3 posts tagged “vacation”

I love a small town fair. I grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania/mightaswellhavebeenWestVirginia and the end of the summer was always rung in with the West Alexander Fair. A week long celebration of livestock, tractor pulls, demolition derbies, rigged carnival games and rickety rides. It was a thing of dusty, stinky beauty and my family went pretty much every year.

But somewhere during college I found other things to do with that week and I haven't been to a fair since. So when K. and I rounded the bend entering Maquoketa and were greeted by the sight of spinning rides and the smells of livestock barns I knew how we were going to spend our evening.

We were staying in the fabulous, turn-of-the-century, Decker House Hotel. It's in downtown Maquoketa and it felt like something out of a western. Grand staircase. Actual keys for the doors. Lots of dark wood and high ceilings. It was scheduled to become a parking lot until a young couple swooped in and saved it. Their three kids were playing in the lobby when we checked in. How cool would it be to grow up in an old hotel? I mean, as long as the place didn't go all Shining on you. 

After a quick shower, we had dinner in the hotel. Great food and, unlike some smaller towns, more than capable of handling a vegetarian. It had a been a beautiful, sunny day and the evening was just starting to cool off, so we decided to walk to the fair. We took a back street, behind the business district, past quaint houses with dogs tied up out back and the garage doors standing open. It reminded me a lot of my hometown. But then, how could it not? It was probably cut from the same plant as other small towns that stopped growing somewhere in the late fifties.

We arrived at the main gate, just as country singer Sawyer Brown took the stage. This worked out well because it meant that the majority of people were in the grandstand instead of creating lines at all the rides and games. We decided we'd just walk through first. Take everything in and then go back and start the fun.

The first row of fair goodness was the concessions area. Every kind of deep-fried evil, a dozen kinds of "homemade" jerkey, smoked meats galore. It was as if they consulted with every doctor in America, decided which foods were the absolute worst for you and made sure they had a sampling of each. Hell's pantry isn't stocked as well. I mentally tagged the little trailer with the handmade sign that said "Deep Fried Oreos" and we went on our way.

I'm sure the midway games haven't changed all that much in the last fifteen to twenty years, but for some reason, they don't have the same appeal to the 34 year old as they did to the 10 year old. I walked past each booth a couple of times, hoping one would call to me. I had promised K. I would win her something, but I wanted to earn it. I didn't want to just throw a dart at a balloon or pluck a floating duckie from a tub. And my basketball skills are weak with a regulation hoop, so trying to sink a basket with the carny hoops was out. After the second pass the only game that seemed to fit the bill was the old "Throw a baseball and try to break a bottle" game.

Nine rows of 2x4s have holes drilled in them and the bottles are turned upside down in the holes. The rows are spaced just far enough apart to make room for the bottles, and the bottles are placed far enough apart as to allow the ball to fit between them, so this one is all about accuracy. It's also about masculinity. First you're throwing a ball. All real men know how to throw a ball. Nothing wounds a man's pride like being told "you throw like a girl". Second, the object of the game is to break a bottle. What can be more manly than to destroy something else? And that great smashing-glass sound. Gotta love it.

I gave the world-worn carny my two bucks and he handed me three baseballs. Now, I haven't thrown a baseball in years and while I was confident that I could chuck it the twenty feet to the bottles, I was unsure if I would actually hit anything. I offhandely commented to K. that the real trick was hitting the wooden shelf and getting the ball to bounce back to you, thereby giving you another chance. As luck would have it, this was exactly what I did with my first throw. The bystanders thought I did it to show K. what I meant, so they all clapped at my hurling abilities. Unfortunately, my ego was quickly deflated when I tried to catch the returning ball. I managed to drop the two other balls. The applause faded. I only wish I had stepped on one of the balls, had it roll out from under me sending me sprawling on my back, then the image would be movie moment perfect. Instead I just rolled my eyes and quickly gathered the stray balls.

I took a deep breath and tried to summon up some ancient t-ball memory to guide my hand. I tried to visualize the ball smashing into the upended Corona bottle dashing it into a million pieces. The wind up. The pitch! Oh! It glanced off the Corona bottle and hit the backstop. (The holes are also bevelled a bit at the top so the bottles have room to move if nudged.) I closed my eyes and took another breath. Focus. Focus. The wind up. The pitch! A hit! The brown Budwieser bottle was history. To win a prize I only needed to smash two out of three. I tossed the last ball up and caught it. I winked at K. That cheap-ass-made-in-China stuffed animal was as good as hers.

I'm not always the best under pressure. As an actor I love it when something goes wrong during a show and you have to see if you can get the wheels back on the bus while it's still in motion. It's one of the reasons I love improvising, though I do it rarely anymore. But in other areas, the pressure and me don't always get along. I am still haunted by the memory of a little league game in which my team was one out away from winning. I was playing second base and ball was popped up right over my head. I called it. I raised my glove. I could already hear my coach and teammated celebrating. But I'd come in too close and the ball landed right behind me. The tying and winning runs scored as I scrambled to pick up the ball. I don't think anyone made eye contact with me the rest of the day.

I tried not to think of that moment. I only thought of the breaking bottle. The victory. Proving my manliness to my woman. I am a man. I break things with balls. Love me. The wind up. The pitch. Straight into the dirt. I tried too hard. Wanted it too badly. I lowered my head. The bystanders drifted away. K. came over and put her arm around me. "Don't worry about it, babe. I didn't want that thing anyhow." And she smiled and started talking about which ride we should hit first. But I know she was only trying to cover over her shame and fear. She had seen her man fail at something manly. The doubts would begin to creep in. "He can't even break a beer bottle with a baseball, how is going to be a decent provider?" I prayed that there would be another chance to prove to her the kind of man I really was.

I don't know whether it was because of all the wide-open space around us, or because God likes a fair as much as the next guy, but no sooner had I uttered that prayer than it was answered in the form of a ride. It was called The Octopus and it was about to forever reveal exactly how manly I really am.

We finally wind up in Maquoketa, IA the next morning, still talking about the haunted house adventures from last night. We're both boggled by the fact that this one man has spent the last twenty years of his life turning his house into this gerry-rigged Frankenstein that must get hundreds of visitors around Halloween. Will I ever find something to devote so much of my life to? When does passion cross over into obsession? How does a place that, in this litigious age, continue to exist? We are both grateful to have experienced it.

Then we find the caves. They aren't the sort of caves that immediately come to mind when someone mentions the word. Some are big enough to walk around in. Some are so tight you have to crawl on your belly to enter. Only one of them is of the massive, echo-chamber size that I imagine caves to be.

I've only ever been spelunking (cue sophmoric giggling) one other time, back in WV where I went to college. The entrance was a tight squeeze, but once you were in, it was like being in a giant, dark, damp, dripping blimp hanger. Having the over-active imagination that I do, I was fully prepared for some creature of the deep to be awakened by our tromping around and devour us all. And any time I had to crawl through a space where I couldn't turn around was the worst. But it was cool. We got muddy. We turned out our flashlights and freaked each other out just standing there in the absolute darkness. Then we emerged back into the sunlight, alive and uncursed.

I don't have any real phobias. Sure, I'm not the first guy up the ladder to the high dive, but I'll get there. And I don't want a spider crawling across my neck, but I'm not going to have a spaz-attack when I see one on the wall. I do have a teensy-tiny issue with tight spaces, though. Mainly it's a control issue. I like to know my options and have free reign to express them. But if, say, I have to wriggle and squirm to fit my body through an opening and my range of motion is limited to pushing myself forward with my toes while my head is turned to the side so it doesn't get wedged between two massive pieces of rock AND, god forbid, some demon of the depths were to attack and the only way I could get away is by shimmying backwards...well...I'd rather not.

K.'s the adventurer and she was usually the first one to enter each cave. This was fine with me for two reasons. 1.) I could judge by how much grunting and crawling she did as to whether I wanted to follow. 2.) If there were cave-dwelling trolls that feast on human flesh, she would distract them long enough for me to escape. My chivalry only goes so far.

Most of the 16 caves were simply inset pockets in the hills. You could almost imagine Native Americans using them to get out of the weather or bunk down off the beaten trail. But a couple required a little manuevering to enter. One you have to climb over a small ledge, then slide down an opening, squat down under some rocks and then were able to stand up. It was just big enough for two adults to stand in. There was another that you had to lie down on your stomach and inch your way into. We sat at the entrance of that one, listening to a couple of other adventure seekers huff and puff and ocassionally comment on being stuck and decided we didn't need to check that one out. Or rather, I decided for us when I just got up and started walking away.

After about four hours or so of climbing hills and crawling through chilly caves we were ready to call it a day. But there was one cave we still hadn't found. When we first entered the park, we met some folks who were covered in mud and soaking wet. We asked them where they had been and they mentioned The Wye. K.'s eyes lit up and she said "We have to go there." Most of the caves follow along a single trail that winds through the hills, along a small stream. But the Wye Cave is off the trail. Taking a break at the little park shelter, with the bathrooms that smelled like dead bodies covered in poo and industrial cleaner, we made the decision to find The Wye.

My legs were already tired from climbing up and down hills and squating and crawling through mud and ice-cold springs. So, naturally, to get to The Wye, we had to hike up a steep hill. Once we got to the top, the trail sort of died out and there were no markers to point the way. Trusting my impecible sense of direction and the not-scale trail map found at the smelly shelter, I took the lead. After probably another thirty minutes of following a dried up stream that was leading us farther and farther downhill, K. and I decided to give up the search and just get back to our hotel where we could take a shower and eat.

Since we were no longer on an actual trail, I just started heading back in the general direction from whence we had come. The way down was pretty steep, so instead of simply back-tracking, we veered off to make a lazy circle back. And wouldn't you know it. As we crested the last hill, there was a marker for The Wye. "See," I said. "I knew where I was going all along." And walked to the mouth of the cave.

Where most caves are cut into the side of a mountain or hill, The Wye is simply a hole in the ground. It looks like it's going to head straight into the side of the hill, but when you get there you realize that the entrance is at your feet. The rocks that lead down are slimy and muddy and it only added to my anxiety about going in. I can turn into a real sour-puss when I'm hungry. Tack on a little physical tiredness and we're talking cranking asshole who just wants to sit on the couch and eat tater-tots. So my first thought is, "Well, we've seen it, let's go". But before I can verbalize this, K. is already up to her chin in earth and in the next blink she's been swallowed whole. I curse. I peer down into the hole. When she finally reaches solid ground she looks up, her head-lamp shining in my sugar-depleted eyes. "You coming?" And she squats down and crawls out of view.

When I was a kid, maybe five or six, we lived on a farm. Or rather, we lived in a house that was part of a farm. My family didn't tend to it, but as kids, my younger brother and I were always eager to get in the way of the poor farm hands, thinking we were helping. There was a stream that ran through the property and a dirt-covered bridge you had to cross to get to the house. My brother and I loved playing in the stream, daming it up to make a wading pool. Throwing rocks into it. Standing on the bridge and spitting into the stream. One day, we were on the bridge watching a monsterous black snake swim under the bridge when the dirt and gravel gave way and my brother fell into the water backwards and disappeared under the bridge right behind the snake. I paniced. I ran to the house, screaming for my mother who came running down, waded into the tunnel and fished him out. Once she as assertained that he wasn't injured, just scared silly, she then proceed to scream at me, asking me why I hadn't helped him and why I'd put him in harm's way to start with. He was my little brother and it was my job to protect him. Funny how those kinds of things stick with you.

Ever since, I've had this hang-up with not being there when it counts. As K.'s light grew fainter and fainter I thought of all the possible ways things could go wrong and how I could never forgive myself if I weren't there to pull her out when the walls crash in/the flood waters rise/the flesh eating trolls attack. So tired and hungry and more than a little scared, I flipped on my light, sat down on the edge of the rocks and began to lower myself into the cold, damp earth.

Once I got down it took a second for my eyes to adjust to the pitch-black. Even with my light, I could only see what was right in front of my face. As I made my way farther in, the cave opened up and I was able to stand. I called out to K. and she called back only about ten feet in front of me. The ground wasn't solid earth, but made up of rocks and boulders, each one damp and slippery. So, while I could stand, moving around was much easier in a crouching position. The ground slanted down, deeper into the earth, and the farther we got the colder it became. It was really kind of neat to realize we were standing in Nature's Meatlocker.

After crawling down a few more rocks and over another ledge the cave began to narrow. You had to sit on your butt and scoot yourself forward. It narrowed even farther, to the point that K. was lying on her back, sliding feet first into the darkness. I had paused in an area where I was still able to sit and move around. I asked her how much farther she was going and she said she just wanted to see if it opened up again. So she kept crawling. And crawling, until I could no longer see her or her light.

As I sat there I began looking around and noticed that there were tree limbs and debrise lodged in some of the cracks between rocks, evidence of the recent flash flooding the area had experienced. I chastized myself for not checking the weather forcast before we left the hotel. I wondered how fast I could extract myself if she were to get her foot stuck and the rains began to pour in and the water started to rise around her. Would I be able to get help fast enough? Or would I just grab her arm and pull and hope her foot wrenched free still attached? Would it matter if it didn't? Could I love a woman with no foot? A fake foot would be cool and we would have fun playing pranks on our friends with it. Like she'd say something vaguely offensive and I'd say "Wow, you really put your foot in your mouth there". And she pull her fake foot off and cram it in her mouth and say "You mean like this?". And we'd laugh and laugh and laugh.

I was just beginning to wonder if a one-footed woman makes for a better sexual partner when she tapped me on the shoulder and scared the shit out of me. I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn't hear her coming. I just shook my head and scolded myself. What kind of protector was I? If she could get right up on me like that, the cave trolls would have been picking their teeth with her bones before I could even scream for help. Thank god we were headed topside. There were showers to take. Food to find. And a fair to attend. Far from the beady, patient eyes of the cave trolls.

The Little Lady and I decided we needed to get away for a while. Nothing major, just a little day trip. We agreed that three hours was all the longer we wanted to spend in a car, got out the map and started looking. We thought about Starved Rock or maybe Lake Geneva, but figured everyone else would be headed there as well. We wanted something a little more remote. Then we stumbled upon a park in Iowa right across the border that boasted caves. Sixteen of them. And when we discovered that there was a haunted house along the way, well, how could we say no.

I love road trips. Living in Chicago for so long without a car I forget how much I love sitting behind the wheel, the windows down, The Boss on the radio and nothing but road as far as the eye can see. When I was in high school my father was kind enough to gift me with a car not long after my 16th birthday. It was an late 80s model Mustang. Four speeds and a rubber spoiler on the back. I loved that car and I loved driving it around the winding, twisting, narrow dirt roads of rural Pennsylvania. I used to just get in and drive, not headed anywhere in particular.

We've had a run of bad luck lately with K's car. It's pretty much nothing but a hunk of metal waiting for its ride to the scrap heap. So we had to rent a car. Not something I look forward to, but hey, when you wanna get away you gotta do what you gotta do. I haven't had the best of luck renting cars. I drove home at the beginning of July and could only score a PT Cruiser. While those look like fun on the road, they ride like board strapped to rock. But I got lucky this time and last the car at the rental place was a Dodge Avenger. Needless to say that baby loved the open Illinois farm roads.

We headed out Friday evening and, after a quick stop for dinner, managed to arrive at The Raven's Grin Inn around 10pm. We knew nothing about this place other than it was supposed to be haunted and tours took about an hour. I'm so glad we didn't do any further research. The parking lot was empty except for two vehicles which have been modified to look like they're some sort of rolling creature. Then we saw the house. Or at least one side of it, as the rest of it was obscured by trees and brush. As we approached the front door, with the remains of an old yellow cab smashed into the side of the house, a white-haired head popped out of an opening and demanded to know what we wanted. It was a great way to start. K. and I both jumped. We chatted with the head for a bit, forked over our $24 and braced ourselves for the worst.

As soon as the head disappeared strange clanking and banging sounds began to eminate from the house. A disembodied voice yelled "Step away from the door! Step away from the door!" and as we did, the front door lowered like an opening maw about to feast on out of towner's flesh. We slowly entered, clutching each other, and found ourselves in a living room that was part horror-fan-boy-alter and part Norman Bates' bedroom. A video was playing on one wall of a man, wearing oversized glasses and a rainbow fright wig, playing with a roll of toilet paper and cackling madly to himself. We sat watching this for about five minutes and I whispered to K. "I didn't tell anyone where we were going, did you?" She shook her head, never taking her eyes off of the television, when, with a great zap and loud thud, the power went out and we were left in total darkness.

What a great way to start a haunted house tour, huh? We didn't know what was coming next. And if the rest of the night had been nothing more than putting my hand in a bowl full of peeled grapes, it would have been worth the admission price. But there was more to come. Soooo much more.

In the darkness we heard a rustling noise and suddenly our tour guide, Jim, was there, flashlight under his chin, ready to tell us the haunted tale of this haunted house. His little pocket flashlight was the only light and it did a pretty good job of letting you see shapes but nothing else. It also played tricks with your eyes, because when he's stand with his hands behind his back, the light behind him, his face was in shadow and my imagination kept trying to fill in the details. Sometimes it would be twisted and demonic and sometimes it would be blank. Either way, I was always glad when he moved the flashlight back to his side.

He told us the history of the house and of the Lady in White who is said to still reside there. He told us some of his own history as well. A tale of a near death experience at the hands of a tractor-trailer with faulty breaks. This is where the fear started to subside a bit, as the story became punctuated with lots of tiny weiner jokes and tons of innuendo, usually involving one of his ex-wives. This bit went on a touch too long and pretty soon, instead of being scared, we were starting to get bored. When I finally had enough light to glance at my watch I saw we had been listening to him talk for 45 minutes. Then, the doorbell rang and he excused himself, as other guests had arrived.

I suppose it's no easy feat trying to run a haunted house all by yourself. During the peak season around Halloween he employs about fourteen people to help him out. But tonight it was just Jim. K. and I looked at each other prayed that he wasn't going to start the story all over from the top. Though he did flip on the light and fire up the VCR tape of the laughing loon. Three teenagers entered and I breathed easier because I figured I could throw the smaller girls in his way to make my escape if he decided he wanted to make us a permenant part of the tour.

The lights went out again and again there was silence as he made his entrance. He focused more of his story and sudden startling jumps at the teenagers. Thankfully he didn't start at the top and after the couch lurched up and nearly spilled us out, we were led into the kitchen. Here's where it became obvious that this man has dedicated his life to this house. Everything in it has been rigged in some fashion or other. You open a drawer and the faucet turns on. You open the fridge and a gargoyle from the ceiling comes shrieking down at you. He's even rigged a pair of pruning sheers, a moment that I saw things going suddenly horribly, bloodily wrong, so you think he's going to cut off his own nose.

Everything ends with a laugh though. And he's quick to point out the way the trick is done. This unsettled me more than anything. I kept waiting to be led past a room full of bodies in glass coffins, waiting to hear how he'd fashioned each one out of styrofoam and corn husks and then realizing that the empty coffin at the end of the row somehow had my name engraved on it. That never happened, but he was short staffed, so we might have skipped that part of the tour.

He led us all over the house and there were lots of jumps and starts along the way. But the highlight, at least for me, was that he managed to build not one, but two slides in his house. The first one leads from a closet to the basement. It's pretty obvious what's coming. The second one, however, starts out looking like some strange bed. He asks if you want to lie down and after wrapping you in, what's basically a denim bag, he flips a lever and the bed disappears and you're sliding down a dark tunnel that twists and turns before you finally come to a stop in complete, damp, dank darkness. After a moment a motion sensor flips the light and you find yourself in the wine cellar. The Lady in White's favorite room.

All told, K. and I spent two and a half hours in this house. We were exhausted but very happy with ourselves for finding this place and living to tell the tale. We'll definitely be gathering together a group to head back. Maybe even take him up on the "hide and seek" offer that's on his website. Though I can't imagine how you would ever find anyone in that place once they were hidden.

The next morning we continued our journey to Maquoketa, IA and the caves...