Earlier this year my mom gave me the great news that she was able to rent out the cabin (The Silver Phantom Ranch) my grandparents used to co-own for two whole weeks in July!  I was ecstatic this was the place that Amy heard about for the last 17 years and my family was finally going to see what all the fuss was about.  About a month ago the lady that now owns the Silver Phantom Ranch is having serious health issues and had to cancel our reservation.  We found another place down the road and we going to be able to spend a week instead of two.  Things were still great.   

We arrived last week in time for church service at the Alpine Chapel and got to walk around the old cabin and check things out.  After an hour or so we went to the cabin we were staying and this was going to work out better.  It was a bigger place and more comfortable for the 11 of us that were staying the week.  My mom, sister and niece and nephew, also my Aunt, Uncle and Aunt's brother from St. Louis and my family. 

We had a great week.  The kids fed the chipmunks at St. Elmo, went horseback riding, hiked up to Hancock Lake and went swimming in the cascades and Mt. Princeton Hot Springs.  Wednesday night we invited my band teacher from Oak Park High School Mr. White and his wife over for dinner (Pat and Liz).  We had a fantastic time and Mr. White concluded the evening with a ghost story exclusively for Donnie and my nephew Nicolas.  (BTW this is a fantastic story...for another time.)  I don't know if I can do the story justice but will try if you would ever like to hear it.  Better yet Mr. White should be back in KC in October.  Let him tell you...anyway the story concludes with artifacts found on the grave of a three year old girl buried in the cemetery next to Mr. Whites cabin back in the late 1800's. 

Saturday was our last full day in Colorado and the boys and I just finished horseback riding.  Instead of driving straight to where we were staying I asked the boys if they wanted to check out the cemetery from Mr. White's ghost story and hopefully we would get to see him while we were there and we could say good-bye - "Seeya back in KC!"

We arrived at the cemetery while there was still some daylight around 6pm.  We walked through the cemetery and saw the headstones of the pioneers of Alpine.  The cemetery was recently cleaned up and looked really good from what I remembered almost 30 years earlier. 

We found it!  We saw the tombstone of Mr. Whites story.  As we were leaving Mr. White came out and invited us in to his cabin to see the artifacts of his story.  Some of you already know what they are.

The Downpour

Mr. and Mrs. White displayed the artifacts and completed the story.  The boys were amazed and skeptical but the story was complete.  We took pictures and said our goodbyes.  As we headed out the door the rain and thunder that we saw and heard off in the distance all day arrived.  We couldn't leave yet.  The Trailblazer was parked down the hill in the turnout in front of the cabin.  It didn't make sense to leave just yet when the rain would probably stop in a few minutes.  Big Mistake!  The rain was intense and the sound intensified more by the hail that pounded down on the roof of the White's cabin.  It looked like snow outside and what we didn't notice by the sound of the hail was that the torrential rainstorm triggered mudslides that brought logs, rock and mud.  Lots of Mud! 

The temperature drop that happened because of the hail made all the windows in the cabin fog up.  As we were able to focus out the fogged up windows we couldn't believe what we were seeing.  The cemetery that Donnie, Nicolas and I were walking through was wiped out.  We were the last ones to see the tombstone of the infamous ghost story.  All of our attention was on the cemetery side of the cabin and Mrs. White called out to come look over to the west side of the cabin. 

Too Be Continued...