After spending a very pleasant time in Des Moines (I’ll post tattoo pics another day!), we headed home again. Next destination: The Crescent Inn Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It’s one of the most haunted places in America. Ghosthunters episode #13 was filmed there.

Wierd things happened even before we arrived. The Crescent lies in the Ozark Mountains and sits on the crest of a hill. We had the address plugged into the Garmin. The GPS worked fine the whole trip, up until the point when it took us up a goat trail of a narrow, gravel road. Halfway up the rutted trail, we met a Hummer. There really was only room for the Hummer, so he had to climb a hill while we squeezed by with our wheels on the edge of the trail. It was a nail-biter staring down the long drop into the ravine.

This is the Crescent Inn Hotel. Built in the 1800’s, it’s had many lives—as a resort hotel for the rich, as a school for girls, a cancer treatment-torture facility, and again as a hotel.

This is our room and the very first picture where creepy things happened. I have a very good little Cannon camera that takes crisp, clear pictures. I took hundreds of pictures on this trip and this is the first one that’s blurred this way. But here, you can make out a shadow. Do you see the outline of a head and shoulder? As it turns out, our room has a ghost that plays outside the door. A child died from a fall and is “seen” playing and “heard” to say “It’s not fair!” when he sees people dressed comfortably because he hated his own fussy clothing.


The next snap, same lighting, and nothing.

Here’s the front desk when you first enter the hotel. Slightly theatrical, but it does set the tone.

Still in our room and third snap. See the moon-like circle? It’s an orb. To non-believers (snicker if you like!), it’s dust or a reflection. The rest of us know it’s a spirit. I’ve only gotten “dust” like this in my pictures of cemeteries.

I found shadows and orbs everywhere in this hotel and wished I had a thermal imaging camera. See the shadow AND the orb?

See the orb here? It’s not the round sign at the end of the hallway, but the one on the right. I swear it’s not a spot on the carpet!

See the orb just below the stairwell? This is the stairwell where that little boy died from a fall.

We took the haunted tour and this is our intrepid group.

I think ghosts and shadows like to lurk in pairs.

It’s appropriate seeing an orb here. This door was used by the fellow who poisoned the cancer patients with his cures. He wheeled the bodies through this door at night while the rest of the patients slept.

The creepiest part of the tour was the trek to the bowels of the hotel, past the spa rooms to the morgue.

This the room where the doctor examined his victims.

This locker was featured in the Ghosthunters episode. A figure was seen in the thermal imaging camera and the number “2” glowed.

We were invited to step into the cooler where the bodies were stored. Seven of us crammed inside. It was hot as Hell! I snapped pics overhead, but found no orbs. What ghost would want to hang out there anyway? This pic was the scariest of the lot. 🙂

After our tour, the three of us had the best sleep of the entire trip. If a ghost came scratching, wailing, knocking—he was doomed to disappointment.

I took pics before I got out of bed that morning. Besides my feet, see anything strange?

How about now?

The creepiest thing that happened, by far, occurred in the formal dining room when we ate dinner. The six-year-old scowled and turned to her mother who was seated closest. “Mom, stop kicking my flip-flops.” She went under the table to retrieve them and her mother showed her that her feet couldn’t reach that far. The little one sat down again then made another face. “Stop it! My flip-flops!” The hairs on the back of my neck lifted. The Red-Headed Hellion and I exchanged wide-eyed glances. Little twerp when under the table again, then started talking to herself. When she came back up, she had a really wide grin on her face. “You want to eat my heart!”

Well, that’s not something she’d ever said before. And that was before we learned about the little boy. The tour guide said he was likely jealous of her flip-flops. AND it was before we learned that the doctor experimented on the bodies in the morgue and removed the hearts and livers from his victims.

That’s not the end of the wierd things associated with the Crescent Inn. When I got home, I downloaded all my pics. Four times! Each time, only the pictures from the Crescent were missing from the batch. Say what you like, but I think a ghost hitched a ride in one of those pictures. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!