The Brookdale Lodge is an interesting place with a stream that runs right through the middle of the restaurant. Seating is done by levels. There are three levels all together but only two are used now. Jake and I found out about it from a television program about haunted places. Legend has it the owners daughter fell into the stream inside the restaurant and drowned. She now haunts the site and there have been numerous sightings of her over the years. We were seated for dinner near the stream directly above where she had fallen to her death. Brookdale Lodge is considered a very haunted spirit-filled place and has been featured on numerous television shows. This is how Jake and I found out about this place and why we chose to visit. We neither saw nor felt anything weird, but there are some areas that have very strange old smells to them, smells I’d never smelled before. The closest I could describe would be old cigarette and cigar smoke and booze and perfume all mixed together. I was told numerous owners have tried to get rid of these smells, but they can’t. Some people believe this is tangible evidence of these spirits that haunt the place.

Our waitress was very nice and took our pictures and shared her feelings. She said that she had never had any experiences there and hoped she didn’t. Mello had told us her coven and others often came to Brookdale for séances and other spiritual activity. This place isn’t a cheap date and plan to drop $50-60 if you want to hang out with the spirits and their counterparts. Consider yourself fortunate if you get a glance of a fleeting apparition. Oh, and by the way, the smoked salmon appetizer is delicious and the Caesar salad is great, but steer clear of the peppered shrimp add on.

After we paid our bill, we rushed past the ‘Dead Guise’ coming in and jumped into our car. It was looking like we might miss Tom and Mike, but we were hoping we would be there in time to hear Dr. J. We had our directions to the community center which were given to us at the Friday night dinner, but we found ourselves hopelessly lost in a strange, unfamiliar town . As much as I followed the directions I had meticulously written down, we were unable to find our street. So after fifteen minutes or so of endless looping, we realized that our street was not the first left as we had been told but we were to turn on the second left. I will leave the not so good directions to the relaxed vibe of Santa Cruz and the old hippies and the next generation of wannabe street people who make this seaside villa their earthly nirvana.

After correcting our bad directions, we found the community center and a much-valued parking space downtown. I was a little worried about the security of our vehicle in this somewhat funky urban center, but took refuge in the fact my truck and camper were both insured. We quickly found the entrance of the center and hurried down the hallway to find the right room. Much to our chagrin Dr. J was already talking. That meant we had missed Tom’s bigfoot song and Mike R’s introduction, which I had really wanted to hear. The situation was now standing room only for the talk and lecture so Jake and I were relegated to leaning against the wall for support.

I had heard Dr. J’s talk at Pocatello and though interesting, the science part of my brain doesn’t work that well sometimes. As fate would have it, we missed the last seats and about 5-10 minutes of the Dr.’s talk. What was cool is after we got there he talked a lot more from the book he wrote, which is done much more in the layperson’s vernacular. Anyway, the talk was good and Jake and I kept propping each other up until some people left halfway through and we got off our feet and into the empty seats.