Singer Castle, Dark Island

This past weekend we celebrated my niece Kelsey's 15th birthday. We went for a family celebration at my brother-in-law's house. We were treated to some nice chicken kabob's among some other favorites. Not to mention the wine. Although, when one is not feeling well please take note not to mix cold medicine, allergy medicine and wine all in the same day. I must say I was a little bit in a fog. Well at least I'm feeling better now and it provided a few laughs for some.

Sunday we spent the day playing tourists. Gary has wanted to visit Singer Castle all summer. There is a shuttle that takes off at Schermerhorn Landing which was a nice way to travel since the other method was to go into Alex Bay and take the full tour. I didn't think the girls would last that long. A special treat for the girls was Grandpa had been there a few years ago so he knew all the secret passages. You could see where the passages were, but were closed off so that people couldn't pass through them. Still very interesting. You can read more about the castle here http://www.singercastle.com/start.html

The outside of the castle from the look out point. Walking the hill was the equivalent of 4 flights of stairs. Oh and did I mention it was raining when we got there? It cleared up enough after that we could take this picture as we were leaving.
Gary and Laura met a new friend while they were visiting the castle.
The girls and I at the look out point on the grounds. St. Lawrence River in the background. It was nice that it cleared up enough to take some river pics.

Considering the day I had on Saturday, Gary thought I should share a picture of their wine cellar.
This was one of the bathrooms on the third floor of the castle. This is a picture of the floor and the glass grate. The ceiling had a sky light in it and with this grate it heated the floor and provided heat into the next bathroom on the second floor.
After getting to the third floor, the girls needed to take a break. How fitting to find these two perfect seats for them to rest.
Another strange but interesting piece was this contraption. It was located in the sports therapy room. It included a bucket for water, a stool to sit on and light bulbs along the inside. When the doors were shut and the top flaps down, only the head would stick out. Sounded a little scary to me.
Another shot of the sports therapy room.
Since they didn't have any double beds this is how the married folks slept. Just a little different from now.
Another perk of the trip was on the shuttle ride back to shore. The captain of the boat was tired of navigating and asked for the girls to help out. After our trip to the island we went to a near by cemetery where we found my Uncle Lawrence Stanton. This was a new find for Dad and I. Happy that Gary made us turn around and check it out. It was difficult to see the imprint but was able to read Sept. 3, 1915 - Nov. 19, 1921. Interesting to find another piece of our family history.