Recently I have been rediscovering where I live which full of natural (and some think) supernatural wonders. The place is simply loaded with old ruins of cottages, forbidding caves and forgotten graveyards.
I live in the area where the mountains are literally the oldest in the world and having that many years behind them it’s up to the imagination to what secrets they hold.
So this summer I have gone along with a friend/family member, a cousin by marriage to some places I had never gone before even with me living here so long.
Up in a area called Mt. Storm there is a lake that is pure and warm all the time because of a hydro-electric plant that constantly turns the water to make power for the surrounding towns. The water is warm year round and due to this the catfish get huge always escaping capture and freezing.
But another alluring fact is that other then the small houses that surround this lake there is no one to be found there; especially at night, which is the time, Sarah and I like to go.
The moon recently has been fat in its roundness and the light lit the water and it’s low-lying mist such that we could see without need of another light.
Sarah is fearless when it comes to hurling herself off the tall wooden docks into the water below and the higher she jumps to go further out the better.
I did a few dives as at one time I used to be on a team but found that belly flops are what I’m good at now. I have to learn the hard way that skills unused become no skills at all.
The water is almost healing, as it seems to wash away your troubles and leaves you feeling like a clean soul.

Then dripping wet we climb into my Jeep and we were off the old Ashby Cemetery that lies at the end of an old gravel drive that at night gets a funny fog that likes to linger.
Sarah has sworn that she has gotten “bad vibes” from the place and swears up and down she has seen ghosts. I on the other hand have had doubts to the world of the “undead” as I would believe in a ghost if it tapped me on the shoulder and said “Hello” but as of yet no ghost has been that brave.
It was there I found myself in a eerie setting as often around here in the 1800s people were often buried in stone coffins in order to way them down. Therefore it’s a gruesome image to see that the hill on which Ashby Cemetery is planted is falling away from the years of erosion. Thus, some of these old stone coffins can be seen sticking partway out of the ground.
And while I stood there at night looking at the sad remains I turned around to see Sarah gone. It was almost cinematically funny as looking left and right I didn’t see her until I saw her shadow as she was running like a little girl back to the car.
It was almost too much to take that I started laughing and the sound echoed off the hills in such a way, that soon after I too was heading (rather swiftly) to the vehicle as well.

It’s a summer sweetness that seems to follow these adventures, and I know we plan to satisfy our macabre cravings by returning to the odd place as well as others.
I personally want to take pictures of the place, for stock if nothing else, but what we have come to do at night I have come to call “moonlighting” as it seems for a while at least we become travelers for the night and forget the troubles behind us.