Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?............Part III

At this point, I know a lot of you are still unbelievers, or at the very least, certainly not convinced of the existence of ghosts based upon these few incidences I’ve described. I’m not 100% certain myself, as there are possible explanations for these things, such as, I simply could be mistaken about the absence of the bath mat. I know I took a bathmat off the chair, but it’s possible there could have been another already on the chair; I don’t think so, but it’s certainly possible. And for the water knobs being turned off, someone suggested that you can get a surge of reverse pressure, and it may have sucked the water backwards and made the knobs turn backwards as well. I’d never heard of this, nor have I had this happen before in my 50+ years of showering, so I ran it by Tony, the sober, reliable Plumber; the look he gave me when I asked the question told me the question would have made more sense to him if I’d asked it in ancient colloquial Slovakian. No reverse pressure, or if so, first time in the annals of plumbing history. Anyway, it’s possible there was some sort of never before encountered plumbing thing that made the knobs shut off.

And as far as Lucy’s odd behavior being a reliable source upon which to base your belief in the supernatural, well, come on now! Although she has the title of “Head of Security” at the Riverside, she is a known food and shoe thief, she regularly participates in wanton acts of vandalism and destruction of property, and she has started more street fights than Mike Tyson. If she could actually talk, my guess is she’d be a foul-mouthed, smack-talking liar as well.
Hmmph! Head of Security, my ass! How about Coordinator of Chaos Dissemination?

Twice, my eyes have shown me things at The Riverside that I hope, I pray, were merely tricks of the light, or at the very least, vestiges of the prior evenings’ curative treatment from Dr. Bombay.

One day in late spring, I was upstairs in the west wing, the part of the hotel that overlooks the river and was added to the original construction sometime in the early 1930’s. It contains two of the hotels most popular rooms – ‘Mil’, also known as the John Lennon room, and ‘Tootie’ or #80, the corner two-room suite with the best view of the river and Mt. Bross. It was early afternoon, and I was finishing up cleaning that wing of the hotel; all of the beds were made, the floors vacuumed, sinks cleaned and trash emptied. I was on my final round cleaning the mirrors, and was walking down the western-most hall. As I walked north, from Mil to Tootie, I passed the little feeder hall that joins the two main halls in the western wing. (If you’ve been to The Riverside, you know that this section of the hotel is cobbled together in a maze-like fashion; it ain’t exactly laid out like a Holiday Inn Express.)

Standing in the feeder hall was a man, dressed in a jacket and slacks, with a plain white shirt, buttoned at the collar. His hands were at his sides, and he was looking in my direction. He wasn’t elderly, but he looked old; certainly as if he were from another era.

Now comes the part of the story that will make you say, ‘well, that’s nothing’, but it’s still something to me. I didn’t stand there and face this apparition full on. I was in full stormin’-down-the-hall mode, walking from the southern-most room to the northern-most room at a fairly good clip. I generally walk pretty fast; moseying isn’t something I ever do a lot of, especially when I’m trying to get the hotel cleaned. And I’m admitting here that I saw the vision peripherally, as I flew past the feeder hall. Was it something that was always there that I’ve never paid attention to, and walking quickly past, I mistook it for an old man in a suit? I don’t believe so, as whatever decorations, wall sconces, pictures, etc. might have blurred together in my peripheral to form the full figure of a man, they’ve been hanging there since we bought the hotel and I’ve stormed down that hallway 1000 times and have never seen anything. The truth is, after seeing and sensing the vision, (I also had one of those up-and-down my spine, ghost-induced chills) I took about two more steps and stopped, started back to see what I think I saw, and then lost the nerve to go back; I was afraid I’d see it again. I headed on to the Tootie room, quickly cleaned the mirror, and resolutely, but scared to death, walked right back to the feeder hall to put the cleaner in the linen closet; nobody there this time.

The final apparition was a little more substantive and not viewed from a sideways glance as I was flying down a hall. It was a beautiful summer evening, maybe 10:00 PM, and I was sitting alone on the back patio. As it was a Monday, the restaurant was closed, and no one was staying at the hotel – a rare summer night off. Julie and Lucy had gone to bed, and the rest were in watching TV. Anyway, it was the kind of summer night that makes you want to chuck it all and move to the mountains; oh, that’s right, we did that. I’ve mentioned it numerous times before, but the stars on a clear night in Hot Sulphur are beyond description. You’re 100 miles away from any significant concentration of interfering lights, and you’re at almost 8000 feet. I’ve seen shooting stars that blaze across the entire width of the sky and last for 5 seconds. Also special about that night was a full moon, rising at my back from the east, bathing Mt. Bross in a lustrous, luminescent glow, and making the river look as if it were a rolling jumble of diamonds and fireflies.

I’m sitting in a chair, looking west at the mountain, the river and the spectacular western sky. The western side of the patio has a low limestone wall, a fireplace, and two rather large lilac bushes. There is a 10’ gap, or view, to the north of the northern-most lilac bush, before a 6’ tall privacy fence obscures the view of the river. It is important to note that while I’m sitting in the chair looking at the scenery, I’ve nothing in my hand; i.e. read that as I’m not nursing a martini. In fact, I was pretty much sober as a judge ( though not a Grand County judge); minimal alcohol had been consumed by me that evening, and what had been consumed was quaffed before dinner. I also didn’t have my sound-dock playing; it was quiet, the only sound to be heard was the gentle rush of the sparkling river.

A dark, tall figure walked very slowly along the walk the length of the 10’ span between the lilac bush and the privacy fence. I didn’t hear it coming up the path from the river to the patio, and had it been of this world, I would have. It didn’t walk between the open space to the south of the southern-most lilac bush, and had it been a human walking up the path, it would have. Yet it was as solid and as real as anything you’ve ever seen; and its unworldly silence, as it slowly moved from left to right across my line of sight, was profound.

A man appeared out of nowhere and slowly walked right in front of me; of this, I am dead certain. This wasn’t a peripheral glance; I followed the figure as it walked along the path and disappeared to the back of our privacy fence. I was out of that chair and into the house faster than a shooting star; the only thing faster than my exit from the porch was my pulse.

I’ve made light of ‘out of the ordinary’ things that others have experienced at The Riverside. My standard response is something like “this is a 100+ year-old wooden building with sketchy plumbing and electricity. It moves with the change in temperature, it moans and groans with the winds and it creaks and rattles with the shift of the earth.” I still believe that the climactic movement of this big, all-but-living wooden thing is behind most of the chicanery that people attribute to ghosts. But the wind and the wood don’t explain what I felt and what I saw. What I saw.

To be concluded………

Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?...........Part II

I’ll start with Lucy. There are two rooms in the hotel where Lucy is simply not Lucy. In one of the rooms, she always enters with noticeable trepidation before she eventually follows us into the room. She never jumps up on the bed in this room to lounge, while never hesitating to jump on any other bed in any other room. When in this room, she never barks, she never plays and she never strays more than a foot from whoever she is in the room with; she is literally ‘under foot’ when she is in this room. If you could ever consider a dog to be ‘walking on eggshells’, that would aptly describe Lucy’s demeanor while in this room. I don’t have to tell those of you who know Lucy, know that this is far from her normal mode of operation.

Then there is the other room. She won’t go in it. Ever. She follows us everywhere and she won’t go in this room. She sits patiently outside the door in the hallway while we’re in cleaning or making the bed, but she won’t come in. The most chilling thing that occurred regarding Lucy and this room happened a few months back when I was down at the opposite end of the hall, and Lucy was sitting outside 'the' room, alertly, but passively, looking into the room. She quickly stood up on all fours, emitted a low growl, and then began viscously barking at something in the room. Her stance turned to full attack mode, like she’d seen a Bichon Frise, or some other type of over-bred little bitch, but she didn’t lunge forward to attack. When I called her, she immediately stopped barking, ran down the hall with her ears pinned back, ran by me and down the stairs to the lobby. I went back to the room and of course, no one was there and nothing at all was amiss. However, there is no question in my mind that she.... saw….. something.

A skeptic might say “well she probably saw a bird or a squirrel in the window.” I too thought that might have been the case, but if in fact she saw a bird or squirrel in the window, her little legs would have quickly thrust her over the bed straight at and probably crashing into the window, as there isn’t a squirrel or bird in Hot Sulphur that Lucy’s seen that she hasn’t attempted to impale between her incisors. If birds could pray, the birds in Hot Sulphur surely would pray whenever they light in our backyard, and they would thank God that Lucy doesn’t have wings.

On to my physical encounters…..

The first weekend we owned The Riverside, there was one humdinger of a blizzard, even by Grand County standards. Julie and Rachel, who had (imagine this) been out shopping that afternoon, got caught in the storm while driving back from the outlet mall in Silverthorn. I was at the hotel by myself, and I started getting calls from soon-to-be stranded travelers looking for accommodations. I knew we were going to be busy, so I decided to take a quick shower and get cleaned up for the impending throngs. I was in one of the showers, and just as I began to wash my hair – all lathered up with my eyes closed – the water went dead off. It didn’t slow down and turn to a trickle, as if it were a pressure issue; it flat went off, as sudden and final as a downward light switch. “Oh Crap!” I thought; I stood there and figured that there must've been a massive break in the water main, and envisioned a geyser spouting 20 feet into air in the middle of the street in front of the hotel. What else on earth could make the water just stop, like that! These thoughts rushed through my mind in a matter of seconds, at which point – eyes still closed, hair still soapy – I reached down to the knobs and turned both water knobs right back on! They both had been shut into the full off position; instantly, and at the same time. Upon discovering this, I said something other than “Oh Crap”, and felt an icy chill go down my spine; the kind of icy chill I suppose you feel when you realize you’ve just encountered your first ghost.

I had my hair rinsed and was out of that shower faster than the winner of a Hot Sulphur beer chugging contest. I then quickly dried off, threw on my robe, took the wet towel and bath mat and headed back to my room to get dressed. After getting dressed, I went back into the bathroom, fiddled around a little bit with the knobs (they seemed as normal as any water knobs you’ve ever fiddled with), and tidied up the bathroom to get it ready for the evenings’ guests. (I recount this as though nothing unusual had happened and I was cool as a cucumber; quite to the contrary – I was still shaken and shaking.)

All was in order except for the need of a new, dry bathmat. A short walk to the linen closet and a short walk back with a new bathmat and – there over the back of the previously empty chair back was a new, dry, nicely-folded bathmat. I experienced another one of those spine chills, then tried to calm myself and gather my thoughts. I know I took the bathmat off of the chair, I put it on the floor, I took my haunted shower, got out, dried off, put my robe on, PICKED UP THE WET BATHMAT, and exited the bathroom. After getting dressed, I then went back into the bathroom and fiddled with the knobs, cleaned the sink and mirror, looked over the bathroom and said to myself “you need a new bathmat.” After a brief absence to the linen closet to get that bathmat, lo and behold, upon my return, there on the chair was a new bathmat. I know I didn’t put it there, and no one else was in the hotel; or so I thought.

So we’d been in the hotel but a few days, and already the spirits were making their presence felt. Some internet reading (always a reliable and accurate source), I did on the subject of the paranormal mentioned that ‘activity’ can be ramped up when a new residence takes a place over. At least the ghost seems to have a sense of humor, as well as a good sense of comic timing, as it chose to turn the shower off when I was in my most defenseless state – bare naked, soapy hair and eyes shut tight. And it’s also nice to know we have a ghost who’s willing to help with the housework and cleaning; this will come in handy when we’ve got 10 rooms to turn in a short period of time. It would really be nice if we had a rich ghost – one that would leave $100 bills scattered about. But I know it's doubtful, nay, impossible, that a previous owner/resident of the Riverside, now haunting us, would have any money left to throw around.

To be continued……………………..

Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?........Probably

Or so the infamous ‘FAQ’ sign in the Riverside answers to that oft-asked question. Before I get into the ghosts, I’ll take this opportunity to tell the story of the ‘FAQ’ sign in the lobby. The first time I walked into the Riverside hotel, in June of 1993, the first thing that struck me was a 2’x4’, heavily scripted wooden sign hanging on the north wall of the lobby. (OK, that’s a bit of a lie. The first thing I noticed was the Little Shop of Horrors plant collection that threatened to eat you as you walked into the lobby. Then I noticed this creepy little man sitting in a rocking chair. Then I said to myself, “My, how quaint, how charming. Where is my gun, because I’m going to shoot my friend who recommended this place.”)

Back to the sign.

It grabs your eye as you walk in the door, and it answers most of the questions that people would want to ask about the hotel, the town, the river, the hot springs, etc. My guess is that the unknown owner (someone prior to Abe) who put the sign up had gotten sick and tired of answering the same questions over and over and over and over and over; on a larger plane, I’d also guess that he got sick of talking to and dealing with people in general.
Some of the questions/answers:
When was the Riverside built?………………………….1903
What is the elevation?…………………………………...7763 ft.
How cold does it get in the winter?......-30F, sometimes colder
How far is Boulder?..............Not far enough

And so it goes. The sign is written in a colloquial, folksy sort of way; i.e. the answers are given in the form that a friendly, old-timey, homey hotel owner might give them. I immediately loved the sign, and it was one of the little things that made me love The Riverside. Knowing this, you can imagine how I felt when I walked into the hotel on the day we were to close the sale, after pulling a 12’ loaded U-Haul trailer across I-70 in a snow storm, exhausted, frightened to death at what we were undertaking, and the first thing I noticed was the empty space on the wall where the sign used to be. Abe was sitting in a chair, and I didn’t say “Hello Abe”, I said “Abe, where the hell is the sign???” I was, to put it mildly, pissed. Abe kind of cleared his throat, and nervously said “I, uh, er, I gave it to a friend in California.” An obvious lie, but the best thing he could come up with at the time. It was a portent of other surprises to come, much bigger and much more costly surprises, relating to shady things Abe did and didn’t do in his transfer of ownership of The Riverside. I’ve said it earlier – we bury our dead, we dry our tears and we move on.

Two wonderful things came from this missing sign thing. My sister-in-law found a picture of the sign on an old web site, and re-created the thing, right down to the original font. I cried when she gave it to us as a housewarming gift; a labor of love I’ve not seen equaled. We also found out that in fact the original sign wasn’t given by Abe to a friend in California, (surprise, surprise) but sold to a man in Boulder. If there’s any human being on earth that should have this sign, (other than we, who paid for it) it is the man that now has it, and paid for it as well. I am at peace with this issue.

My sister-in-law took some literary license when she recreated the sign; she updated it, and added a few new FAQ’s. In particular, one of the most newly often-asked questions being “Are there ghosts at The Riverside?” and the answer on the sign being….. “Probably.”

This is a natural question for people to ask as The Riverside has all of the qualifications for a place that might have ghosts, assuming of course that there are such things. It’s old, it can be a little creepy, (especially at night, upstairs, when you’re walking down the halls alone), and it’s had numerous inhabitants over the years; one might take the leap that odds are one of the previous owners might have actually assumed room temperature in the hotel.

After we purchased the hotel, one of the locals told me of a murder that happened in the bar. She was a little scary herself as she told the gruesome tale, saying “he was standing right here, and a man came up behind him, grabbed his hair and pulled his head back and slit his throat”, as she dramatically made the now-banned NFL throat-slashing gesture.

"My, how lovely." I thought.

I asked Grandpa (my neighbor who lives across the street, and was detailed in an earlier blog) what he knew about this, and he grumbled “that wasn’t what happened”. His story is as follows: In the early 70’s when they were building the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70, (located about 45 miles south of Hot Sulphur Springs) every hotel for miles around was full with workers who were involved in the tunnels’ construction. Grandpa said that this made for some wild nights in all of the local towns and bars, as these itinerant roughnecks, with wads of money to spend on the weekends, had nothing to do on a Saturday night but get drunk and raise hell.
Times haven't changed much. The locals pretty much get drunk and raise hell every night in Hot Sulphur Springs.

One of the workers, who was staying at The Riverside, got a little too friendly with the spouse of a local, and according to Grandpa, the local went into the hotel late at night, found and entered the offending parties room, and stabbed the man to death. Grandpa said, “he was dead in there for days, before the smell got bad enough that they finally found him.”

Gee Grandpa, thanks for clearing that up for me!

This may disappoint some of you, but it thrilled me when I found out that both of these tales were taller than Mt. Bross; untrue, bogus, BS, hokum, didn’t happen. In fact, there is no record (that I can find) of anyone ever being murdered, or even dying, in The Riverside. What did happen, and what I’m sure was the seed for these grisly recollections, involved several of these tunnel workers who did get into an altercation in the hotel bar, took it out to the street, and one stabbed the other in front of the hotel.

Ghost stories be gone, and on to reality...

Two years ago, prior to our purchase of The Riverside, I would have steadfastly said “I do not believe in ghosts!” I can’t say that now, at least not with the conviction that I used to have on the matter. I have had four instances of things happening- two apparitions I’ve seen and two physical occurrences I've felt. No matter how hard I try to convince myself that what I saw, or what physically happened, simply wasn’t so, I can come up with no other logical explanation for what occurred.

Throw the arrival of Lucy,the world’s coolest pooch, into the picture and her consistently peculiar behavior in certain parts of the hotel, and I’m really starting to change my tune regarding the existence of other-worldly phenomena.

To be continued…….