Looking for ghosts

The other day Phoebe picked up one of those WV tourist magazines (at some such gas station or other random place) and while leafing through it I realized how much stuff there was to do around here.  Rather than let the Godmother leave without doing *something* touristy, we decided to take a day trip to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.

It’s allegedly haunted, and I guess an episode of Ghost Hunters has been filmed there.  It’s been around since the 1800’s, and was still actively housing patients until 1990, if I remember correctly.  We took a tour of all 4 floors, lasting about 90 minutes.  The littles did fine (although they did keep asking when they would see a ghostie) and Marissa only freaked out one or twelve times.  Our tour guide was awesome, and since he’d actually worked at the asylum before it was moved, shared some of his stories with us.

It was a fun day trip, although how I managed to lug my pregnant ass up all those stairs I will never know.  Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, the building has an incredible past — it’s a shame to see how run down it has become.

This whole state is peppered with buildings like this, and Civil War museums out the wazoo.  I’m looking forward to exploring our state, and should thank Phoebe for randomly picking up that catalog.  Kids are useful — who knew?