Haunted Hikes Book Recommendation

Happy December everyone! I have another book recommendation for you guys. 

Haunted Hikes is a collection of mysterious stories from North America's National Parks. The target reader for this book is a person who plans to go hiking in National Parks and visit all the paranormal hot spots. In my case, this book reads more as a warning of places not to visit. Every time I read a new story I would say "Yeah, I'll be avoiding that area. Thanks for letting me know!" Still I have found this to be a fun historical read.

The author of this book is Andrea Lankford. Among other tough jobs, she has a background in search and rescue as a park ranger. I can only imagine what it's like to do that job. The word "harrowing" comes to mind. It isn't clear whether she is a skeptic or a believer in relation to some of these stories, but I can tell that she has an open mind and also a sense of humor. That sense of humor can be seen on her dedication page:

Each of the hikes is rated by a skull system. Believe me, the stories that are rated four skulls go with places where some baaaaad stuff happened. 

You might want to click on this pic to see it larger. I got a kick out of this.

The contents page shows all the areas of North America that she covers. This book is well organized for the traveler who wants to reference a specific park.

So, the book is organized like this: Different regions of North America, then under each region the National Parks that are there. Each National Park section has a story or two. After the stories comes a description of what to expect if you'd like to hike the areas described, like miles and difficulty. A simple map accompanies each hike. I just picked a random map to give you an idea. As you can see, I picked an "Easy" hike that kids can enjoy with a one skull rating. I guess I picked a tame one. 

I'm not sure I described that in a way that makes sense, so I'll give an example. Say you're interested in the California and Hawaii chapter. There's a section in there about Joshua Tree National Park. In that section are several stories from the park. There's one story about "Skull Rock" and after that there is a description of the hike around that area. Part of that description is above, along with the map. So you get a nice description of the loop you'd be walking and a few details to look out for if you plan to search for UFOs in the area.

I think this example I shared is actually a hike I'd be up for. Some of the hikes are long and strenuous, are in the territory of dangerous animals, or are sites of old crime scenes. For the most part the crimes are very old, but still. As I said at the beginning, thanks for the warning! 

You don't have to be a hiker to enjoy this book. If you're into history or the paranormal, that's enough. And this is a funny book, especially considering some of the subject matter. 

If any of you have some haunted hike stories of your own, I'd love to hear them! Reading this book, I'm not sure how any National Park isn't teeming with ghosts. 

Six Scary Stories

I have a book recommendation for you guys! Six Scary Stories is just what it sounds like. Stephen King selected the stories in this book and also wrote the introduction. King judged a scary story competition and out of the over 800 entries, he especially liked these six. The first story in this book was the winner of the competition, but he thought that another five were also so great that they should be published along with the winning story in one book. And they are all great! I'm actually still haunted by a few of these weeks after reading them.

I found this book while wandering around the library. I was hoping something fun and spooky would pop out. I happened to look up to the top of a shelf and there was Six Scary Stories. The Frankenstein sticker was a good sign.

What little sticker does your library use to identify the Horror books? We used to have a skull, but evidently we have Frankenstein now. I think he looks pretty good with this cover.

What a bunch of fancy scrolly stuff going on there! And I see the book was put out by "Cemetery Dance Publications". 

Here are the six story titles:

I'll give you a quick overview of each, without spoiling much of anything.

1) Wild Swimming: Stephen King's favorite. This one is told entirely through printed emails. I don't believe I've ever read a story in that form. The email format added some urgency to the story. I also wasn't familiar with "wild swimming" as an activity before reading this. Turns out it's a thing! (A thing I will never be doing, but I'm sure it's quite the experience)

2) Eau-de-Eric: This story is creepy in so many ways. There are some familiar themes in the plot that usually scare people, but when those themes are put together the story is new. It might be up for debate what some of those themes even are. But loosely I'd say, kids, toys, and possession for sure. Possibly some form of sorcery and a haunting. A not so familiar theme is the power of scent memory. I might be thinking about cologne differently after reading this.

3) The Spots: I think it's fair to say this one is a little political, definitely in a historical way. This is one of those deep thinkers. You'll think about dictators, delusion, and brainwashing. It's still traditional Horror, though.

4) The Unpicking: This one is hands down the most disturbing. Just yikes. I had to stop reading this a few times and just say "What!? No." It's like Toy Story, but with no sentimentality! That's putting it lightly, but I don't want to give away the plot.

5) La Mort de L'Amant: This is a clever one. If you're into true crime, you'll see it through that lens. I was kept on edge while reading it. It's probably very true to some real life close call situations.

6) The Bear Trap: I liked this one a lot. It's probably my favorite story of the six. Very apocalyptic, but somehow there's a little humor sprinkled in. 

Three of the stories include stuffed animals. That could be a coincidence. I have a theory that people are afraid of things that are usually seen as small and harmless turning on them. Children, stuffed animals, dolls, etc. It's probably a feeling of "If even this innocent looking person or item could turn on me, nothing is safe!" 

If you're interested, the three that have kept haunting me are Eau-de-Eric, The Unpicking, and The Bear Trap. I just realized after seeing those titles typed out in a row that those are the three involving children and stuffed animals!

The woman on the cover goes with the first story, as you could probably guess!

This is one of my favorite bookmarks and the one I used while reading this. It's one of those fun freebies from the library. I picked a particularly creepy page from the book to photograph it on.

If any of you have read this book, I would love to discuss it with you! 👻

Look who hopped by!

An adorable little visitor hopped by recently, and I'm pretty sure you guys are going to appreciate it!

At first I was caught off guard by this frog. I was opening a big patio umbrella and saw kind of a gray blob on the side of the pole. I didn't realize that was the frog's belly at the time. After figuring out what I was looking at, I decided to just close the umbrella again.

This was a new experience for me. I wondered if this frog thought it was on a tree. It was hard to say if it would stay or go, but I put out a little orange dish of water, thinking I could somehow coax it down to the table.

The next day, I opened the umbrella all the way, and it appeared the frog was gone. It was in the very tip top of the umbrella, above my head. This time it just leaped all the way down with a powerful plop onto the table. It sat next to the water dish just looking at me. It was in no hurry to move.

It was like a little lime with legs. Looking at it now, it's amazing that I only read it as a gray blob to begin with. But then, its belly looks far different from its back.

You can see how this frog could fit in with a piece of moss or lichen.

So I took a number of photos of it, actually a great number of photos. It was really hard to decide which pics to share. The frog hung out for several days and I took photos of it in any number of poses. It seemed as happy to pose in different positions as I was to photograph it.

Look at those eyes! It's interesting how later on you'll see its eyes as pure black. I'm not sure why its eyes changed. Maybe the light was affecting the pupils. 

I took a close-up pic of one of its back legs and was then able to notice the surprise yellow details. You're seeing five toes on this foot, right? I ask because later on I'm going to share a chart that shows how to tell a frog from a toad. It matters whether we're seeing four or five toes here. 

Look how high up it was!

At one point the frog scared me, because it hopped straight down at my zoomed out camera lens. It landed on another part of the umbrella, but it really appeared to be coming right at me through the camera! Just this big light gray belly flop right at the lens. I jumped back, checking that I didn't have a frog anywhere on me. 

The third frog day I looked all around for it above my head. Not seeing it, I figured it was gone. Then I noticed it right in front of my face, hugging the pole. 

The frog became a little sneaky near the end, and I started to feel like it was having a fun time just hiding and popping out. 

It was reminding me of a snake at one point, the way it was slithering around. 

This picture shows the frog mid-climb. It was feeling the fabric on the umbrella top with its little hand. Isn't it interesting how the frog's back leg bends? It looks sort of bent backward from what I would have expected. This pic gives a good idea of how the frog could accomplish that spriiiiing of a jump. There's a lot of momentum in those legs.

This next photo cracks me up. It amazes me how this frog could climb and balance in nearly any way. I watched it land perfectly because of those little suction cup toes. If you'd like to get into the scientific nitty gritty of those toes, check out this blog post:

Kermit's Sticky Little Fingers

Anyway, these photo sessions were fun and now I'm kind of missing the frog. I don't miss wondering if a little creature is hiding above me waiting to pounce down while I'm eating. That part was weird. But otherwise, it was fun.

I went to the library and got a few frog books, in the hopes of learning more about the little visitor. Both books are pretty entertaining and filled with frog photos. There are frogs you can't even believe in these books! I mean, there are pictures of critters I wouldn't have even thought were frogs. 

So I think I found my frog in one of the books! This is a gray tree frog. Do you guys think this is a match?

This is another photo from Frogs A Chorus of Colors. Look at that great camouflage. My frog is probably on a tree now and I don't even see it.

I'm assuming that my frog thought the umbrella was a nice smooth tree but has since found real one. 

I learned that these tree frogs can live through our cold winters by changing their glucose levels. A high level of glucose becomes a version of antifreeze for them. When they do this, they turn a dark green. You can even see some pieces of ice on this wood frog.

They can also change their colors to fit into their surroundings, in variations of green and gray. You probably noticed the frog changing color a bit through my photos. Of course, it wasn't going to change into all those colors on the umbrella, but that would have been cool.

So, here's that chart I mentioned earlier. I realize it's pretty hard to read. I tried to make it legible, but you know how it is taking pictures of text. I'm pretty sure what I saw was a frog, not a toad. Although, I read elsewhere that all toads are frogs. The more you try to figure that one out, the more answers you're going to find. 

If anyone out there has experience with the type of frog that came hopping my way, I'd like to hear about it. Or maybe there are some frog experts out there who think what I saw wasn't a gray tree frog. I'm open to any input here. This frog spotting was a first for me and I have to wonder if I'll see one of these again. It's been a summer for new nature experiences. I might blog about some recent owl encounters if I can manage to get some photos of the owls.

Christmas Lights and Lites

It's that time of year again, time for me to share some pictures from this year's Miller Holiday Lites Christmas event!

I love the colors of the lights on this keg tree. You might not expect a keg tree to look cool, but it's a pretty reflective surface to work with. So any color of light is probably going to look good on it.

The Miller logo tree topper:

This is a sight you see as you walk along to the light show: a very festive and giant bottle of beer.

How's this for perspective? It's like some sort of prism effect.

Here we are at the Miller house as it's ready to show off for Christmas with lights set to music. I thought we saw some particularly pretty colors of light this year.

I'll show you a few different views of it in different colors. The colors make a big difference in how the house comes across. The blue is kind of spooky.

I think those dancing light snowflakes on the lawn were new this year.

This was one of my favorite color combinations. I like that shade of pink in general and those trees are looking pretty wild in red.

This view came at the end of the show. There were rainbow colors just going wild every which way.

Different objects showed up in the windows while different songs played.

It was fun how much the crowd got into the music this year. A lady next to me was doing the twist and then kind of hopping around through the whole show, and she wasn't alone!

Quite a bit of "snow" fell at the end of the show. I bet this was actually soap. I think that's what fake snow is normally made from. This photo makes it look like a real blizzard.

I was walking briskly while taking this one, so it has that kind of whoooosh look to it. I like the way they decorate the arches with snowflakes each year.

The Miller Inn

Into the caves! I like this shot because the crowd is looking up. I'm not sure why they're looking up. Maybe the tour guide said something to make them do that.

A closer view of the beer garden mural:

Sadly, the "ghost" of Frederick Miller no longer makes an appearance. I'm not sure why not, because he added a lot! But in his place, I'll add this gentleman who you can probably spot in the mural.

An eerily lit statue of... the ice man?

I wish this photo was more clear. Again, I was on the move and it was dark. Maybe it's from seeing all those Halloween props you guys make, but that's how I'm seeing this light fixture. It looks like a rib cage with two skeletal arms holding the lights.

Now we're back on the street, going the opposite way. I was glad to capture this view of the lit up conveyer belt up top. Cases of beer are traveling across it.

This is a peek inside "The Stables" where we get the beer samples at the end of the tour.

Inside the room, there is a collection of bottle openers on display. Maybe I'm not up to date and those are current beer boxes, but they look vintage to me.

You get three samples of beer on this tour. The first has to be Miller Lite, which is fine with me. The second options are below. These two photos are kind of fuzzy because I didn't plan to share them at the time. But later, I thought "Maybe some people reading my blog will have tried these and want to discuss them?" So, if you have, let's discuss!

Mom had the Miller High Life, although I'm pretty sure they gave her Miller Lite again. I had the Blue Moon Belgian White, which I really liked. The man at the bar told me it had Valencia orange peel and coriander in it. I could really taste the citrus!

The options for drink #3 are below. Mom had the Crispin Rosé, which tastes like a very sweet combination of wine/beer. I had the Blue Moon Winter Wheat Spiced Abbey Ale. That was a darker beer than the last Blue Moon I had. I'd call it a medium beer. It was just a nice, medium beer. Again, I liked it. I must be a fan of Blue Moon.

The Miller Light:

The Crispin Rosé bubbling about:

A little still life:

Cheers! 🍻

A pretty cool Blue Moon lantern lamp:

This is the music I listened to while putting this blog post together. I enjoyed it, so I thought I'd pass it along!

A link for those who read my blog in email form:

Christmas Relaxing Piano Collection

P.S. ~ I thought I'd share a book I just finished with you guys:

Reflections of a Small Town Santa is the true story of a man who played Santa Claus in Cedarburg years back. The story meant something to me, in part because Cedarburg means something to me. Maybe you guys would feel enough of an attachment to the place from reading my blog posts over the years to understand some of what he wrote. But really, if you've ever been in any small, country town you'll understand the setting.

The cover states that you'll laugh and cry while reading this, and that's true. I felt surprised at how emotional I got by the end of the book!

You get the perspective of what it's like for the person in the Santa suit. I've read stories from other people who've played Santa, but this was by far the most sweet. I have a feeling this is the sweetest person I've read an account from.

I could relate somewhat to being the costumed character who talks with kids from sitting out each year in my costume for trick-or-treat. He wrote this book in a way that made me think he kept a journal each year of the highlights. His accounts were a lot like the stories I put up about the trick-or-treaters in my blog each Halloween. I could relate to the unpredictability of what the kids are going to say or do. This Santa really had to think on his toes at times. I'm just sitting out there having fun, but being Santa carries some weight. This guy had to think up some meaningful comments on the spot, and he did!

So if you run across this book, pick it up. It's sweet and surprisingly thought provoking. I was left thinking that playing Santa or Mrs. Claus is a pretty meaningful way for a person to spend their life. 🎄