Weekend Getaway and Lessons Learned Part 2

Lesson 3) When going on a ghost tour take your camera.

Yeah I didn't, though I thought that most of the tour would be underground, but it wasn't. Portland had/has a huge underground network of tunnels that were supposedly used to transport goods from ships to the many establishments. They are nicknames Shanghi tunnels because, so the story goes, a lot of people were "taken" from here to be forced to work on ships.

Course once you're out to sea there's no escaping right?

So we started off at Old Town Pizza and had dinner, pizza was fab! The place is in an old building, of course, all the furniture was old and all that and had a good atmosphere to it. The atmosphere felt "full" to me and it's hard to explain but old places like that most often feel that way to me. Oh yeah and it used to be a brothel!

At the prearranged time we met our tour guide, Natalie, outside only to find it was just us, so we had our own private tour! Natalie was totally awesome, very knowledgeable and personable and fun. She took us into the basement of the pizza place because apparently there's a ghost there. Although it was creepy I got nothing except several taps on my head. I touched my head each time it happened, and felt nothing. There IS a leaky pipe there but if it was dripping water wouldn't I have felt some wetness? Especially after several drops? Well I didn't so hmmm..

The next part of our tour took us about the streets of downtown Portland for a bit, with Natalie pointing out various buildings and telling stories, and us popping into a couple places real quick. She also took us to Voodoo Donuts and if you are ever in Portland this is MUST! I had a glazed topped with Kaptain Krunch and Jeff had a maple one topped with bacon. Natalie had the house special, a man shaped donut (think gingerbread man). It came with two pretzel sticks with which to practice your own sweet and gooey voodoo. She had us picture someone that we didn't like then went at this poor donut doll with the pretzel AND with surprising vehemence. Soon it's juicy red raspberry filling was oozing out of the massive hole that was once the "dolls" stomach. Was there something more to Natalie, I thought? Should we really be going into creepy places all alone with her? Time would tell.

After giving the massacred voodoo donut to a homeless person we were once again off and ghost hunting. Natalie took us to The White Eagle inn and tavern, an old establishment that also use to be a brothel. She took us upstairs where they do have rooms for rent for those brave enough. Stories abound about what took place in this upper part of the brothel, most not so nice. One story is about Rose, who was stabbed by a customer in her room..and apparently died in the hall too overcome with her injuries to make it any farther. There's more stories but I could go on and on about this place. Anyways Natalie chooses to not tell us where in the building anything happened, so as to not get any false positives. So up we went into the "L"shaped hallway. I first went into the "bottom L" part and was overcome with a very intense feeling. I felt lightheaded, sick, and there was that real gross feeling in the pit of my stomach I get when death is near to me. My hair was standing on end and it was just way to creepily overwhelming. So I left the spot and walked down the hall bit and the feeling went away. I caught my breath then went back to that spot and was once again overwhelmed by the same feeling. There was one other spot in the hall that made me stop and ponder, but nothing like that first spot. I did some searching when I got back home and found this...a picture of that spot complete with an "orb", borrowed from the Paranormal Research Society site. They say that door there in the pic is/was Rose's room and where the orb is is exactly where she died and exactly where I was standing when that feeling overcame me.



**For other pics of the White Eagle, borrowed from the McMenamin’s site, click here**

I have to admit it was a little hard to sleep that night and unless Jeff was screwing with me something or someone was playing with the bathroom shower curtain. Every time I went into the bathroom it was in a different position. I didn't ask Jeff about it cuz at this point I figured he must think I was batty enough...lol

Stay tuned for the final chapter in my trip..