One of my favorite things to do when I’m in a new city is visit an old graveyard. The Seattle trip in early September was no different. Thank goodness my friend, Sasha White, was down with that. In fact, as soon as she found out who their most famous resident was, she was all over a trip to the graveyard. She studied martial arts and Bruce was one of her idols.

I have several reasons I love to go. You get a feel for who established a city, what nationalities, what their interests were. I always come away with images that will inspire a story. And face it, I love the creep factor.

I seek out the large statuary first. This stern-faced woman, sitting in a throne-like chair with a small girl in front of her, made me think of a horror story about an evil schoolmistress who sentenced children to Hell for infractions.

Ummm…nope, nothing’s coming from this one. Child weeping against Mother Mary’s lap. I need more. But it is a pretty image.

This one screams bondage. What was the goddess’s name who was chained to the side of the cliff? All this statue needs are the chains to make it a more seductive pose.

Here she is again, but the gray sky and her grayer skin make her creepier. She might reach down and capture someone passing on the grass, embrace them, and turn them into stone so she’s not alone.

Then there are the names. The ones I have to record because someday they will be a hero in a book. Can’t you just imagine the dreamy heroes these names would inspire?

Vampire, do you think?

Oh, definitely vampire!

Viking, maybe?

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, a monument will tell a story. Here’s Hester, born in Hartford, Kentucky in 1822. She moved to Arkansas in 1844, then onto the Oregon Territory in 1853. She married Thomas Mercer in 1859, before traveling on to Seattle where she died in 1897. There was a woman with a thirst for adventure.

Some stones you have to get very close to. They’re built huge to dominate the surroundings, then the details pull you closer.

I’m sure it was very disrespectful, but I had to get up on the stone to take a picture of this. Doesn’t it remind you of a Viking burial?

Then some will simply make you smile. And you’re happy someone with a sense of humor made sure that anyone pausing to read the name will smile and know a little about the person who is buried deep beneath their feet.

And here’s proof. Tuck’s not everlasting…