Kampung Kreepy

Look what I got today from a fortune cookie at the Panda Express. Not bad for an author, right? Do you set any store by what a fortune cookie says?  As for me …  Have you been to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop at the Seattle waterfront? The shop was founded in 1899. There are all kinds of “curiosities” inside, including two mummified bodies, a “mermaid” and a collection of shrunken heads. Yep, it’s a spooky place. Well worth seeing if you’re in the area, and into spooky.  When I visited the shop many years ago, I tried the fortune teller machine for fun. The fortune I got was so specific, so accurate and so timely that I was a little freaked out. It was a problem with which I was wrestling. I took the machine’s advice, and things turned out well.  Anyhoo, let’s just say I don’t ignore good advice, no matter where I get it.  A fortune cookie also played a role for my husband’s family. You can read about it here in my blog. 

On a recent road trip to southern Virginia, we stopped by the Union Level ghost town, which touts itself as the state’s most photographed ghost town.  The town of Union Level, like so many other jurisdictions in the South, went through periods of bust and boom. Situated in the heart of Virginia’s tobacco country, Union Level prospered alongside the vast plantations that surrounded it.  The Civil War in the 1860s hit the town hard. In the early 1900s, the Southern Railroad ran a line through Union Level, and it began to thrive again.  Then came the Great Depression in the 1930s, from which the town never recovered. Businesses shuttered and people departed. The final blow was dealt when the rail line left in the 1980s.  Tobacco is still grown in the nearby farms. All that remains of the once-bustling town, however, is a row of derelict storefronts and a church.  As I was photographing the ghost town, I was startled by something moving between the buildings. To my ...