“An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.” ~Charles Dickens
Grand Canyon is grand
I just got back from the Grand Canyon last week. Yeah, it was one of my super-spiffy Christmas presents this year. It was great fun. But I’m not much for telling travel stories unless they’re outrageous. Like, if I’d seen someone fall into the canyon, I’d probably tell everyone. A near fatality, meh. I don’t know how to make that interesting (messiestobjects does though.)
However, since it was a Christmas trip, and Christmas is a time for ghost stories…no? It’s not? That’s Halloween, you say? Well, tell that to all of the people who tell that Charles Dickens’ tale over and over. Anyway, this ghost story has Lee Marvin and shockingly few ghosts.
We stayed in the Hotel Monte Vista in Flagstaff. It’s an historic place insomuch as it was the first hotel in Flagstaff, erected through the kind donations of the townsfolk. It’s housed lots of famous people and actors shooting on location in the Flagstaff area. Also, like any hotel worth its snot, lots of people have died there. [Cue Twilight Zone music. Or maybe just that dramatic 'duht-duht-daaa' they play in mystery movies.]
We stayed in the Lee Marvin room. It’s got a picture of him on the door. He’s wearing floods.
Lee Marvin & I Slept Here
In addition to Lee Marvin, apparently pregnant women on drinking binges also stay here. This plaque is for them:
Coolers Warning
Inside the room next to the Coolers Warning are boots mounted on the wall, presumably for decoration, but also about the height ghosts like to haunt at. OK, I don’t know the ghost level for a fact, but I’ve hear that the other plane of existence is higher than ours and have no reason not to take that literally.
These boots are made for haunting
On the website, it’s told that the ghosts annoy the maintenance staff by unscrewing lightbulbs and sometimes taking them. This seems unlikely that they’d steal the lightbulbs. But sure enough, our room had some missing. So, it must be true. It made it hard to see very well…so, inconvenient but not too scary.
Haunted light bulbs
But I was on to their tricks to spook me. Take this creepy face under the bathroom shelf with the eyes that follow you.
Quit looking at me
The scariest part of the Hotel Monte Vista was that I couldn’t get the cold water to work and ended up having the hottest shower known to my butt and drinking lukewarm water because I was completely dehydrated from all of the grueling desert hiking. Yeah.
Grand Canyon
Two of the Monte Vista ghosts are prostitutes who were thrown from a window to their deaths on the street below. They haunt the place asking men who pass by if they’re looking for a date. That’s got to be the crappiest haunting gig ever. However, if you’re skeptical, get this… a cab driver we chatted up in Las Vegas was haunted by them. He heard a woman say hello to him on the street by the hotel and when he turned…no one was there. (Duht-duht-daaa).
