OCTOBER 14, 2014 | DAY 13 of #ONTHEROAD1014

It’s important for me to express, as I go into this post about the haunted hotel in West Virginia, that the staff at Aspen Manor was very nice. I paid $60 dollars for the room we stayed in and now it’s just another interesting story for me to share.

***

I had booked our room at the Aspen Manor a few hours before driving into Wheeling, West Virginia. On my hotel.com app it stated that it was a nice B & B and former Catholic retreat. As a bad Catholic and someone who had her road trip blessed by a priest days before traveling, I found this information to be comforting. But as we drove up the long dirt road to the main house, passing smaller homes on the property, it was beginning to feel incredibly creepy. I tend to be able to separate heebie-jeebies and actual paranormal activity pretty well, and I was getting some weird energy from this place. A former mansion of sorts, that unbeknownst to me had been converted to a convalescent home at some point, was inside lit with hospital florescent lighting.

The lobby had a nice big-screen tv, that had the Discovery Channel playing in the background. It’s a pretty modest establishment. They had to photocopy my ID and credit card for later processing. Usually this would really weird me out, but then we were in the middle of West Virginia at 9:00pm at night. My identity and impeccable credit is still intact. The receptionist was a young friendly man, he definitely had the energy of someone juggling a million little things, but managed to still keep a smile on his face.

He took us down a long hallway, past a cafeteria-style icebox (you know the kind that serial killers store bodies in their garage – I’ve watched too much Criminal Minds) to our room; explaining how this portion of the manor had once been a convalescent home. I was sleeping where old people could have potentially and probably died!!!

I believe as the East Coast is much older than the West Coast its paranormal activity is off the charts. There are pissed-off spirits all up and down the east coast, heck the Warren’s home of possessed items is in Connecticut; and although I deeply respect the work of Ed and Lorraine Warren, I have no desire to ever visit their basement.

Our room was basically a hospital room converted into a hotel room. A dresser and matching queen bed were in it. To the left of the door to the room was a white sink affixed to the wall like you’d see in a public restroom room and the toilet was in a closet. I refused to use the toilet and close the door, afraid of being trapped inside, so I just told Dan to not look. The door to the outside grounds seemed to not lock, I couldn’t figure out how to lock the door and prayed we weren’t murdered in our sleep. My cell phone caused the turned-off TV to make weird sounds and I swore to Bowerbird that we would be going to sleep with the lights on. I never took off my shoes. There was something incredibly “off” about this place…

I wanted to post on this blog, so I went out to the lobby and tried use the wi-fi. This is when we had a little more time with the front desk/manor manager. He showed us the built in chapel on the property, and expressed he’d personally never had a paranormal experience, but other people said that they had. He told us bones has been found in the basement and paranormal investigators had come to the property before, but he didn’t know the results. The chapel was nice, but had limited lighting and did look like the perfect backdrop to a scene out of American Horror Story. He also pointed out the rest of the main house down a dark and hardly lit hallway that resembled the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

I’ve later read it was only chicken bones, but I still think the property harbors spirits that those sensitive to energy and aware of dark energy can feel. I know I might sound like a crazy hippy, but this is my truth.

As we were walking back to the lobby another older couple came in who were traveling to Pennsylvania from Ohio for a wedding and were caught in the storm outside. A storm outside!! Classic horror movie set up. It was nice knowing there was another couple staying in the creepy senior citizen side of the bed and breakfast, but it wasn’t any less weird. Deciding to leave at the reasonable hour of 5am, Bowerbird and I went to sleep fully clothed (me with my shoes on). I slept ok and at one point turned off one of the bed side lamps, I was getting slightly more comfortable. But the second our alarm went off, we were up and out of there. I didn’t put on makeup. Bowerbird put on his shoes. We dropped our key off at the abandoned front desk and were on our way. The sun wasn’t up yet but we were ready to leave. Driving away we saw a few deer grazing on the grass beside the road and it made the tense experience better.

Nothing floated by me and I didn’t see any apparitions. As I’m writing this out I know I could seem like I’m just being sensitive, but there are spirits on that property and their energy is affecting this plane of existence. The rest of the day our phones would never hold a charge. We always charged our phones in the car, no problem, but that day they just wouldn’t charge and completely died on us later that day. Also when I went to change at a McDonalds somewhere in Pennsylvania and put on some makeup, my face wash had leaked all over my toiletries bag. I had this bag zipped up, there was no reason for the face wash to have leaked – except for maybe some spirit mayhem.

I’ve read reviews of Aspen Manor and people go on about the beautiful grounds and how nice the house is. I didn’t get to experience any of that. I arrived in the middle of the night and stayed in a hospital room. When I purchased the cheapest room, I thought I was getting a small bedroom with a shared bathroom situation, not the last days of the Golden Girls. I don’t discourage anyone from going to Aspen Manor, but I do think I need to work on my spiritual strength before I decide to spend a long period of time on the East Coast. It totally messes with my West Cost vibe.

Sorry, I have no photos. I was really creeped out. I didn’t want anything to come up on my camera.