Brydn's 2003 Travel Journal - Montana: The Ghost of Camp Maiden

Brydn's 2003 Travel Journal - Montana: The Ghost of Camp Maiden

Page 36

I stay over at an abandoned youth camp that's haunted with a Cowboy in bright blue denim jeans.

Maiden, Montana; 1881, Population: 6000, mostly tents along the creek. 1883; 154 houses. Camp Maiden; Maiden, Montana, 9:13am.

Inscriptions in Cabin #5; "When the doors of perception are cleansed, things will appear as they really are," "This cabin is haunted," "Peace plus love equals = Happiness," "Fuck authority, silent majority," "Raised by the system, now it's time to run against them," "This is my bunghole, stay out," "Pain is weakness leaving the body," "I was here in '99," "Love is forever," "If you want it to be, never take love never," "Rat Rules."

Signs of Maiden Camp being haunted: (1) Phone ringing 7 times in main cabin. (2) David Lee Roth's name written all over cabin #6. (3) Cabin #5 says "this cabin is haunted." (4) Cowboy standing in corner of my eye in hat and bright blue denim jeans. (5) "Sneeze" coming from distance in the woods.

12:00 NOON MT, Central Motel, Great Falls, Montana.
DREAM: I'm at a friends house hiding out. Barbara, dressed in a green suite, is sitting back on the couch. I ask for a hug, because I could use a hug. She lightly hugs me. I'm down town. I'm walking down the sidewalk. There's a left over diamond shaped sign from when the airport was there.

I wake up all night long. I get a nap in the afternoon. It may have been the heat as it is once again near 100`. I get a weird feeling that I'm not wanted at camp Maiden. Not any "no trespassing signs" or anything that say I can't stay. A squirrel keeps dropping pine cones onto the picnic table. I move my truck to the back of the lot. I fall asleep on the picnic table but the bugs keep waking me. I put up the tent but the sun moves in heating it up. So, I just stay up. I read the Haynes Handbook for my truck. I keep the blue tarp on cos I feel someone is going to ask what am I dong here. At dusk, I hear a tractor up the road. It goes back up the hill about dark. I walk to the meadow toward the sound. All I can see three are dirt colored roofs farther out past the meadow. It gets dark. I go to bed with my sleeping bag, pillow, flashlight and the police whistle. About 11:30pm, I wake up to the sound of something scratching the tent. chewing it like a rat or squire. The hair stands up on the back of my neck. I slap the side of the tent and it scampers off. I fall back asleep until it happens again at 2:30am. A yard light has come on since dusk on the main mess hall building. I look for lights on the buildings across the meadow, but can see none.

I get up at 5:30am, the break of dawn, I put away the tent and leave camp Maiden. I go back the way I came in to find the direction sign point back to camp Maiden to get to Judith. I go past the place I thought was a tractor or the building across the meadow. No sign of either. I go up the hill to Judith as far as I can. There is a new grave on the extreme hill. I loose traction, so I turn around, again, no sign of any buildings. I find the real ghost town of Maiden, but having enough of specters, I don't stop. I drive straight through to the Fairgrounds in Great Falls.