Had to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico to do two workshops about cyberstalking at the NMCADV Conference. Flew there on Tuesday, July 25th from Boston. When I fly out of Boston, I ask to use a car service, because it's like going to hell driving there. So I got a nice guy named Ed from Great Bay Limo to drive me there in a black sedan. I like meeting new drivers and chatting. I don't understand people who use these car services and never talk to the drivers.

American Airlines was great - both flights were on time and landed on time. My transfer at Dallas/Fort Worth was a breeze and I got a window seat on both flights. On the first flight, I was sitting next to a Russian couple in their 60s or 70s. How did I know they were Russian, you ask? The hubby was learning Russian for his WWII sub sim game and I got him a Russian keyboard, so I knew what the letters of the Russian language looked like and since he began ordering "his" sub crew around in Russian and they responded in the same language, I began to get used to it. So trust me, I knew these two were Russian.

If you saw the movie The Pacifier, then you'll get a giggle: The woman (who sat in the middle, next to me) looked just like Carol Kane's character in the movie.

Since the flight was a long one, I had my Apple iPod Mini with me to listen to Dance of Death by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. When I pulled the Mini out, the husband began talking loudly in Russian and his wife appeared to be trying to quiet him down. Oooohkay.

The flight attendants came by and I bought a boxed lunch for $3 (it wasn't bad - tortilla chips, salsa, nacho cheese dip, turkey sausage and Lorna Doone cookies). The husband went off again, but this time began pounding his left fist into his right palm. Double ooooohkay. Again, she appeared to be trying to calm him down. Then they pulled out some Tupperware and began to noisily eat sliced salami, pieces of cheese, cherry tomatoes and grapes.

I almost giggled when I finished my lunch, turned of my Mini and pulled my portable DVD player out of my bag. I knew he was going to wig out. And he did. Screw him. It's a long flight. The movie playing inflight was one I'd already seen (Miss Congeniality 2), so I brought LOST with me (a friend Tivo'd it and recorded it onto DVDs for me - yes, the entire season and no, you can't have a copy because I don't have a DVD burner).

All I could think of was this guy must be a charmer when he speaks English.

Got to the hotel via cab, the Marriott on Louisiana Blvd. Typical hotel, typical room. It was clean and that's all I cared about. Since it was two hours earlier than at home, I crashed for a couple of hours to get ready for my ghost tour.

At 8 pm, the Southwest Ghost Hunters Tour folks picked me up at the hotel, Julia and Pat (Pat's a guy). Julia handed me a copy of the founder's Ghosts of New Mexico book (which is great so far) and we chatted for a bit.

We went to Old Town, which was about 10 minutes or so from the hotel and very nifty. Did you know Albuquerque will be celebrating its 300th anniversary next year? I didn't. I thought we Yankees had the oldest towns. Go figure.

Some other people who had come for the tour began to show up and then the tour began with a video played on a portable DVD player (gee, where was my Russian buddy?). Julia showed us photos of what the plaze we were standing in used to look like, gave a brief history of Old Town, then we began our walk.

For almost two hours we saw some great old buildings, heard some good stories and saw more video clips from Weird Travels (the Travel Channel Show), which had done a show about Old Town ghosts, and other videos from local news shows, some EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) that the SGHA had recorded on some of their ghost hunting trips and more.

I liked this tour better than most of the others I'd done because the tour guide was not a drama student (or the equivalent) dressed up in period clothing or all black and didn't overdramatize the stories. Julia was very matter of fact, told what the SGHA had found when they investigated each place we stopped at and let us make up our own minds. I liked that.

I haven't gotten my 35mm film developed yet, but did take some shots with my cell phone camera. Only two photos show something odd. I'm hoping the film photos show the same anomaly. Enjoy them (below)!!


The outside of the Church Street Cafe, supposedly haunted by one of the former owners, Sarah Ruiz, who likes to throw pebbles at the current owner, makes figurines move and yells at people she doesn't like. I ate there on Thursday - more on that later.


Inside a tiny church called Our Lady of Guadalupe, the final project for a nun who went to school for an architectural degree. A woman dressed in black appears on the anniversary of a plane crash in the nearby mountains, when everyone on board died.


The first is the back of what used to be a mansion that was basically a whorehouse, but was called a "dance hall." One of the prostitutes, nicknmaed Scarlett, is reported to haunt the police. Those who have seen her say she is either in call girl attire or completely naked (that would get your attention, eh?). There's a story about the alley in back that I'm going to write about for Haunted Times, so you'll have to wait to read it there. The front of the building is the other photo and I don't know if you can see the blue light upstairs. The blue light wasn't there when we started the tour. No one lives there, as it's a souvenir shop these days. Weird.


This shopping plaza has some bodies in coffins beneath it, as many as eight. When building the plaza, the town thought they found all the coffins from the old burial ground, but found out later they hadn't. Oops.


I saved the best for last. The story at the La Placita restaurant is that a little girl in white haunts this stairway and sometimes likes to pop up in the window to scare people. When I took these photos, I could not see anything on the stairs myself, but when I looked at the camera and then at these photos when I downloaded them, I swear I can see what appears to be a white figure on the stairs. I did not do anything to these photos, left them the same size as I took them and didn't do any adjustments. Do you see the little girl?

More about my Albuquerque trip tomorrow.