WMGHS Trip Journal

April 16th, 2004 DAY ONE - TRIP TO MARYLAND & LANDON HOUSE

We left Grand Haven at 4:30 am in George's new minivan and towing a small Uhaul trailer for all of our stuff. I think Aimee (who works third shift) was the only one truely awake and she was the obvious choice of being the first driver. We made it to the Ohio turnpike without incident, stopped at a Service Center, and after piling up on caffeine, we were off to cross Ohio with Vicky at the wheel! After a boring journey through Ohio (and boy...the Ohio Turnpike was boring!!), we paid our tolls and entered Pennsylvania. Around 1pm, we decided to stop for a normal lunch and decided on a favorite American restaurant....DENNYS! After filling our stomach and lightening up our wallets, we were back on the road. Now Pennsylvania, we soon found out, is a great state to drive through. The mountains were beautiful, the bridges high above the trees were breathtaking, and a tunnel through one large mountain was awesome. Well, except for Vicky..you hates tunnels! Hahahahaha! We saw a sign on the turnpike that announced that we can take the next exit and visit the 9-11 crash site (where the plane was forced down), but we decided against visiting it. Somewhere around 5:00pm, we finally arrived at the Landon House. Thank God....what a drive!! The house was absolutely beautiful and filled with incredible authentic Civil War artifacts! After a long time of lugging in all our stuff into the house, up the three floors, and deposting it in two bedrooms, we set up the equipment for our Command Center, and went in search of food to buy for our stay. The rest of the night, after returning from the nearest WalMart, was spent in investigation. The only bad event about the whole evening was another "paranormal investigator" that invited herself along for a visit as well, and then spent the evening being very rude and showing us how she is totally right and we are a bunch of idiots who is always wrong. She decided to invite herself for the next night as well and "Thank You dear Kevin (owner)!", he told her that she was no longer welcomed to be there. The remainder of the night was spent in peace with our WMGHS investigators, our documentary camera crew, our equipment, and the spirits in the Mansion. We finally went to bed around 3:00am.

April 17th, 2004 DAY TWO - LANDON HOUSE, GETTYSBURG, MONOCACY BATTLEFIELD

We woke up and got our bodies moving around 10am in the morning....boy, did we need caffeine! We spent the morning getting beautiful daytime shots of the property, and checking out results from the night before. Around noon, we all packed up some gear and did a daytime visit to Monocacy Battlefield, which is about 3 miles away from Landon House. After visiting this historical area, WMGHS and the documentary team split up with WMGHS doing a daytime visit northward to Gettysburg. We figured this would be a good "scouting" mission for our upcoming July trip. We ended up doing very little "scouting" because of our limited time to visit, and the fact that the battlefield is 25 sq. miles! We visited some main points of interest such as Little Round Top, Devil's Den, Slaughter Pen, The Wheatfield, the Pennsylvania Monument, and a brief stop for maps at the Visitor Center for our July trip. We then left Gettysburg for our trip back to Landon House. A 25 minute trip took an hour because we ended up taking a wrong exit and had to back-track. Upon returning to Landon House, we were met with the tail-end of a birthday party (thats why we left for a while in the first place!). After playing with the kids for a while, and speaking to some parents who were very interested in why we were there, it was back to business for WMGHS. Photos were analyzed, dinner eaten (Taco Bell!), and plans for the night was made. Near dusk, we packed up our gear once again and headed back to Monocacy Battlefield for a regular investigation. After spending some time in that very active location, we made our way back to the Landon House, continued with our investigation there, and finally went to bed around 2:00am, with video recording in the Ballroom all night long.

April 18th, 2004 DAY THREE - LANDON HOUSE & BACK HOME

After two nights of sleeping on floors, we were definately ready to sleep in our beds that night! We spent the morning packing up and tearing down the Command Center. We left Landon House at approx. 10:00am, with the promise to Kevin that we would help out with a venture that he was creating...Landon House Candlelight Ghost Tours, and to return for an additional visit in July. We stopped at a McDonald's for lunch (somewhere in Pennsylvania)...took it to go this time, and then made our way back through the states to Michigan. We knew that the conditions were getting windy but we didn't realize how windy until we stopped at a gas station in Ionia and the sky was turning black! We called ahead to Grand Haven to find out that there were major storms sitting just off Lake Michigan, heading west. We made good time then because we all just wanted to get home. By the time we made it to Grand Haven, it was 9:00pm, extremely strong winds, and was ready to pour any second! What a homecoming!!

ALL PHOTOS FROM THE TRIP ARE POSTED IN THE "HISTORICAL INVESTIGATIONS" SECTION OF OUR WEBSITE!