Boo

Excellent!  Kevin's been working his butt off at work lately.  He penciled in his vacation, but, quite honestly, I was doubtful that he'd actually get to take it.  He just made some reservations, though, so I guess it's a go!

We'll spend about half the week hanging out at home and the other half hanging out at Big Moose Inn in the Adirondacks.  I'm looking forward to going there.  We stopped by there once when we were vacationing somewhere nearby.  It should be very relaxing.  Unless Grace Brown's ghost shows up, of course.  That could be a bit disconcerting.  Grace's body was found in Big Moose Lake in 1906.  Grace was a single woman working in a skirt factory.  The factory was owned by the uncle of Grace's alleged secret lover, Chester Gillette.  Chester was charged with and convicted of her murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair.  The prosecutor's version: Grace told Chester that she was pregnant by him (she was 3.5-4 months pregnant when she died); he took her on what she thought was a vacation/wedding/honeymoon; they went boating on Big Moose Lake; he bopped her on the head with his tennis racket; and she ended up dead in the lake.  Chester claims Grace committed suicide by jumping overboard bc she was so distraught by her situation.

The story was the basis of Theodore Dreiser's book, 'An American Tragedy' and the movie, 'A Place in the Sun'.  Craig Brandon wrote a book, 'Murder in the Adirondacks'; sounds like Dreiser's book and the movie took license with the facts, but those versions of the story are what people remember.

I first heard of the story - and Big Moose Lake and Inn - years ago.  The story was covered in a segment on 'Unsolved Mysteries'.  Was Robert Stack and his trenchcoat great or what?  Anyway, for some reason, I've always wanted to go there, but we never got around to it.  I'm looking forward to relaxing by the lake...maybe go out in a little rowboat.  There's something about water that I find so relaxing and soothing.  I miss having water nearby.  I think I'd like sometime to live closer to water again; maybe at the shore, though I'd prolly like a lake house best.  I'm a lousy swimmer and I'm not into water sports.  It's simply the water itself that I find relaxing, soothing, calming; the ebb and flow.

I'll be sure to blog any, um, interesting developments during our vacation.