The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
I’ve been back a couple weeks now, running about like a chicken with its head cut off. October is just that kind of month when you’re both a paranormal investigator and an author of a couple of ghost books with a tour lined up. Quite honestly, I love it, but the blog has taken a bit of a hit in the meantime.
The middle of the month was marked with a short book tour out east to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, and then a meet and greet in Maryland with Inspired Ghost Tracking. Both of these fine organizations stepped up and offered me an opportunity after the speaking engagement with the Circle of Light Paranormal Expo that was to be held at the Maryland State Fairgrounds fell through less than a month before the event. I can’t say enough about Copperhead Greg Graham and his wife Michelle for their diligent work in lining up the two-day TALA signing and Margaret Ehrlich who scrambled to put together the meet and greet in Maryland. I absolutely cherish friends like them.
With Copperhead in the entrance hall of TALA.
What I will say about the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is that it is the real deal and is everything I expected it to be. Within just a couple hours of being set up at a table in the entrance hall, paranormal activity was already going on nearby. It was a moment during some downtime when not a lot was going on there when we heard one of the fire doors to the wards open and close as is someone was walking through. However, nobody was. A couple of us then walked over to see what was going on and noticed the door to the men’s bathroom was closing slightly (it’s an old large wooden door and does not automatically swing shut). I opened the fire door to see if anyone was down the hall and there was no one. I then tested to see if air flow from opening and closing that fire door would affect the bathroom door. It didn’t affect it one bit. So I shrugged and began walking back toward the direction of my table, but as I passed the men’s bathroom the door started swinging further open!
There are so many things to talk about when it comes to the ghost hunt that Friday night, but he best was saved for last. We were in one of the fourth floor wards and Copperhead and I were setting up flashlights and meters in the center of a room that is known for quite a bit of activity. Other members of the group we were heading up were down the hall. Because this room is quite active, there were already a number of trigger object scattered about the room including a ball that lights up when set into motion that was tucked in against the wall adjacent to the door. Again, we were in the center of the room and my back was actually to this ball. All of a sudden, Greg’s head snapped to the direction of the door and cries from the others in the group emanated from the hall. I spun about and there was the ball bounding out the door and across the hall lighting up in a myriad of different colors!
I highly recommend the ghost hunt at Trans-Allegheny as well as the many other tours at the asylum. Rebecca Jordan Gleason has a fantastic staff on hand to guide you through the enormous historic building, pointing out all the interesting history as well as the ghost tales. I also want to thank Sue Parker for doing a wonderful job of pointing customers in my direction as they came in the door and being 100% helpful the entire time I was there.
Directly after the flashlight tours ended on Saturday night, I packed it up and headed out in the direction of Maryland on only two hours of sleep. Somehow I made it almost as far as Cumberland before I succumbed to fatigue and found a place to crash for the night.
Signing at the Inspired Ghost Tracking meet and greet.
My first stop the following day was to have lunch with my best Maryland friend Luis Salazar who I’ve known since we were stationed at Ft. Meade together back in the mid 1990s. We also worked together for a number of years at Howard County Library. After lunch he challenged me to a round of miniature golf and then helped me bring out all my materials for the meet and greet with Inspired Ghost Tracking.
I’d done a signing with Inspired last year during my east coast tour that started in Louisville, Kentucky, and passed through three different venues in Maryland before concluding in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. That signing was a full-fledged presentation with a slideshow, but this one was a little more informal. I still spoke for a little while after we ate dinner, but it was more of an impromptu Q&A in which I talked about the new book, Trans-Allegheny, and anything they thought to ask me. Afterward, I had coffee and discussed the paranormal with Margaret, Kathy Amrhein, and Ronda Dixon. It was a fine relaxing moment to cap off a tremendous trip before I hit the road again back home.