Oct 31 & Nov 2, 2012
What started out as a vacation turned into an opportunity to
dress up in costume. Our friends Jerry and Cindy joined hubby and I on a trip
to S. Lake Tahoe, CA, last week, and Cindy suggested since we weren’t far from
Virginia City, NV, that we should go there and bring our Victorian mourning
costumes to do a photo shoot in the cemetery. On top of that, we could go on a
ghost tour. And to top it further, it was on Halloween. I brought my 1850s
mourning gown, and Cindy brought her newly made 1870s gown. We lucked out that
it was chilly that day, and the threat of rain melted away.
Virginia City is a preserved mining town of the Old West
that was much larger than I imagined. This is a postcard I bought that has a
better position to show the main street but there was about two more streets
and this was pretty long. There were quite a few original saloons, restaurants,
and shops, many of which were claimed to be haunted. The wooden plank sidewalk
dipped up & down like a roller coaster ride. We even found out later that
under that sidewalk was a tunnel that the Chinese were forced to use as their
walkway instead of with the public.
When we arrived in Virginia City, the first thing we did was
head over to the cemetery, which includes four separate ones. The largest was a
Mason’s; another was for Volunteer Firemen. Our friend, Carolyn, who lives nearby joined us for the photo
shoot by Jerry. The majority of these photos were taken by him.
http://jerryabuan.zenfolio.com/ And
true to the story of it being the most haunted cemetery, one of Jerry’s cameras
suddenly refused to work.
Afterwards we walked back down the hill and headed back to
town. There were a lot of steep hills and this gives you an idea of the
landscape. We walked away with a lot of cemetery dirt on our hems, and later
discovered we took some home inside our hems.
We walked around town and found some great spots for Jerry
to take photos. Yep, we hit the Bucket of Blood Saloon.
When we walked into the Visitors Center, they admired our
costumes and asked if we’d be in the town’s Halloween parade later that day. We
said sure, as long as it was over in time for us to go on our ghost tour. So we
filled out the application, and at first I just wrote my name but Cindy said
no, we need a title. She immediately said The Black Widows! We headed back up
the street to drop off our application at the starting point, and things moved
to a crawl. The organizers were running late and we were worried we’d either
not be able to stay around, or had to step out of line in time to make our tour.
Finally things got going, and lots of kids showed up with their parents to be
in the parade. There was a group of large dogs all painted in dog hair coloring
and dressed as Teletubbies, along with some Catrinas from Dia de los Muertos. The
Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf were there, along with lots of cute
kids. I tried to get photos of them but they didn’t stand still long enough.
Finally the Sheriff stopped the traffic in the street and we
were ready. We were put at the front of the line behind the banner so we’d be
able to make our tour in time. Cindy and I started clowning around and yelling,
“Are there any single men available? Are there any single victims….uh, men left in
this town?” We got a lot of laughs and really enjoyed ourselves. You can see
some of the cute kids in line behind us.
Just as we were finishing, our guys started hustling us
along to get over to the Silver Queen Hotel for the ghost tour. We were the
only ones in costume and Cindy got picked to carry one of the electronic meters
to register any ghostly emissions. *None recorded* And our photos were taken by
the ghost investigators on the tour, The Northern Nevada Ghost Hunters
www.nngh.net, to see if any images showed up.
This one was taken by Jerry but I’ve asked if they would share theirs with us. We
saw some really neat buildings, heard lots of interesting stories, and learned
some history of the town. And got to see one of the haunted historical houses.
I think this was the most interesting Halloween I’ve even spent.
If you'd like to read about how Cindy made her mourning gown, go check out her blog!
The Broke Costumer
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Friday, Nov 2
Two days later we had all arrived home and Cindy and I were
scrambling to get our mourning costumes cleaned and back in order to wear it
this evening for the Dia de los Muertos celebration in Old Town San Diego. This
would be the third year since the celebration started in Old Town that our
costume guild would lead the Candlelight Procession from Old Town to the El
Campo Santos Cemetery.
While I was taking out my hem at home to raise it up a bit I
found I had brought quite a bit of grey dirt back with me from the cemetery in
Virginia City. I thought it interesting that tonight I would again be walking
around in a cemetery and would be sharing the dirt with some from V. City.
I decided this year to paint my own Catrina face and had
practiced a bit but nothing prepared me for how hard it was to paint my entire
face. I couldn’t get the white liquid makeup to cover smoothly and worst of
all, without my glasses on, I couldn’t even tell when my brush was touching my
skin until sometimes it was too late. After washing it off twice, and almost
giving up, and I steamed ahead and decided no matter what, I would finish and
wear it. I consoled myself that most of the time I’d be wearing my veil, and it
would be pretty dark by the time the Candlelight Procession started, which I
and our costume guild were going to lead again this year.
Our members started gathering on the steps of the
Cosmopolitan Hotel prior to the Procession in the town square. Of course we
immediately began having our photos taken by the public, and with them, which
is what it’s all about folks! We eventually had 22 of our members show up. We
finally had to take our bows and go get in line to start the Procession. This
year they had this beautiful canopy to lead us by. Last year 2000 people showed
up to walk in the Procession. This year it was supposed to at least double
that.
It was kind of funny following the canopy because they
weaved around a bit and when we finally hit the main street with its divided
line so we had a straight line to follow.
Once we were at the cemetery the canopy was raised over the
gateway and I was the first to walk through. Unfortunately there was a crowd of
photographers just inside that started taking my photo and it kind of stalled
us for a minute. This year our guild members stood around the back gate with
our candles to show the other attendees where the exit was. It seemed to help
correct the bottleneck from the previous years of only having the front gate to
exit from. We again became part of many people’s photographs.
At the end of the evening, we trudged back to the Cosmo to
try and find someplace for dinner in the area, but found most places had 1-2
hrs wait time. That was kind of expected so we all went different directions to
track something done. But not before we again became part of many photo ops on
the steps of the Cosmo. So we sat listening to our tummies growling for half an
hour before we took our final bows. I later drove through In & Out Burgers
for dinner, and they said I was the fifth person to come through with their
face painted.
