

Outside of the cemetery is this old "Courthouse" only open from May - September.

She told us LOTS of stories of paranormal activity that happened here based on the history of the building.

No one is in this building.

I took three pictures within 3 seconds of each other and zoomed in on the bottom window to the right of the door.

Weird... SUPER weird.

We then walked back through the town to the shop/house.

At this point she tells the other couple that they hadn't paid for the house tour so their tour was ending. And we were all like... uhhhh maybe we want to UNPAY for the house tour... or let them go in our place.

The first house.

It was terrifying... it was totally dark except for a phone flashlight and our FLASHES from the camera that lit it up.

She told us story after story... and I'd say you had to be there.

But lucky for us you can watch that episode of "Portals to Hell"... because she tells a LOT of the same stories on there.

This doll in the front that she pushed on and it creepily said, "I'm not peeking." will be in all of our nightmares FOREVER!

I was singing primary songs the whole time in my head and I just kept telling the girls to do the same because it was NOT a good feeling in that house. I kept asking myself, "what are we doing???"

This chair...

She said that sometimes when women sit in it... their hair rises up or they feel someone touch them.

She asked if any of us wanted to.

UHHHHH... no... no female takers in our group.

But Shane said he would.

Then Jan proceeded to call Captain in "to give him a sign."

And then Henry was summoned.

All the while weird stuff is flying around in my video (that we saw later.)

And Shane is denying that he felt anything.

But after he told me, "Maybe I felt something but I wasn't going to tell her!"

The video of him here is at the end of the Boston Video 2 posts back.

When we got outside Jan said, "OK, let's go over to the Taylor Museum".

I was OUT!!!

My girls were out!!!

so I told her that we were good with just that one. To which she responded... "Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

What.?????!!!!!! I'm pretty sure that's the purpose of the tour hahahahahaha

Shane convinced Kenna to go with him to the next house.

She "unconfidently" agreed.

Jan offered to let me, Lydia and Jadyn sit outside with Bob.

But honestly I would have felt more comfortable in the next house... than sitting outside with creepy Bob!

So we walked VERY quickly to our car.

Our car that Shane had parked next to an old house that is exactly how I would draw a haunted house.

What are the odds????

We couldn't wait for them to get to us.

And they had more stories to tell.

Hey there's Bob hahaha

We all talked about it for days... like we just couldn't get it out of our minds.

We were terrified to watch the show when it came on.

Lydia and Jadyn weren't home that night so they haven't seen it.

Lydia says she never wants to see it.

I think she's trying to block it all from her memory.

But the show was actually done quite well and it's great to be able to have other people understand our experience. hahaha

WOW what an unexplainable night... but I did my best!! hahahaha

We all slept that night... but not super WELL.

The next morning we woke up and headed to church in Plymouth.

Being there felt a LOT better than last night!

After church we headed to Plymouth Plantation... now called Plymouth Patuxet because we apparently shouldn't be using the work "Plantation" anymore...

(insert a few confused faces here)

We had fun exploring but were super sad to find out that the "Mayflower" wouldn't be back in the harbor for another week.

Oops guess we shouldn't have paid for that ahead of time. grrrr