Angels, Trains and Ghosts

Today my friend, Steve, and I took a fieldtrip to Utica, NY. Our first stop was a huge cemetery. Our goal was to find angel statues, but it was a beautiful cemetery and there were plenty of other things to photograph. We spent quite a lot of time there. It was a beautiful day and a real pleasure to be out of doors this morning.

When we got done at the cemetery we headed over to the train station, a beautiful old building that seems to have been kept in very nice condition. While we were outside taking photographs, an elderly man asked if we were from the newspaper. hmmmm He used to work at the station in the baggage handling department and he gave us a little information about the station and its history. The thing that impressed both Steve and I is that, in its day, there were 92 commuter trains in and out of the station per day. That's a lot of train traffic!

When we went inside, I was taken completely by surprise at how beautiful the building is. We both took a lot of photos, but I'm just posting two. This resting girl is so iconic of train and bus stations. I was surprised at how many people were actually getting on the trains, but Steve said that he's heard that since gas prices have gone up, train and bus travel has increased again. Interesting!

There was a beautiful old engine outside, but it was black as black and the sun was pretty strong so the contrast was too great to get a good shot. Instead I just concentrated on getting a little of it in the background with this Queen Ann's Lace.

So after having some lunch, we decided to head home on Rt 5 instead of the thruway. We passed this house on the other side of the road and just had to double back and get some shots. When we got out of the car, I headed for the front door, which was the only place with an opening large enough to get in the house. I heard a voice behind me--it was a woman who lived across the street. She came over to warn us to be careful if we went inside since it was probably pretty unstable and she was concerned.

During the conversation she told us that the house is haunted. Several years ago she was having a garage sale and one of the women who stopped said she had a feeling about the house. She claimed that there were 7 spirits in it. Very spooky. Apparently, at one time, someone took a photo of the house and when the film (you remember that stuff) was developed, there were faces in each of the two upstairs windows.

I didn't go in the house after all, but I soooo wanted to. Maybe another time.

It was a great day, we met two nice people and we had a nice respite from the rain.