The Ghosts of Golden

Hey Everyone! We're back from our trip to Colorado and I think you'll be seeing about four blog posts from it! It was an action-packed, emotional trip and I'm really glad we made it.

The first night my mom and I were in Colorado, we stayed in a town called Golden. Golden is really old, and at one point (1861-1867) it was the capital of Colorado Territory! Golden was founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1859. When I imagine downtown Golden in its prime mining town days, I imagine it being much busier than it is today. At least on the night we went it was quiet. I liked the vibe in the old section of town. We were clearly looking at buildings from the 1800s and it was night, but it didn't feel at all creepy there.

That's not to say that there aren't some ghosts. I did some research on Golden before going on this trip, because I figured with a place this old, there ought to be some ghost hanging around. The main haunted place I found people talking about was "The Buffalo Rose" which is a saloon and restaurant. I watched a video from a local Colorado news station about the place before going and it looked promising.

So, with the Buffalo Rose in mind, we headed out. Driving through the mountains in the dark was spooky in its way. It was definitely a different kind of view of nature at night for me.

We passed the Coors Brewery, which is interesting to me as a Milwaukeean. (Since Miller has merged with Coors). For my Mom who came from Colorado, it must seem like the perfect business partnership.

I took a number of blurry shots of the Coors Brewery. It was that twilight time when it's so hard to get a photo to turn out. Plus, I was in a moving car. But a few came out well enough.

Into town, I kept taking photos, in part because I wanted to get that 'M' on the mountain for the Colorado School of Mines. Also because I just take a lot of photos of random stuff. This turned out to be very helpful later on!

So, once in town we set out to find the Buffalo Rose. This is one of the first buildings we passed. It's like a cartoon building with eyes, hey?

Then we walked up to this one and BAM! It hit me with a ton of energy.

It's one of those buildings with a presence. It was a hotel, later a boarding and rooming house, and now serves as the town's Astor House Museum. It dates from 1867! Can you believe some dingbat wanted to tear this down to put up a parking lot? Come on. Luckily, the town rallied around it and then other buildings to make sure they were registered as historic places.

Do you feel like the building is looking back at you? If you do, I'd be curious to hear which window you feel that coming from.

Onto the Buffalo Rose...

Pretty cool building, hey? And there's something fitting about that red light. 😉 I'm pretty sure those ladies pictured in the windows up there symbolize what I think they're supposed to symbolize. This was a mining town after all.

So we walked out front and saw a big statue of a buffalo. This kid kept hopping around it as I took a pic. He'd jump behind it and make coughing (buffalo?) noises and then leap out after I took my photo. Turns out I wanted to keep the one he was in!

I took a few photos through the windows. I don't know if that kid playing around was what took down the spook factor, but I didn't feel much here. However, mom said she thought this room wasn't as empty as it looked.

We have a disagreement going, but I think that dark form in the back looks like a person sitting. He'd be sitting with one leg down and one crossed over it. Mom thinks it's a reflection of something. I did look up a picture of the pool room online and saw that there is seating in that area. So...

A little closer with the contrast bumped up:

Now, here's a building I felt something from! It's a theater now, but I'm not sure what it's original purpose was.

It's called the Miner's Alley Theater. There was something about this entire street.

I felt a strong presence walking down to that red neon sign and then around the corner to this place, The Ace-Hi Tavern.

This place has something shaking. I felt like someone was lounging against the wall of the doorway. I bumped up the contrast big time to see if I could find anything unusual. What do you think?

A little orby-orb up there?

I wrote an email to the owner of the Ace-Hi last night asking if he had any ghosts. I've never written an email like that before! I told him basically what I just told you, about what I felt walking by. To my pleasant surprise, he wrote me back later that evening! And what's more, he has ghost stories.

I'll just paste what he wrote here, because it's cool the way he said it:

Justine,
Thank you for sharing your experience with me.
Yes, we have had ghosts for many years. Never anything scary but have had customers and staff witness bottles, glasses a pitchers fly off the bar or shelves. I myself have been putting liquor bottles away in my back room and then turn to get more bottles to add and look on the shelf and see that the bottles have moved about 6 inches just in the time I turned my head. This happens on a regular basis. I hear them sliding against the shelf and have always been a little freaked out but never scared. It's a building that had been around since the late 1800s and has quite a colorful history. If your ever back in town you'll have to stop by!

As I responded to him, I love how we're living at a time when I can reach out and openly ask about the ghost I sensed and get a nice, honest answer like this! I hope to be in Golden again and if I am, I'll go in the Ace-Hi and say hello.

The street the Ace-Hi is on, just had a vibe in general.

It wasn't at all scary around here. When I say "vibe" I mean it felt inhabited, but not in any kind of bad way. You could just feel the history and a few old inhabitants. But you know how you get a sense of how dangerous a place is at night? This old downtown area felt totally safe.

I love this little building. It looks like it should be an ice cream parlor or a barber shop, but it appears to be a law office. I don't have any ghost stories to offer here, it's just a building I wanted to share. I like those glazed bricks a lot. There's a building around here made of those too and they give a neat reflection. I found a masonry web site that will tell you everything you'd want to know about the bricks: Masonry of Denver - Brick at the Quaintance Block

So, about what I said earlier about it being helpful to take lots of random photos... We got lost on the way back and had to trace my photos in reverse order like Hansel and Gretel to find our way around! This one with the neon liquor store sign saved the day because it had both a landmark and a street sign in it.

Yeah, this obviously took some detective work. Luckily, I can really close in on the pictures I've taken.

So I had to get a photo of the lifesaving neon sign on the way back. Plus, I like colorful neon. And it has the added bonus of including the words "Golden" and "Coors". I wonder how old that Coors sign is?

Have any of your traveled through Golden? If so, I'd love to compare notes! 👻

Who ya gonna call?

Ghostbusters! As well as a locksmith. Yeah, it was that kind of night...

Last night, I met some friends to celebrate Halloween and a few of their birthdays. In looking at this picture, you'd never know that my car had been sideswiped earlier in the evening. You also probably wouldn't guess that the guy with the goggles had locked his car keys in his car. In the ignition. Yeah, it's funny how we all manage to smile for photos...

The evening started off fine. I did my cat makeup, put on some cat ears, and was ready to hit the town!

cat clock eyes

For those who are interested, I used this makeup tutorial for part of my cat look:

After getting ready, I wrapped my friend Stacey's birthday gifts. I was really happy to find this little coffin box. It was actually made to hold silverware, of all things!

So, off I went to meet my friend for her dinner party. On the way there, I got lost and as I mentioned earlier was hit by a very fast moving car. After hitting my car, it continued to move away very fast. So if you're wondering, there's no way I have a license plate number. I was grateful not to be hurt, although my car was. In a shaken up state, I went to the restaurant.

Everyone managed to calm me down, and I had a pretty nice salad. Next, we were off to meet our college friends, Derek and Troy.

(Derek is on the left and Troy is on the right)

We rolled up in Stacey's car, because we weren't sure if mine was safe to drive. We drove up to find that Troy had locked his keys in the car. He was on the phone with a locksmith, who was lost. The locksmith continued to be lost for about 45 minutes. He eventually showed up in a very beat up car, that was missing its hubcaps. Everyone asked if it was the car that hit me. (It wasn't, but wouldn't that have been great?) Anyway, this guy didn't appear to work for a locksmith company and English was definitely a second language for him. So I didn't understand a lot of what was going on, except that it was going to cost $150 to get in the car. The reason given for this was that it was "a holiday". Maybe for him it was? After all this, I just started to laugh. You know how it gets ridiculous when that many things go wrong? Well, this was one of those times, and it made me laugh!

Back to Derek and Troy. After paying the locksmith, they were able to get into the car and get their Ghostbuster equipment. Let me tell you, this stuff is extensive! They even built their own proton packs. In case you're wondering, these weigh 45 pounds.

The straps that are holding the packs on, came from an army surplus store. As you can see, there's a lot going on here!

They also brought their ghost trapper with them. It moved around and lit up after the little doors closed!

After taking some photos, we were off to the Safe House! You might remember that I mentioned this bar in my Prohibition blog post. The bar resembles a speakeasy. It is hidden behind a regular door in the middle of an alley. If you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't find it.

I think it's the third door down on the left... This is the only picture I can show you, because the Safe House is top secret. That, and my other photos didn't turn out. The place really does have a mystique to it. You need to know the secret password to get in, and you have to do all kinds of dorky things if you don't. These dorky things are displayed on a TV screen inside, for all to see. This is my Safe House "temporary visa".

As we walked in, the DJ played the Ghostbusters theme! After that, he played Michael Jackson's Thriller, while a guy dressed as Michael did a little dance. Then he played the Time Warp. In just that order. So it was exactly like my blog party!

We then headed down to Water Street, which is a busy street full of bars in Milwaukee. There were tons of people in costume wandering around there, so there was some good people watching! I had to include my picture of the Spy vs. Spy guys after mentioning them in my Plague Doctor post.

Throughout this entire evening, my friends got lots of attention. It seemed that a voice yelled out of every passing car, "Who ya gonna call?" To which my friends would answer "Us!" This was cute the first 100 times... I was wishing that the people would think of something more original to yell as they drove by! Actually, there was one guy who yelled "Nice Protein Packs!" That was pretty funny.

My friends also got lots of attention from the ladies. Lets put it this way, if you're a guy who would like to be approached by every woman in the room, wear a Ghostbuster costume. It was unbelievable! It was also fun to watch. I got to experience what it's like for people who are the non-famous friends of celebrities. People acted like my friends were the real Ghostbusters!

I think they should get some kind of gig where they get hired for parties. All they need is two more guys and the Ghostbusters car!

After that eventful night, I was grateful that trick-or-treat hours in my town were pushed later this year. The only problem is that it rained this evening. So, only a few clusters of kids came by. The wind was raging and their costumes were drenched. I ended up giving handsful of candy to the kids who stopped by, and there's still plenty left over!

This was such a weird weekend, that I'm happy I celebrated Halloween throughout October. There was one part of the weekend that went smoothly and that was the Day of the Dead parade on Friday. I got some great pictures to share with you guys, but I'm saving them until early November.


So, how were all of your pre-Halloween weekends?