aimee-does-things

[aimee-does-things]

What happens in Vegas...

I had been to Las Vegas a couple of times in the past. I never really had much fun there, so I was curious to determine if it was the company I was in or if I really just didn't care for the city. It was my turn to drive, and George had fallen asleep. For the past hour, I had been driving in silence. No music. No podcast. No Audiobook. Just thinking. Making lists in my head of everything I want to do in life and storing those lists in dark, hidden corners of my brain. As glimmers of city lights began to flash between dark mountains, I broke the silence, "I think I see it!" "Huh?" George awoke, confused. "I see Las Vegas," I repeated. A short while later, as the lights of the city came into full view, George exclaimed, "Hey, guess what? We can buy legal weed here!" "You're right! We should go check out a dispensary!" I said excitedly. It seemed a wild night was ahead.

We checked into our hotel, showered, changed out of our hiking clothes, then headed out to find adventure. Turns out most dispensaries aren't 24 hours, and there was only one that was open by the time we got into the city. It was totally different than I would have expected. I imagined cereal-looking boxes lining aisles for some reason. But as I should have guessed, T-shirts, koozies, and other swag lined the aisles, and consumables were behind glass countertops, where a budtender helped select products. Our tender was a small framed woman who looked maybe 22 or 23. "What are you guys looking for tonight?" she asked in a laid-back tone that you'd expect in a place that sells cannabis, be it ever so stereotypical.  We had no idea what we were looking for, we didn't want to seem uncool, but we are so very uncool. So we went with the thing they probably hear all day every day, "Haven't really decided, what do you recommend?" She walked us through every type of product they had. She asked us a dozen questions we were utterly unprepared to answer, then recommended some candy—$ 25 for 10 gummy bears. We asked her how strong the effects would be. She said (and I quote), "I can eat a whole bag in one sitting, but I usually just take two or three, and I barely feel anything; it just makes me feel a little relaxed like I had a glass of wine."  

We decided to eat some immediately since we were told it would take a while to kick in, and it was already past 10pm. I ate two because I guessed that someone who lives in a place where you can buy weed gummy bears at a store anytime you want probably has a higher tolerance than me, who does not. If two made our budtender feel like she had drunk a glass of wine, I would probably feel like I had drunk a bottle. On the other hand, George decided that since she was a petite woman and could handle a whole bag, he would start with four.

We hit the empty-for-Vegas streets headed for White Castle, a place we had both eaten before but never together. We ordered way too much food, then hobbled back to our room, dodging drunken revelers with our over-filled cherry cokes and giant bags of tiny burgers.  It finally hit us that we were starving, and the luke-warm food tasted like ambrosia to us. Not yet feeling any effects of the gummy bears, George proposed a toast (with the tequila we still had) to an adventurous night; if only he knew.  

By my third White Castle, I was beginning to feel that "glass of wine." Although it felt more like four top-shelf margaritas. I felt good, though. I was in the hotel room, pajamas on, eating cheeseburgers, and watching cartoons. I was super stoned, and it was perfectly legal—a perfect night!

Just as I was thinking these things, George looks at me, and in a very calm and steady voice, says, "Baby, I think I need to go to the hospital."  I've always been someone who can handle emergency situations exceptionally well. Had I thought this was an actual emergency, I would have immediately been in the car driving to the hospital, or in the case of four margaritas, calling an ambulance. But he was calm and seemed perfectly fine, so I asked, "What's wrong?" "I'm dying." Did he mean in the sense that we are all technically dying? I didn't get it. He seemed fine. Before I could respond, he decided that he wasn't dying. He was fine, just paranoid. I focused back on Family Guy, and started dozing in my chair when suddenly, "Actually, I do need to go to the hospital, right now." "I don't think you need to go to the hospital; I think you're just really high; try to relax and fall asleep." "No," he said, "I think I took too many substances." A concerning statement.

"What else did you take?" I asked, now feeling a little anxious because, after all, I was high. "I had that Frappuccino earlier, that was full of caffeine, and then I took those four gummy bears and the shot of tequila." Whew! For a second there, I thought he was about to tell me he had purchased some meth-laced molly from a hooker, but it was clear that he genuinely did just need to relax and go to sleep. "You don't need to go to the hospital," I said gently but firmly. "You're just very, very stoned. I'm not calling an ambulance because you had a Frappuccino, a shot of tequila, and some weed. I promise you will be fine." He curled up on the bed, and I sat beside him to comfort him. "I need to go to the hospital, and you're just going to let me die," He murmured into his pillow. "I'm going to die of an overdose in a Las Vegas hotel room; how fucking typical." I patted him on the back and again calmly reassured him that everything would be okay. "Someone probably already called the police on us," he said as he lifted his head from the pillow. "Why would someone have called the police?" I asked, "We're in Nevada, where Frappuccinos, tequila, and weed are all legal." "Because I've been shouting about how I need to go to the hospital," he whimpered back. But he hadn't been shouting. He had been speaking calmly, barely above a whisper the whole time. "You haven't been shouting," I said. "I promise I would take you to the hospital if you really needed to go."  He finally fell asleep in my arms around 4:30 am.

Just as I started to fall into a deep sleep, he sat up and said, "Aimee, we're here." I opened my eyes and realized we were in the Downtown Grand parking garage, the hotel we had reserved earlier during the drive. "We're going to have a fun night, baby," George said as he popped the trunk to get our bags. I couldn't believe I had dreampt the whole thing, but I felt refreshed and ready to find out what Las Vegas had in store for us!

[aimee-does-things]

The Hole Is More Than The Sum Of Its Parts

"The river cuts its way through stone Not through sheer force but persistence At the end of the day the relentless always win" - 311

With our crime spree behind us, we followed the desert sun to our next destination; Arizona, the Grand Canyon State. As a kid I was always jealous of the families like the Griswolds, families that would go on long road trips to all of the national parks and monuments our country has to offer. Oh, how I wished to be in a car with bags strapped to the top, driving from state to state, staying in dozens of roadside motels. I remember asking my mother once if we could visit the Grand Canyon. Her response was, "I've been there before; it's just a big hole." That pretty much sums up her attitude toward most things in life, at least from my perspective. There was never anything worth doing or worth seeing. She had experienced all that life had to offer, and her constant message to me was that none of it was worth exploring on my own.

The very first time I visited the Grand Canyon, I was 19 years old. It was a merciless 114 degrees outside, and I was a spoiled California girl whose idea of a sweltering day was 80 with a light breeze. Our visit was brief; we parked, walked to the first lookout, spent about five minutes there, and then returned to the car to head home. I didn't have enough time to wrap my head around what I saw. I didn't have enough time to let my body adjust to the heat. I left feeling like maybe my mom was right; it was just a big hole. During our drive, I shared this experience with George. I let him know how excited I was to experience it with him, and perhaps this time, see more than just a hole. After nightfall, we arrived in Williams, a small tourist town just south of the Grand Canyon. The faint outline of pine trees lined the dark sky surrounding the Rodeway Inn on the historic Route 66. With taxes, the room was just $61! If you've never stayed at a Rodeway Inn, they're part of the Choice Hotels family, and with very minimal amenities, usually the least expensive. That said, the rooms' quality and style can vary wildly from one Rodeway Inn to the next. Sometimes you'll get a room with comforters that look like they've been there since the 1960s, bathrooms with large caulk-filled gaps in the shower walls, and carpets covered with a solid layer of stickiness. Other times you get lucky, like we did, and have an adorable room with wood floors, modern furniture and lighting, crisp white sheets, and a sparkling, brand-new-looking bathroom. Best of all, there was a parking space right outside our door. The cold mountain winds had picked up, so the warm room, which hadn't had the air conditioning on, felt good. As usual, we settled into the room, sprawling out on the bed and scanning our phones for nearby food. It turns out that if you're hungry in Williams, Arizona after 9 pm, your only option is Carl's Jr., so we took our stale fries and soggy burgers back to our room and watched Impractical Jokers while we ate (something we always like to do while we eat). The following day, with plenty of sunscreen and water, we were ready to spend the day at Grand Canyon National Park. We wanted to have a real breakfast before heading out, so we decided on Goldies Route 66 Diner, a cute, old-fashioned diner with metal walls, red vinyl stools, and lots of crazy crap on the walls. When we walked in, we quickly noticed that the place was packed, and none of the workers were wearing masks, so we immediately walked out. We are obviously risk-takers, but that was too much of a risk. We settled instead for drive-through McDonalds, and I guess they knew I was planning to document this trip on the interweb because everything tasted fresh. We ate our food in the car with cascading mountains in view and watched as birds scoured the parking lot for McScraps. The drive to the canyon was beautiful. Pine trees and mountains lined the road, and the sky was bright blue. The main parking area was crowded with visitors from all over the country. Every car had a license plate from a different state. We gathered our water bottles, put on our face masks, and headed out. The sun immediately beat down upon us as if we owed it money—a drastic difference from the casual 75 degrees in Williams. The area was swarming with tourists taking selfies and Instagram aficionados desperately trying to get that perfect, effortless-looking shot. We, of course, took our pictures as well. Let's get one thing straight; everyone should see The Grand Canyon in person. None of the pictures I took come close to its reality. It's been said that there will never be a picture of The Grand Canyon that truly captures its beauty, and it's because it's not beautiful, it's breathtaking. It is so awe-inspiring that it literally takes your breath away, along with the ability to come up with words worthy of describing it. We walked hand-in-hand along the rim trail until the noise of the crowds faded. We sat for a while, and George told me there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be. Something he would continue to repeat throughout our journey. After walking a bit more, filling our water bottles with Roaring Springs water, and a quick stop at the souvenir shop, we were headed back to the car. We had spent just over four hours exploring the canyon, and it was time to continue our adventure. Initially, we planned to return to Williams to rest before heading to Los Angeles, but since it was just a little past 4 pm, we decided to spontaneously break up the long drive with a pit stop in Las Vegas. As we headed further west, a canopy of clouds gathered in the sky, and the warm sunny day turned into a cool misty evening.

[aimee-does-things]

Albuquerque, Bitch

We crossed into New Mexico right as the sun was setting. A haze of clouds and distant rain created a beautiful diffused light across the sky. By the time night had fallen, the desert crosswinds had picked up, and the beautiful landscape had faded into a black abyss with only the lines in the road to guide us. We managed to get to Albuquerque right around 10 pm. We were more exhausted than the previous nights, most likely because we had tacked three additional hours onto this leg. We pulled up to the Sandia Peak Inn, an adorable, retro, southwestern themed motel. Despite the retro exterior, the room was updated, spacious, and sparkling clean. We decided to order Del Taco from Doordash for a late-night dinner. George had never tried it, and after a long day in the car, it was wonderful to have someone else bring our food to us. God bless those dashers! We had our dinner with Blood and Honey American Ale from Revolver Brewing, a Texas-made craft beer we picked up at a travel stop as we were leaving Texas.

With a much shorter 4 1/2 hour drive to Williams, Arizona on the agenda for the next day, we treated ourselves to a 9 am wake up time. Actually, George slept until 10, but I got up at 9 to work on this blog because I’m determined to keep it up. I could explain in two words why Goerge and I were thrilled to be in Albuquerque: Breaking Bad. George had always gushed about how amazing the show was, claiming it to be the best show he had ever watched. He regularly brought it up, and while I wanted to watch it, I never had time until, of course, 2020. We had binge-watched the entire series during quarantine, and I have to say it really is the best show ever! We had mapped out a path to see some of the locations where it was filmed, and I was just as excited as George was. We grabbed a take-out brunch from Owl Cafe (which, by the way, appears in El Camino, the Breaking Bad movie), where we each got the New Mexico Reuben, a New-Mexican take on the Reuben sandwich; hot corned beef, green chili, Swiss cheese, and 1000 island in a flour tortilla. It was delicious, and I had tears running down my face from the spice.  

After brunch, we stopped at a nearby Walmart to get some much-needed windshield wiper fluid, and a few other necessities before heading to visit the White residence. The house was immediately recognizable. A black wrought iron fence surrounds the house, along with parking cones in the street, and signs to inform tourists (like us) that it is a private property. I have to be honest, though I was excited to see the house, I felt incredibly uncomfortable visiting this location. I personally don’t need a sign to tell me to be respectful. Still, the amount of security they had in place said to me that others had stepped onto the property, probably trespassed and attempted to look through the windows, or over the fence into the backyard. I hated to think that just being there put us, as far as the owners were concerned, into that category. We chose not to get out of the car, but instead take a quick picture through the car window.

Our next stop was the A1A Carwash, actually called Mister Car Wash, at 9516 Snow Heights Cir NE in Albuquerque. We thought about getting a car wash but decided the line was too long, and instead headed to the next spot on our list, Los Pollos Hermanos! The location, at 4257 Isleta Blvd SW, is actually a location of the New Mexico based chain, Twisters. However, inside, they have lots of Breaking Bad memorabilia and the Los Pollos Hermanos logo on the wall. We took our pictures and purchased a soda to ease our conscience.

Last on our Breaking Bad tour was Walt and Jesse’s first cook site, which is located on the Tohajiilee Navajo reservation. The location is less than a dozen miles off the highway. We pulled off the highway and headed down the lonely desert road; the speed limit was 35 mph, which significantly lengthened our drive time, but we were still determined. Along the way, we passed signs saying, “No trespassing” and “This is not public property,” but we assumed the signs were for the fenced-in area just a few yards from the signs. The pavement faded, and eventually, we were on a very bumpy dirt road, now driving a steady 20 mph with over 30 minutes left on our seven-mile journey. As we drove further and further onto the reservation, we began to question whether we wanted to spend an hour of our day driving down a bumpy dirt road and wonder if the signs were actually talking about the reservation itself and not just the fenced-in area. Maybe it was Breaking Bad on my mind, but I imagined a herd of black SUV’s driving up, surrounding our car, and a group of gangsters taking us out to the desert to shoot us. We decided to stop, take a few pictures of the open desert, and head back to the main highway. As we were taking our pictures, we saw a white truck in the distance driving toward us. Panic set in, and hearts racing, we jumped in the car and drove off as quickly as we could, a whopping 25 mph! Back on the main highway, we laughed about our imagined crime spree and agreed that it was a good thing we hadn’t gotten the car washed.  

[aimee-does-things]

Everything's Bigger In Texas

The drive to Dallas, Texas, was brutal. It was the same amount of driving that we did the previous day, but this drive seemed twice as long. We arrived at our hotel around 7 pm, and we were entirely ready to crash. We stayed at a Quality Inn, which we found on Booking.com for just $63, including tax. We tried to stick to our budget of under $50, but that wasn’t possible in Dallas. Everything’s bigger in Texas, right? 

We checked in and lugged our stuff up to the second floor. When we opened the door to our room, we were greeted with an unpleasant smell; the TV was on, the bed was messed up, and the bathroom was trashed. It took a few seconds for us to register the situation. Did we book the nastiest hotel in Dallas? Are we in someone else’s room? No, the room hadn’t been cleaned since the last guest, yikes! At least we had our masks on. We lugged our things back downstairs to inform the front desk. “I’m so sorry!” The clerk was clearly embarrassed as she took our room keys and typed feverishly into her computer. “This room should be clean.” She said as she handed me new key cards. We took the new keys and again carried our giant backpacks upstairs. This room was amazing; she had given us a suite! A large suite complete with a living room, kitchen, and separate bedroom! It was now totally worth the extra $13 we spent. We decided we were too tired to venture out into the city to find a unique place to eat, so we settled for what was available within walking distance. We ordered takeout from Lupe Tortilla, which is a Texas-based chain. The food was decent, the hand made tortillas being the main attraction, and the portions were pretty significant for the price we paid. We settled in with our food and a bottle of Libelula Tequila and watched the Democratic National Convention. By 11 pm, when the DNC had ended, we were thoroughly ready to turn in.  

The next morning when my alarm went off at 7 am, I was NOT ready to face the 9-hour drive we had planned to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We decided to sleep for another hour. Feeling better with the extra hour of sleep, we got ready and headed out to see Dallas. We walked around the arts district, and as theatre kids, we were overly excited to see so many performing arts venues. As we walked the empty streets, we fantasized about pre-corona times. Performing in a show and afterward celebrating with the cast in a crowded bar. We both had no idea that Dallas was so heavily saturated with the arts.  

We decided to eat a late breakfast at Yolk, a small cafe that we passed on our walk back to the car. It’s a chain based in Chicago. Usually, we strive to find something local to the place we are visiting, but we had a nine-hour drive ahead of us, we were in a hurry. Yolk was probably the most inexpensive meal we had on our trip thus far, but it was absolutely delightful. The staff was friendly (they were calling us by name by the end) the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was pleasing. We walked back to the car with full bellies. It was time to begin the long drive to the Albuquerque.

[aimee-does-things]

The Big Easy Decision

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller

The whole world can change in a week. We've seen it happen over and over again in 2020. We started the year with the devastating loss of our cat Soggy. He was a stray who showed up at my doorstep when I moved into my last apartment in mid-2019. He would greet me whenever I got home, rolling over to show his belly. He was always happy, and because of the constant rain in Florida, always wet, thus the name, Soggy. When Hurricane Dorian was on the way, I got worried about the little cat that seemed to live on my front porch. I took him in, bathed him, treated him for fleas, and let him ride out the storm in my apartment. Once the storm had passed, my boyfriend George and I took him to the vet to get his shots. He stayed with us for three months. One fateful day in January of this year, I walked into the hallway and noticed a trail of feces. "These damn cats!" My first thought was to grab the paper towels and bleach. But why would they have pooped all over the floor? 

I looked toward the bedroom and saw Soggy's tail twitching. "Soggy?" I said nervously as I peeked behind the door. There, curled on the floor, was Soggy. Mouth open, tongue hanging out, eyes fogged over, twitching. We were immediately in the car driving down the street to the vet. We were too late. The vet said she thought it was a stroke. We buried him in the back yard and spent the next week in tears. We had lost our baby, and the year had just started. It was devastating, but we were optimistic; it was January, and we had plenty of time to make happy memories for 2020. February and early March were sprinkled with good and bad. George lost an old friend to depression, but we got to see one of his best friends get married, and we took a trip with his Nephews and my son to the NBA Experience in Orlando, Florida, and had a fantastic time.  

In mid-march, COVID-19 had become a worldwide pandemic, and we were in lockdown. George is an actor, so he was entirely out of work, and I was worried that I'd soon lose my job. The bad of 2020 certainly seemed to be taking over. In June, I tested positive for COVID-19; even though I hadn't gone out (I had even been having my groceries delivered), I was supposed to paint a sign for The Riverside Children's Arts Center, where I work. I had been delaying it because I didn't want to go to the hardware store to buy the supplies I needed. On June 24th, I decided to wear a mask and get the stuff. I walked in, stealthily dodging people, staying ten feet away from everyone I saw, went straight to the lumber section, grabbed my piece of wood, and did self-check-out. I got back to my car, doused myself in hand sanitizer, and went straight home. Later that day, I realized that I couldn't smell anything. I was hesitant to tell George because I didn't want to be locked up in a room by myself for 14 days. But I did the right thing. I quarantined myself and got tested. It took ten days for my results to get back to me, but I was sure I had it. I was coughing, had shortness of breath, going to the bathroom made me feel like I had run a marathon. I had so much resentment for that stupid sign. 2020 was totally sucking, but I am happy to say I have made a full recovery, including regaining my sense of smell.

It's been a prolonged year. It's August, and losing Soggy seems like something that happened ten years ago. Since March, George and I have started a nightly routine of drinking hot tea on the front porch in the evenings before bed. This past Friday, during our porch time, we came up with a crazy idea. What if we went on a road trip out to California and back? We talked for over an hour; I gushed about my love for California; it's my home. The next morning when I opened my eyes, George was already awake, he greeted me with his bright blue eyes and sparkling smile, "So, are we doing this?" I knew exactly what he was talking about, "Yes!"

At breakfast, we had a more serious discussion about it. Could we actually travel across the country with only a few day's notice? More importantly, could we travel across the country during a pandemic? I guess the even more important question was actually, should we travel across the country during a pandemic? I know that the most obvious answer is no, we shouldn't. But I had spent most of 2020 indoors, and our recent venture out to Americus, Georgia, had me aching to travel again. So I justified it like this: we want to go. That's it. Now, I'm not thinking that I'm immune to COVID just because I already had it, and I don't believe that a mask is going to protect me from everything, and I'm not one of those people that's like, "Fuck the coronavirus, I do what I want." But I am someone who wants to enjoy life, and see the world. So we decided that we would go, and we would be as careful as possible. As someone that's done a decent amount of traveling, I was very uncertain about how exactly we'd have a fulfilling vacation with so many things being different. So we packed our things, and plenty of hand sanitizer and face masks, and we headed out on the road.  

Our first stop was New Orleans, Louisiana. While I had been to Louisiana many times, I had never been to New Orleans, and George visited last when he was eight years old. So it would be a new experience for both of us. The first day of the trip included driving through Alabama and Mississippi. When I was younger, I looked really young. I mean, when I was in 7th grade, I could have passed for seven years old. I spent nearly all junior high feeling insecure, and like I was being judged for what I was wearing because my mom would dress me in matching short sets meant for 7-year-olds. I thought those feelings had long been forgotten until I wore a face mask in Alabama. At one of our restroom stops, there was even a man that looked at me, smirked, and stood so close he was touching my shoulder as he browsed the donut case. He let out a light chuckle as I immediately stepped away, not just because of COVID, but because, ew!

We arrived in New Orleans around 3 pm, and checked into our Hotel. We had a goal to try to spend no more than $50 per night on hotels and had managed to find a Motel 6 for $47 per night taxes included. I love staying at fancy 4-star hotels, which probably goes without saying, because who really is against luxury? That said, I'm not above staying somewhere cheap, especially if it means more money for my favorite part of travel; the food. It was everything you'd expect a $47 per night motel to be, no-frills, and pretty shabby. The room itself was okay; they provided us with two towels, a tiny soap, and sheets that looked clean, minus the cigarette burns. We wiped everything in the room down with disinfectant wipes (just to make sure.) After resting awhile and getting cleaned up, we headed out to check out the French Quarter about which we'd heard so much. I was delighted with the Creole townhouses and cottages that lined the streets, New Orleans Square was always my favorite area of Disneyland as a kid, and seeing the real-life version was very exciting. We decided to go for a walk down Canal Street and Bourbon street because as tourists, that was our job. It wasn't terribly crowded, but there were still plenty of street performers out filling the air with music and a sense that everything was fine, and life is entirely normal, which is everything I would expect from Louisiana in general. The city's downside was a massive homeless population and panhandlers that ask for money seemingly every few feet. We decided to risk going inside a restaurant for dinner; we ate at Olde Nola Cookery, which we found based on online reviews. We both had catfish, which was terrific, and the restaurant staff took extra care to keep germ free. They wore masks properly, gloves when serving food, and even had digital menus so that we didn't have to touch a menu used by anyone else. After dinner, we were exhausted from our trip and returned to our rented rat's nest to sleep.

We awoke the next morning at 7 am, and by eight we were out at breakfast. We chose Two Chicks Cafe because it was highly rated for breakfast, and it didn't disappoint. We had their special eggs Benedict, with a cajun hollandaise sauce, and a croissant instead of an English muffin. The croissant was decent, not the delicate thousand-layer dream you'd get from an authentic French Bakery, but far from a Pillsbury recent roll. It was a respectable croissant. The poached eggs were really poached eggs; they didn't use any kind of egg-poaching device, someone actually poached this egg with expert skill.

After breakfast we stopped by the Metairie Cemetery, these beautiful old cemeteries are something I've always wanted to see, and I was so happy that we got to stop. We're now on our way to Dallas Texas!

[aimee-does-things]

The Windsor Hotel | Americus, GA

I've been saying I was going to start a blog for years, but I've hesitated because I was afraid to have only one post at the beginning. Then suddenly this weekend, I realized that one blog post was better than zero, so here it goes.  For my very first entry, I've chosen our weekend trip to the Windsor Hotel in Americus, Georgia. George and I planned a weekend trip to visit his nephew at Georgia Southwestern State University. We couldn't think of a better place to stay, given our fascination with the paranormal. By the way, if the last sentence didn't give it away, we're fascinated with the paranormal. 

This hotel was built in 1892 and restored in 1991 for $6.5 million. In 2010 it was acquired by Best Western and given some modern updates like flat-screen TVs and mini-fridges. Many celebrities and even former US Presidents have visited this hotel, and it is allegedly "officially" haunted. So long story short, we were excited.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon, and I was immediately in love. I was finally staying somewhere worthy of Anne Shirley! More on my obsession with Anne of Green Gables another day.

Sunday night is when the truly fascinating stuff happened. Around 4:00 a.m., we awoke to a loud noise that sounded to me like someone picking up a giant pile of sticks. I opened my eyes wide, seeing nothing but darkness. "George?" I asked, hoping for a logical explanation. "What was that?" He replied.  "I don't know, but I'm scared now."

We got up and searched around the room for what could have made the noise. Something falling off the dresser? There was nothing on the floor. Someone knocking on the door, or trying to turn the handle? No. That's not what we heard. Finally, I looked at the antique wardrobe in the corner. "Wooden hangers!" I chirped, proud of my detective skills. "That's what made that sound!" I swung the door open, and there, motionless, were the hangers.

It was strange that they didn't easily sway when I opened the door. Maybe I didn't swing the door hard enough. I opened it and closed it again, still nothing. I stomped my foot on the ground, nothing. I took my hand and gave the hangers a push. They rocked back and forth; that was the sound we heard! But how did they make that noise unless someone had pushed them? We couldn't figure it out. Then, as we continued to discuss how strange it was, I heard the noise again with the wardrobe door shut. The hangers were moving around inside the wardrobe just as vigorously as if I had pushed them.  "It's happening again!" I sprinted back to the bed, and we decided we needed to sleep with the bathroom light on for the rest of the night.  It was the only genuinely strange occurrence we experienced while at the Windsor, but it was one of our trip's highlights.