Lost on a Haunted Farm

I guess a lot of towns have their own ghost stories or urban tales, my town had Old Man Mcdaniel's farm. The story I remember is that you would drive to the farm at night (with a car full of teenagers of course), park you car on the bridge, and turn off the headlights (maybe you also sprinkled flour or baby powder on your hood), when you turned your headlights back on, there would be hand prints all over the car. I never did it. I like telling ghost stories but honestly that kind of stuff freaks me out. Several years ago, the Mcdaniel farm became a park.

I was struggling to pick a place to run this weekend when I came across a race at Mcdaniel Farm Park. As silly as it was, I was very hesitant to sign up for it...but I did. As I was driving into the park I felt very uneasy.There were only about 10 cars in the parking lot. I wasn't really sure if that should make me feel more or less comfortable. For a second, I thought I was in the wrong place but I saw a sign that said "Race Saturday". So I started to look and ask around. An older couple that rushed to their car explained that we were at the wrong parking lot.

So I jumped in the car and followed them. They made a couple left hand turns and ended up at a car dealership. They were lost. I told them that I could kind of picture another entrance off of 120. But then we got separated by traffic lights. I turned this way and that way and ended up where I started (I later realized I turned 1 block too soon). At this point the race had already started but I decided to go back to the first parking lot and just run around until I found the race. The older couple had decided the same thing.

We were all super annoyed. Why was the race sign even in the parking lot? The man started walking their dog, while the woman and I jogged together. We found the race about 3/4 of a mile into the park. I complained to a poor volunteer and to the race director.  The race director explained that they sent out an email with directions but it went out before I had even signed up for the race. He also said, that due to all of the confusion he would not hold another race at that location.

Although I understood that it was not the race directors fault, I was still really annoyed. The director suggested that I go ahead and run the course but I didn't want to. I was suborn. I didn't want to start late, finish late, and not have any race support. But that was stupid. I wasn't that late...but anyway, I put my number on and ran the opposite direction of the race. Because the course kind of looped around, I passed the same runners at least 3 times, finally I shouted that I wasn't trying to confuse them. One woman laughed and said that I was confusing her.

At some point I took a wrong turn and got lost. I kept coming back to the same starting point. I asked a woman how to get back to the parking lot and she pointed to the direction I had just come from! I guess I have listened to too many scary podcasts recently because I got creeped out. At some point I ran into the older woman. She said she had gotten lost twice and couldn't find her husband.  I found the parking lot shortly after I saw her. All in all, I did about 3 miles.

The park still creeps me out a little BUT it is really beautiful.

Oh and I googled "McDaniel Farm Haunted", I didn't find anything talking about the bridge but I did find a story about a women that rented a house on the property before it became a park. She said doors opened and closed on their own and their were sounds of children running down the hallways at night....