A Seasonal Tale

BOO

A Halloween story from last year! Preface...this year I've been totally too busy to think much about it. Although since I'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, maybe things *are* a bit ghoulish.

Last year, this time, A and I decided to do up Halloween with the Castle of the Damned tour at Hammond Castle, in Gloucester. I'm not big on the "made up to scare" stuff. I prefer things about real ghosts, haunted houses, and such. A likes anything that's horror. We both were scared with this night event. You have to know that it was pouring rain by the bucket fulls. Just like the summer downpours in Florida, but add to it cold temps, driving wind, and having to wait in a dark parking lot on a hilltop next to the ocean with several hundred others....waiting for the school bus that would transport us all to the castle. For this event you can not park on the grounds as there are too many cars for the lot.

In a timely manner...everyone had time to be soaked by the rain...the bus arrived. We had been waiting about 45 minutes and I was determined that we would be on the first bus. Since we had been among the first dozen or so to arrive in the parking lot, I was not going to wait for the next bus in a half an hour. Maybe we should have!

A and I got on board and sat in the first seats, opposite the driver and just behind the doors. The rest of the bus fills up with soggy and cold people and the driver shuts the doors. Off we go, yay, finally! As we make the turn on to the main road and pick up speed, I looked ahead. Nothing. Really.....nothing!

The driver had the heater blasting and combined with the door being open for boarding and all the wet people, ALL the windows were steamed up. The windshield, too! It was still pouring outside, pitch black, and totally fogged inside. The windshield wipers were slamming back and forth for the rain outside, but nothing was clearing the steam inside. We are speeding along a winding road and I can't see a thing. How can the driver? I could see this as footage in a Hollywood horror movie. What would jump out in front of this careening bus? When we crashed to a stop on rock walls and against trees, what would be waiting to board the bus? Oh my gosh, just let us get to the castle.....please.

Just as my nerves had had enough, we slowed down and pull into the Hammond Castle parking lot. I felt soooooo much better just knowing that nothing was going to terrify me in the tour as much as the ride getting there! The tour was very well done, but, after that ride, and due to the fact that we had some really funny preteen boys just in front of us, we actually thought it was hilarious. Met up with the curator of the castle/museum outside. He was trying really hard to be scary. Nope. Hard to believe, yeeeeaaaaars ago we dated. Got back on a bus - no steamy ride this time, and made it back to the safety of our own truck.