We finally made it back home safe and sound from our southern road trip!

We'll be posting new articles on the main Haunted Hamilton website (www.hauntedhamilton.com) but here is a quick list of some of our highlights from the trip:

- saw the mobster 'hot spots' in Chicago
- saw the Chicago theatre
- visited the infamously haunted and currently abandoned Bachelors Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, IL
- ate at White Castle and enjoyed their burgers just as much (if not more) than Harold and Kumar!
- drove through Elizabethtown (from the movie!)
- toured the underground Mammoth Caverns in Kentucky
- Went to the Grand Ole' Opry... Yee-Haw!
- Toured Graceland and visited Elvis' grave
- Drove through Kentwood, Louisiana, the hometown of Britney Spears!
- Spent the night at the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, LA, said to be America's most haunted house!
- Stayed in and toured the French Quarter in New Orleans over and over again!
- Saw Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt's newly purchased mansion in the French Quarter
- Saw the LaLaurie Mansion in the French Quarter (Google it... crazy history that's all i'll tell you!) and learned that Nicholas Cage just purchased it!
- Visited the official Voodoo Museum in the French Quarter
- Ate a beignet at the famous Cafe Du Monde (http://www.cafedumonde.com)
- Toured the most picturesque (and haunted!) Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie (where countless movies and shows have been filmed including Interview with the Vampire, Days of our Lives, etc.)
- Saw Felicity Plantation where the movie Skeleton Key was filmed
- Touched the tomb of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau
- Stayed overnight at the Woodland Plantation, the only plantation remaining south of New Orleans. Cool fact: this is the plantation that is pictured on the Southern Comfort labels since the 1930's
- encountered our first "scam" artist on the streets, betting us that he "knew where we got our shoes" (again, Google if you have no idea what i'm talking about)

As you can see, we jam-packed so much into our 10 day trip.

Keep your eyes peeled on the Haunted Hamilton website for articles from our trip. In the meantime, you can see a few photos from our trip that we posted under our photo gallery here on our MySpace page!

All in all, our southern road trip was amazing. It was so much fun and although we're still exhausted from it (we put almost 6,000 km's on the rental car!!), we're already missing N'Awlins.

Greetings from Louisville, Kentucky!

As part of our Southern Road Trip, we made a point to stop in Chicago and visit the Bachelor's Grove Cemetery in Midlothian, IL.

After about 45mins of searching for it we finally found it.  It was quite depressing to see how run down it was.  Most of the gravestones were knocked over or defaced in some way.  Even the most popular gravestone had a big "Brian love's Lisa" on it. 

Overall, it was a chance of a lifetime to see this infamously haunted and abandoned cemetery... not to mention the whole mob aspect of it (they used to dump bodies in the lake by the cemetery). 

For more history - http://www.hauntedhamilton.com/gotw_bachelorsgrove.html

Keep your eye peeled for our road trip pics soon.

Stephanie and Daniel

P.S. - Next stop Grand Ole' Opry!

You can now watch Haunted Hamilton on YouTube.com!

We've posted various clips taken on our investigations, tv appearances and other events.

Keep checking back as we'll always be adding new clips!

http://www.youtube.com/user/hauntedhamilton

Happy New Year to All!

Yikes... just logged in to find pages of friend requests. Sorry for not getting to this sooner... i promise, we'll get approving right away!

Looking forward to bringing you all things GHOSTLY and GREAT in 2007!

~ Stephanie

This past Saturday, our friend and Haunted Hamilton supporter Bruce Duncan passed away. He was the General Manager for the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority and was a pleasure to work with in helping us organize and promote our Hermitage Ghost Walks. He was also the former Hamilton Naturalists' Club President (of which my family and I are members of) and I personally have known him since I was a little girl. He was the founder of the Bird Study Group and was also highly involved in the recent development of the Eramosa Karst in Stoney Creek (which he just e-mailed me last week about!). It was a shock to read about his sudden death in the paper today. I know that all of the organizations and communities that Bruce was involved with will suffer terribly from this great loss of life.

~ Stephanie 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crash kills conservation authority boss

By Sharon Boase
The Hamilton Spectator
(Nov 13, 2006)

Bruce Duncan, a highly esteemed and much loved naturalist, raptor expert and head of the Hamilton Conservation Authority, died late Saturday after a head-on crash near Brantford.

Duncan, 59, who lived in Paris, Ont., was headed west on Paris Road about 7:20 p.m. Friday when an eastbound 1996 Volkswagen car crossed into the westbound lane.

The driver of the Volkswagen, Susan Jones, 38, of Brantford, was declared dead at the scene. Police say alcohol may have been a factor.

Duncan was taken by air ambulance to Hamilton General Hospital in critical condition.

Members of area naturalist and conservation groups are devastated.

"He was a passionate birder and a gentleman and I know he'll be sorely missed," said Alan Stacey, a former conservation authority board member and director of the Hamilton Conservation Foundation.

Before becoming general manager and chief administrative officer at the conservation authority in 2004, Duncan had worked as a teacher-naturalist, introducing young people to nature in the Dundas Valley.

He joined the authority in 1988, working as its director of watershed planning and engineering, and as staff ecologist. Before that, he worked as a resource interpreter with the Grand River Conservation Authority. He founded the Niagara Peninsula Hawkwatch.

City Councillor Brian McHattie, a past president of the Hamilton Naturalists' Club, described Duncan as one of Canada's foremost experts on raptors. Duncan's work garnered numerous awards during his career, including Hamilton's Environmentalist of the Year Award in 1992 and the Canada 125 Award for environmental service.

Duncan is survived by his wife, Janet, and their two children.

With files from Dana Borcea
sboase@thespec.com 905-526-2452

Contents copyright 1991-2006, The Hamilton Spectator. All rights reserved. --> -->

The pictures from our 5th Annual Halloween Costume Ball that took place on Saturday, October 28th, 2006 are now up. You can see them at:

http://www.hauntedhamilton.com/halloween2006_pictures.html

Feel free to leave some comments here about them if you like!

~ Stephanie

Welcome to Haunted Hamilton's first ever MySpace Blog posting! Yay!

We thought it would be neat to every once-in-a-while post a blog about the recent goings-on with Haunted Hamilton and our Ghost Walks. This past Saturday's Ghost Walk proved to be interesting...

It was a dark and stormy night... literally! The rain had been pouring all day and we wondered if anyone would even show up for the walk. Only 5 people had showed up at about 8:30 p.m. for the 9 p.m. tour. Then, at 5 minutes to 9, a surge of people come in and we had a total of 38 people on the tour!

Ghost Guide George Sanford was performing that evening. Daniel and I stood in the main lobby while George introduced himself and told our guests the history of the Customs House. Wind was sweeping through the front door that we had left open for some circulation. The street lamps on the street flickered and every now and then you could hear a large rustle through the trees as the wind picked up.

Then, all went silent. The wind stopped and all that you could hear was George's voice echoing through the main gallery.

Thump...... thump....... thump....... thump......

Dan and I heard footsteps upstairs. They were heavy and steady, but clearly sounded like someone walking from one end of the hallway to the other side above us.

We mention on this particular tour that during the day, staff members of the museum will often hear these footsteps above them if they're sitting in the gift shop area. That is exactly where Dan and I stood and we heard the same thing.

We asked the only staff member there at the time, Israel, if Amanda was upstairs (another staff member). He told us no, that she had popped out to Timmy's for coffee. So nobody was on the second floor at all. The only people in the building were us, our guests seated in the main gallery, and Ghost Guide George.

Very interesting, indeed!

We look forward to our next tour as things always seem to stir up at the Customs House around this time of year! I'll save those stories for another blog!

Until next time,

~ Stephanie