If you’ve followed me for a while you might be aware I’m a bit of a volleyball nut. Ever since we moved to Nashville and integrated into the volleyball culture here we’ve heard about the Fudpucker’s tournament down in Destin.
Well, last week was the big Emerald Coast Volleyball Week in Fort Walton Beach (aka the Fudpucker’s tournament). It used to be in Destin, but several years back hurricanes kind of ate up some of the beach. They moved it down the road to Fort Walton Beach where there’s still plenty of space.
DIGGING FOR GHOSTS
However, no matter why I’m traveling, I’m always on the lookout for Haunt Jaunts. Of course I used my Find Haunted Places list before we left, but it didn’t turn up much for either Fort Walton Beach or Destin.
No worries. It’s a little more exciting venturing into un-Haunt Jaunt chartered territory anyway.
I’m not sure I actually found true Haunt Jaunts, but I did find a few neat things. Here’s what I came across during the Tennessee through Alabama part of the road trip down to Fort Walton Beach.
I-65 SOUTH OF NASHVILLE: THE CHAPEL HILL GHOST LIGHT
As we headed out of town last Wednesday we passed the exit for Chapel Hill. I knew it was south of us, but I didn’t know how far. I’d been wondering about Chapel Hill ever since my friend Amy (and volleyball teammate) told me how she’d taken another of our teammates down there to look for the headless man who’s purported to wander the railroad tracks.
Apparently some poor railroad worker was killed one night on duty. He fell and hit his head on the tracks, knocking himself out. A train came and decapitated him. Now he wanders with his lantern looking for his head, hence the ghost lights people report. (His head was supposedly never found when they discovered his body.)
A Haunt Jaunt in search of the ghost lights will definitely be happening down there soon!
TAKING U.S. 331 THROUGH ALABAMA TO FLORIDA
Jessica over at Ghost Stories and Haunted Places is currently in the process of researching and writing a book about all of the haunted places in Alabama. I thought of her as we cruised along U.S. 331 (which I’m dubbing Cemetery Road).
I see a lot of roadside cemeteries. There’s small ones all over the place here in Tennessee. It’s not an uncommon site.
But I swear I’ve never seen as many on one stretch of road as I did on U.S. 331. I thought maybe it was just me imagining things, but before I commented about it my husband did. That’s saying something if even he noticed.
Now I’m curious to go search Jessica’s blog and see if she’s shared any ghost stories from Highland Home, Luverne (really cute little town, by the way), Opp or Florala (those were the towns we passed through on U.S. 331) that might explain all the graves.
If you’re ever in Alabama and like visiting cemeteries, I can’t say how they are because we didn’t stop and scope any out, but there sure are a lot on that stretch of road.
Tomorrow I’ll continue with what jaunts I discovered in Fort Walton Beach.
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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