fun | Sam from Amsterdam

Our first week of shows in Baton Rouge has come to an end. We’ve had such an awesome time staying at the Serenity Cottage Bed and Breakfast. Brett and Darin really made us feel part of the family.

The town Slaughter has a lot of history in it, across from the bnb is a bank that has been robbed by Bonnie and Clyde in 1932. The owner of the bank, lived next door to the bnb and was one of the people that had been locked in the vault.

Our shows were very well received, big crowds and the kids seem to love us! After all the excitement I looked forward to my daily run and a little yoga

It was hot and humid outside, but I love it. Once I got back to the house Brett mentioned that he had found the video and audio material from the paranormal investigation that was held in their home a few years prior. I figured that my imagination is probably worse than the actual footage, so I decided to watch it. We curled up on the couch and started with the pictures. There were orbs in the pictures, big circles, but whatever.. that didn’t scare me.. Then we continued to the audio. It sounded just like a bunch of static to me, just like in the ghost documentaries where they try to desperately have some excitement in the episode. I was shocked to suddenly hear a voice coming through the static. It clearly said, “the devil did it,” after one of the investigators asked, “did you die here?” Tears filled my eyes immediately out fear, a weird reaction I always get when watching a scary movie, accompanied by goosebumps. The next audio clip had a voice say; “it’s not over,” not something you wanna hear when you still have to sleep. Scenes of scary movies went through my head and I could already picture figures in mirrors, and little girls playing clapping games.. But that didn’t stop of from wanting to see and hear more! We started watching videos. Orbs randomly moving front of the cameras, mainly in Brett and Darin’s bedroom, which was really freaking Darin out at this point, that was pretty funny. The best was saved for last. A camera had been set up to watch the stairs, where a previous owner of the home had committed suicide. He had put a tarp at the bottom of the stairs and then shot himself. With high anticipation we watched the video. A shadow emerged from the corner, a clearly formed shadow of a person, making its way up the stairs, then stopping and quickly making its way down. All of us screamed in horror watching this, could this be real? We tried to recreate the shadow, but couldn’t. How creepy! Natalie started taking pictures to see if we could catch a glimpse of something ourselves, still not being convinced any of this was real. We watched Natalie’s flash light up and saw an orb in the phone screen quickly making its way down, after which Natalie about crawled in my lap. We were all pretty freaked out and considered all camping in one room. But Darin brought in one of the chickens to lighten the mood.

It worked and thank goodness we got to sleep without any paranormal activity 😉

And summer reading has begun for the kids! That means a new start for sockrockerz shows!! A few days ago, I got ready to head to Nashville and head to Indiana with Natalie. I’d been needing a new tire for my car and thought it’d be smart to get one before making the trip. Walmart quickly put a tire on my car for me and I was ready to hit the road. About 60 miles down the road people started honking at me from all directions.. What in the world now??.. I turned down my music and heard a weird noise, so I took the first exit.. And would you know it, the new tire was completely flat!! I called Walmart right away and told them what happened. They asked me if I bought the warranty, which I never buy. I hung up because there were 3 trucker men standing by my car, I opened the door and they asked if I needed any help. They immediately got to work, the tire was changed to a little donut in a matter of minutes. The 3rd man told me the tire needed air, but money in the air machine and filled it up. I couldn’t be more grateful to them, they weren’t much talk, just did the work and headed on, so nice! I went on to the nearest Walmart, and they told me about a manufacturer warranty that comes with the tire, so the warranty they try to sell you is just total bogus! Don’t fall for it! They said it was a mistake the mechanic made and fixed it. Our trip got delayed a bit, but we made it to the hotel in Auburn, Indiana a bit after midnight.

We spent the next few days in Butler, Auburn, Garrett and Waterloo. They are all cute little towns and the kids were super excited to see us.

Yesterday we had 2 shows followed by a 10 hour drive to Kansas City. As usual I looked for traces of the Amish, but we didn’t see them this time. I guess they don’t live right of the main highway. Around dinner time we stopped to get some food, I was ready for some McDonald’s dollar menu, but Natalie treated me to a delicious pizza dinner at a local place called firefly grill. It was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the garden where they grew the veggies for the restaurant.

We were just a little underdressed.. Everyone was in fancy suits and we looked like we just ran a 10k. After dinner we went back on the road. Since we were driving through Illinois I looked up if we were anywhere close to Pocahontas, the town where Gretchen Wilson grew up. When I was 15/16 I would order her albums online and waited for 2 weeks for them to finally arrive at my doorstep. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to her songs. I was such a big fan that I even bought her book. I was just convinced that I was too, a redneck woman, tho I had no clue what a skoal ring was, nor had a ever seen plastic pink flamingos. After moving here I’ve found out I’m probably not as redneck as I thought I was when I listened to those albums 😉 although a few weeks ago I did drink coffee out of a mason jar. Anyways we drove right through Gretchens town!! Of course we made a stop and I found the sign I had read about.