Saturday, August 12, 2000
The Arcadia Project
Unexplained noises and two ghosts, possibly the orginal partners of the saw mill built on the site.
“Two men. One video camera. No map. No compass. Welcome to the Arcadia Project.”
Me, on video tape at the start of our visit to the Arcadia Archeological Project.
Several miles east of Pensacola is Milton, the location of the next site, the Arcadia Archeological Project. Looking at a local map we were able to make sense of the directions given and in the late afternoon found ourselves driving through an upscale neighborhood to a deadend.
The information given stated that appointments were required before visiting the site but both Kurt and I laughed—nothing could keep us from our appointed rounds, neither rain, nor sleet nor dark of night (well, actually, dark of night might have kept us from our appointed rounds). I parked the car next to two others there.
We walked down a trail to a T-intersection. Off to the left we could hear several people so we did something you're never supposed to do in such situations—we split the group. Kurt headed off towards the left down the path, and I headed down a boardwalk towards the right.
The boardwalk appeared to be more of a nature trail than something that leads off to an acheological dig of a potentially haunted site. Several hundred yards later the boardwalk ended, but a trail carried on. I stepped off the boardwalk, stepped around the barricade at the end and carried on. A dozen yards later I came to a set of wooden stairs, obviously older than the boardwalk behind me. I carefully made my way down the stairs, along a short walk and up some stairs leading to a ridge. From the ridge two trails snaked off through the woods and I started walking down the one to the right for a few yards before thinking better of it.
Walking back I ran into Kurt. He talked to the other people down his path and they informed him that the mill we were seeking was the other direction; the direction I picked. So we crossed back to the ridge and picked one of the paths. Each time I mentioned the current situation is similar to the Blair Witch Project Kurt would have nothing of it. Eventually we ended up on the street we came in on. Instead of walking back through the forest we walked down the street back to my car.
At the car we finally noticed a mill-like structure off to one side. Upon investigation it seemed too new—too recent to be the actual mill. We figured it must be a recreation of the mill. We then went back along the nature path to see if we could find the archeological site. We were headed towards the end of the boardwalk.
“Wait a second!” Kurt said.
“What?”
“We're looking for a mill! It won't be back in the forest. It'll be along the creek here.” He slapped his forhead. “I should have realized that.”
“Oh,” I said. “You're right.” I didn't think of that either.
Then we examined the ridge just past the end of the boardwalk. There were several stone formations that looked manmade but weathered, and covered in dirt and moss. Kurt was certain we found the foundation of the mill and the evidence was pretty compelling.
I took extensive photographs of the rock formations to bring back to our friend Tom the architect. We'll see what he has to say about them.
We then walked back along the boardwalk and took the path Kurt took earlier. This was a path, not a boardwalk but it lead to a suspention bridge made of wood planks suspended by rope strung across the creek. There were three people, two men and one girl, swimming in the stream. We exchanged hellos as we crossed and it became apparent that this was simply a nature walk as the trail lead away from the creek into the forest. We doubled back, crossed the bridge, took a side path that parelleled the creek for a score of yards then turned back towards the car.
Again, no paranormal phenomenon manefested itself in the area.
Since it was still fairly early, we decided to drive to Jacksonville on the east coast of Florida that night.
![[The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades]](https://www.conman.org/people/spc/about/2023/1023.t.jpg "The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades")