Summer I turned pretty

💈40💈

BONUS

Rain: don't listen to Elsie

Sam: why?

Elsie: don't listen to me

Sam: huh?

Rain: she is a bullshiter actually

Lana: oh yea I heard about you

Colby; ah okay

David: so do u know who ur taking to this haunted place? Where u going?

Colby: well it's close to u guys rlly and Chris and our friend stas and gavin wanted to come to we said they can and 2 fans that are In xplr club

Chris; I can't wait

Sam: need to add u to a groupchat with them

Anna: wait wait wait sam

Sam: ye

Anna: didn't u date Katrina Stuart but broke up bc u didn't wanna be married so she wrote that BS SONG SBOUT U

SAM: yea, but it's fine we a
Deal w it differently

Anna: ofc sorry to bring it up

Sam: ur good no worries

Chris: what haunted place we going

Colby: Omni Grove Park inns

Sam: some back story

During World War II, it was utilized as an internment center for Axis diplomats. Later in the war, it was used by the U.S. Navy as a rest and rehabilitation center for returning sailors. In 1944-45, the Inn was an Army Redistribution Station where soldiers rested before being assigned to other duties.

There is a strange, but gentle spirit residing within the granite walls of Asheville's historic Grove Park Inn. Known simply as the "Pink Lady," she has been seen, felt and experienced by hotel employees and guests for nearly a century. The Pink Lady has been generally described as a dense pinkish smoke, although some report the mist materializing into the shape of a young woman donned in a pink ballgown. The Pink Lady is believed to have met her demise on the Palm Court floor after falling two stories from the fifth floor to the third floor in the 1920s. Nevertheless, she has been seen and experienced in a number of places throughout the resort. She is known to move objects in the middle of the night, as well as awaken guests by tickling their feet. And while the Pink Lady is keen to reveal herself to everyone, she is said to particularly enjoy the company of children.

This past weekend my fiancée and I made a very last-minute trip out of town to enjoy one final Saturday without work for the year and to celebrate the anniversary of our engagement. We had a free room at an Omni Hotels property set to expire at the end of the month, so we based our location around Omni availability to save a buck and to not let the free night certificate go to waste.

Our first choice was a weekend in Louisville, but no rooms were available for Saturday by the time we decided to get out of town. Same for Nashville, our second option for an overnight within reasonable driving distance. One last try, we lucked into a one-night stay at the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina; a historic resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains on the higher end of hotel stays with rooms typically around $400 and up. We were very excited to secure a room for free on two days' notice at such a popular destination.

Saturday morning we woke up hours before we planned to get on the road, so we got a head start on the drive and arrived by 11 a.m. that morning, five hours before the 4 p.m. check-in. Grove Park Inn is a huge property with lots to explore and poolside Cabana service, so there was plenty to do before accessing the room later that afternoon. However, we were surprised to learn that our room was already cleaned and available when we arrived. That never happens, especially mid-weekend. Everything was off to a great start.

By the time we expected to check in late that afternoon, we had already unpacked, roamed the entire property, enjoyed a couple of hours of pool time, and had lunch on the Sunset Terrace overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains (there was one reservation left, we got it).

I won't bore you with more details of our one-day Asheville experience because you probably don't care, so let's skip forward to why we're here.

The Haunting

Laying in bed after the live music and party in the main lobby had ended, I decided to finally look up more about the history of the hotel because I found the whole place fascinating, almost like we were in another country. Turns out, 10 U.S. Presidents stayed there. How cool? Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Jerry Seinfield too.

Oh, and it is haunted.

A lot of old hotels claim a good ghost story, so I didn't think anything of it until I kept reading about this 'Pink Lady' who jumped, or was thrown, from a fifth-floor balcony in the 1920s. The story gave me a sinking feeling because earlier in the day I had seen a teenage girl (a real girl, not a ghost girl) with her legs dangling out of a window on the fifth floor in the middle of a rainstorm. She had a cell phone in her hand so I knew it wasn't a ghost because ghosts don't have cell phones, but I mentioned this window girl and her potential fall to the Sunset Terrace restaurant below a couple of times throughout the night. The teenage girl never fell, which was great news for everyone, and hopefully enjoyed the rest of her family vacation at Grove Park Inn.

But seeing her and then reading about the Pink Lady who fell from a fifth-floor balcony, was weird.

Now dialed into this Pink Lady ghost simply because I had seen some kid who was probably just TikToking earlier in the day, I kept reading and learned the Pink Lady haunts one specific room of the 510 rooms at the Grove Park Inn. It's the room where she was staying as a mistress to a married man before she jumped, or was thrown, to her death.

Room 545.

WE WERE IN ROOM 545.

I yelled words I can't write on the internet. My heart sank a little bit—a lotta bit, truthfully. Not one to be afraid of ghosts or things of that nature, I couldn't believe we were staying in THE room the internet warns people about. Stories of 545 are all over the place. Some say some employees refuse to step into that room after having paranormal experiences with the Pink Lady. There are photos of guests standing outside the room and pointing to the room number like it's a haunted exhibit. It is a haunted exhibit!

And there I was, tucked in bed in Room 545 at midnight, oblivious to the tales and dark forces of my surroundings until it was too late.

Abby, my fiancee, suggested we stand up and walk straight to the car. I was willing to leave the bags, toothbrushes, new coffee mug, everything; then we remembered the $16 cocktails from the lobby bar. We weren't driving anywhere.

I called down to the front desk to ask how they could do this to us–two innocent people from Kentucky celebrating the anniversary of a special day in their lives–and if there were any available rooms without ghosts in them that I would happily pay real money for.

No answer.

So I kept reading.

"The Pink Lady loves to tickle the feet of guests when they sleep."

OK, I think I can handle that. It's a little weird and in my personal space, but better than cutting off an ear or pinning our bodies against the ceiling. We did a lot of walking anyway so I could use a good foot-tickling; my dogs were barking.

I tucked my feet under the blanket and double-wrapped it with a sheet to be safe.