The Mystery Spot

Saturday, the bride and I drove down to Santa Cruz and she said she wanted to bring me to the Mystery Spot. I thought she meant someplace to surprise me but instead, we went to “The Mystery Spot”, touristy place located just inland of Santa Cruz, California. According to legend, it’s a circular area of gravitational anomaly that is 150 feet in diameter. Supposedly, there are changes in gravity, perspective and the direction of magnetic north. I don’t know about the last since I didn’t bring a compass with me, I do remember seeing this place on the travel channel a few years ago. We pulled out of Santa Cruz driving inland on Market Street and there’s a little drive pull off on the left hand side of the road with this sign (the picture is of the back of it)

and a short drive down this spooky little road in the woods


Parking is 5 bucks and 5 dollars per person except if you’re military and it’s totally free (except for the parking, thanks guys)

You get your tickets and get assigned to a group with a form up time and here the guide shows how the height of people change between two places only a couple of feet apart. The tour takes 45 minutes of which the guide spends most of that time trying to confound you. It was fun but I still have trouble believing that there is a spacecraft or magma vortex buried underneath. The wife did feel like she was going to fall over the entire time she was there but in a past life, I was an avid rock climber so sharp slopes are natural. Here are some pictures but you’ll have to make your own judgments over the mystery. It’s fun and easily worth the 5 bucks that they charge and Santa Cruz of "Lost Boys" fame is a beautiful city of which I hope to spend more time of in the future.

The Little Black Bunny of Doom

Going to war has always been a somewhat mythical experience, legends often rise up and just as many are dashed to the ground (well really, mostly just rumors and stories). One such tale I've heard over the last couple years (since 2006) as been of a black bunny who comes out at dusk and goes up to strangers and allows them to pet him. Yeah, right, in the middle of war zone with some sort of howling beasts that live in the waddee a couple hundred feet away and face it, I know that there are some very unfriendly military folk out here. This has to be one of those urban myths that they use on the new guys fresh off the plane, I'm not about to fall for it.

Well I was walking home the other night, the light was at my back and a black blur came up on my left and I froze and looked and along came a little black bunny. He hopped right up to me as friendly as can be and puts his head on my foot. And my hand without asking my brain for permission, reached down and started scratching him behind his ears like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I sat there dumb stuck as the light drained from the day and continued petting him. What do I do now? Who's going to believe me, oh, yeah, me being me, had my trusty camera in my pocket and was able to prove to the non-believers that indeed, there is a friendly black bunny that comes out to be petted in the twilight. I gave him a granola bar from my pocket and went out to share a little bit of the mystery of the bunny with the rest of my Marines. It's not often you get to prove a legend on film.