Here is another set of pictures from my Kentucky vacation.
Next Wednesday’s randomness will not be random at all. It will include even more from the Kentucky vacation. Next to none of it explained, probably.
My Personal Photo Project this week was to photograph the most famous allegedly haunted house in Iowa. The Villisca Axe Murder House. I will state that I don’t believe in ghosts, but I am open to the possibility of their existence. In the same vein, I’m open to the possibility that Bigfoot exists, that aliens have visited our planet, or that it is possible some day Michael Bay will make a semi-watchable movie.
I have discussed visiting the Villisca Axe Murder House with numerous people over the years, but had never even came close to visiting it. I had actually resigned myself to believing that I would never actually go see it, but Shannon made it happen by taking me along to visit her brother who is a pastor in nearby Corning.
If you don’t know the story of the Villisca Axe Murders, here is a really short version, I’m borrowing from Wikipedia:
The Moore family consisted of parents Josiah (aged 43), Sarah (39), and their four children: Herman (11), Katherine (10), Boyd (7) and Paul (5). An affluent family, the Moores were well-known and well-liked in their community.[1] On June 9, 1912, Katherine Moore invited Ina (8) and Lena (12) Stillinger to spend the night at the Moore residence. That evening, the visiting girls and the Moore family attended the Presbyterian church where they participated in the Children’s Day Program, which Sarah Moore had coordinated. After the program ended at 9:30 p.m., the Moores and the Stillinger sisters walked to the Moores’ house, arriving between 9:45 and 10 p.m.
At 7 a.m. the next day, Mary Peckham, the Moores’ neighbor, became concerned after she noticed that the Moore family had not come out to do their morning chores. Peckham knocked on the Moores’ door. When nobody answered, she tried to open the door and discovered that it was locked. Peckham let the Moores’ chickens out and then called Ross Moore, Josiah Moore’s brother. Like Peckham, Moore received no response when he knocked on the door and shouted. He unlocked the front door with his copy of the house key. While Peckham stood on the porch, Moore went into the parlor and opened the guest bedroom door and found Ina and Lena Stillinger’s bodies on the bed. Moore immediately told Peckham to call Hank Horton, Villisca’s primary peace officer, who arrived shortly thereafter. Horton’s search of the house revealed that the entire Moore family and the two Stillinger girls had been bludgeoned to death. The murder weapon, an ax belonging to Josiah, was found in the guest room where the Stillinger sisters were found.
Doctors concluded that the murders had taken place shortly after midnight. The killer or killers began in the master bedroom, where Josiah and Sarah Moore were asleep. Josiah received more blows from the ax than any other victim; his face had been cut so much that his eyes were missing. The killer(s) then went into the children’s rooms and bludgeoned Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul in the head in the same manner as their parents. Afterward, the killer(s) moved downstairs to the guest bedroom and killed Ina and Lena.
This crime was never solved.
The remainder of the Unsolved Series:
To answer the most common question I’ve been asked, “No. Neither Shannon or I experienced anything spooky or abnormal while we were in the house. Nothing that could be remotely described as paranormal. If you want to completely grasp at straws because you have some kind of desperate need to feel like we were connected with the paranormal, the best I can give you is that the house feels kind of sad when you are in it.”
I was actually expecting to be disappointed in the experience, but I actually enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. The tour guide is the same guy that was featured in the episode of Ghost Adventures that was filmed in the house. He is very entertaining and tells many stories about the house and his experiences with reality television producers. In person, he seems a lot less convinced of the level of paranormal activity than he did on the show, but on the other hand, he doesn’t go inside the house on the tour either. He answers your questions in the upstairs of a barn that has been constructed on the property and then you tour the house on your own.
For a large fee, you can spend the night in the Villisca Axe Murder house. This is something I would actually be willing to do at some point in the future.
Next week’s Personal Photo Project will feature flowers of some kind again. Maybe the hibiscus.
Another one of Shannon and I’s stops on the Southwest Iowa Road Trip was to Stanton. We went there for two reasons. One was to eat lunch (that ended in abysmal failure, well we did eat lunch, but only the onion rings are worth talking about) and the other was to photograph their world famous teapot and teacup water towers.
The remainder of the The Little White City Series:
My apologies for today’s post coming out so late, but since the website got hacked yesterday, the time and energy it took to get the website back up threw all my timing off. I even had to go drown my sorrows with crab rangoons and a bowl of sweet and sour sauce when it was all said and done. Of course, the extremely rude waitress at King Buffet snatched my bowl of sweet and sour sauce before I was finished. Perhaps I was being cut off. I don’t know. I do know that King Buffet is being downgraded to the “in case of emergency only” restaurant list. Have fun being next to Taco Bell! But that is a story for a different venue.
Next week’s personal photo project is still a bit up in the air. It will probably involve flowers of some ilk. Sunflowers, lilies, or maybe something else.
The first scheduled stop on Shannon and I’s road trip itinerary was the grounds of a former 19th century cult that had a colony near Corning, called the French Icarians. They had some pretty crazy beliefs like:
Fraternity. As a rule of conduct, three principles summarize all: Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Do to others the good that you wish for yourself. All must be as brothers, living each for all and all of each.
Equality. It is not nature, but society that has made men unequal in intelligence and education. The remedy for existing social problems is the universal application of the principle of social equality. Social equality can be achieved by a system of communal sharing of goods and services. The community has an obligation to provide free equal educational opportunities to all. And all individuals must be treated equally before the law.
Liberty. All religious opinion must be accorded tolerance and respect. Freedom of speech is basic and all people may participate in the communal assembly meetings, the principal means of setting community policy.
Yeah, like that would ever work!
The rest of the $80 Series:
I’m curious to know if Shannon can figure out what is “wrong” with the image that I chose to represent the entire photo series. I guess I’ll have to wait to see.
I recently went on a road trip through southwest Iowa with Shannon. While the Freedom Rock was not on the original itinerary, a quirk of fate (i.e. bad traffic on I-80), and my famous love for bad art (I even once went to see a Jackson Pollock) converged and we stopped for a few minutes to see the Freedom Rock. Which is a rock. Painted to look like a rock.
There is also a bunch of patriotic art work on the rock as well.
The rest of the A Rock Painted to Look Like a Rock Series:
Next week’s Personal Photo Project will most likely involve a flower garden from an exotic locale. Well, not that exotic.
After 2 failed years of trying to snag an invite to Love Feast, I finally scored one in 2013. It was a pretty amazing experience (I would tell you more about Love Feast, but you have to ask) and the bonus surprise was the old army radar tower.
Funk had always told me that she grew up on an old army base from the 1950s. I never really believed her because it didn’t make sense to me that there was an army base so near to my front door, and I had never even known of its existence.
The cool thing about the radar tower is that it is built to 1950s ideas of safety. Meaning the steps are small and the railing is short. Since this is private land and not a park, the railing on the observation deck consists of two cables. Before I made the ascent to the observation deck, the Bishop (AKA Funk’s father) reminded me of the “gravity” portion of the sermon I had listened to. I understood why, when I saw the railing.
Here are more pictures from the Repurposed Series:
I believe I’ve secured an invitation to future Love Feasts and even an opportunity to go pick vegetables on the farm some day.
After years and years of talking about it, I finally removed my carpet from my great room and finished the floor while I was on a vacation. It was a multi-day project that involved several days of just removing furniture and I’m still in the process of putting furniture back in, although some of the furniture has been downsized.
Here are some photos of the process:
I’d like to thank my amazing floor crew. In particular, Carla and Jesse that helped a ton. Carla came over at midnight to help put on the last coat of finish, which was pretty amazing. But also:
My Mom was also a big help by giving Naima and I a place to crash while the finish dried and the fumes were at their most toxic.
Now that this project is complete (almost), the painting of the house seems so much more doable. Plus, it will require a larger crew. Not that I’m trolling for volunteers…
Kind of a dreary, depressing, hard time of the year for photographers. I can go a good portion of the week without really seeing the sun right now, and I hate it.
Officially 1/3 of the way through this project now!
This week’s themes:
Day 127 – Something You Held
Day 128 – Bokeh Christmas Tree
Day 129 – A Grinch
Day 130 – Holiday Reflection
Day 131 – Outdoor Lights
Day 132 – Candle Light
Day 133 – Out and About