A full description of the weekend and the lodge can be found in the
Travel Section, including our stops at
Imagination Land and the
Los Gatos cats.
Pictures of the Brookdale Lodge are located in the
Travel Pictures.
All the information I can find regarding the lodge is
here.
So what happened?
I can only speak of what I metered, saw, felt or heard.
Kasey located a spot on the lower brook where she felt Sarah drowned. Sarah said she was indeed the same little girl I had played with so long ago. We cheered to hear the original lodge (during her time of death) would have been the large building across the street, and close to the spot Kasey found.
The castle looking doors, next to the bridge outside and in front of the dining room, as well as the little window to the crawl space, are VERY uncomfy, as well as an area of the brook directly below that. Hearing a story later about the mafia, gun runner prohibition era gangsters that kidnapped and killed a girl near that area gives on food for thought. Rumor? Who knows, but those areas are loaded.
In the dining room, I was a bit lost at first, struggling against childhood memories and distortions. I was finally comfortable to identify where Sarah looked at me from a high back railing. The stairway still confuses me, but I can see what path I might have taken. It is all very fairyland! Friday night, I sat on the stairway I felt was active for Sarah, the place she currently plays. She confirmed these were her favorite areas. Sure enough, something kept moving just behind me, just beyond my vision, only to disappear when I turned around. She laughed and tickled the back of my head. Several commands for her to stop did nothing, but I 'got' loud and clear how she was laughing at all the games going on in the dining room, everyone scurrying around, looking for her or her friends. A reading on Catherine's meter kept registering a 3 every time I placed it near my knees, but read zero to move the meter anywhere else. I moved to another stair step to receive the same results. The third level is extremely uncomfy, I stayed away.
At the pool room, Kasey and I were talking up on the balcony about life in general and the work load required for the pool to be opened, if ever. A very distinct odor swept up to us and lingered, the almost sickening sweet smell of banana. Both of us checked our shoes to see which one of us had stepped into a over ripe banana, but, of course, there was none. We looked at each other with saucer eyes, I said, "Banana" and Kasey said, "No, banana candy!" She was right, banana candy. Almost as quickly as it appeared, the odor was gone. With the wands, I asked if there was someone here, if banana was the odor she picked to draw our attention, and whether she was unsure how she passed, to which she answered yes to all questions. It was my first time working the wands and the skeptic in me regarding the wands is completely gone.
The Mermaid room is quite uncomfy, even Hash did not like being there. There are two closets that reportedly contain the beginnings of the tunnel leading across the street to the original lodge, now walled up and silent. Even creepier is to peek into the swimming pool though the large window at the end of the room. Supposedly, someone drowned there.
What is reported to be Sarah's current room, a small, cramped storage room off the second floor of the dining room, is highly active and uncomfortable, but not negative.
A window type decoration/cupola to the band room loft is also very negative, as well as the loft itself. It's difficult to breathe there.
The first of the monthly rental units, recently burned out, was so uncomfortable I could not proceed. An enclosed walkway in the same wing told me someone had maliciously frightened another person at some point in time, very seriously and with malice. An empty unit a few doors down revealed strange paintings of two people on the loft wall, Kasey and I were both exceedingly dizzy in the bathroom. Summer, the tenant next door, joined the group, what a sweetheart!
The worst of it all took place Saturday afternoon. Since Friday night, I was beckoned to find where the brook entered the building. Finally, we were on our way. A covered chain link fence protected the area, but suddenly, there was Michael, a local renter, his wood working apartment, and, happily, easy access to the brook's entrance to the dining room. Kasey walked close to the edge of the buttress and started to descend to the next level, shaking me to the bone. With my emergency Mommy voice, I told her to stop, to come back up to the to level. Her foot touched a metal plate she would have normally stepped on to find it extremely unstable, liable to pitch her into the brook below had she charged on downward. My getting, my angel, whatever term you want to use, urgently insisted we leave, immediately. Perhaps part of the gangster kidnap-murder history? I have no idea, but I was out of there, now, almost physically dragging a reluctant Kasey with me.
Awaiting the EVP's from the trip, so meanwhile, you can listen to bachgennes i mewn 'r brythwch, Girl in the Storm: