Sunday morning November 30, 2025 began when my photographer’s alarm rang at 6:00am in the Presidential Suite on the third floor of the historic Windsor Hotel in downtown Americus, Georgia. Although the room remained very quiet after Tom’s three o’clock encounter with what I believed may have been a paranormal entity, I knew my cameraman had trouble returning back to ‘Slumber Land’ after the incident. While the room was too dark for me to see him very well, I heard Tom toss and turn for the last three hours of the night.
Once he was out of bed on that Sunday morning, it was obvious my photographer wasn’t well rested as he appeared to be a bit slower than usual. But after he dumped the Kardashian’s off at the pool without another paranormal visitation, he was ready to take on another day in Georgia. The bounce was back in his step, and that was likely because there were still a couple of Presidential sites he wanted to see at the hotel. And the news got even better when Tom mentioned to his wife there was an additional Presidential site he wanted to visit in Americus as well, and it was high on his list of priorities that morning. As far as Vicki’s list – her top priority was finding a place that served bagels and cream cheese.
While Tom and the Vickster packed up their stuff, I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not Jimmy Carter or his wife, Rosalynn, had ever experienced anything unusual in that suite. Did the President get up in the middle of the night and hear the same noise Tom and I heard at three o’clock? Maybe, maybe not.
While the President had never publicly admitted to seeing a ghost, he did report witnessing a UFO in 1969 with a dozen other people outside a Lions Club Meeting in Leary, Georgia, which is roughly 40 miles South of Plains. When Carter was running for President in 1976 and the subject of his ’69 UFO sighting came up, he said, “One thing’s for sure, I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become President, I’ll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists.” Despite his earlier pledge, however, ‘Honest Jimmy’ distanced himself from disclosure after being elected President, citing “defense implications” as being behind his decision.
Tom carried me outside into the last day of November’s cool morning air where I posed with the Sun-drenched Windsor Hotel behind me. At one point, I stood near the entrance to the historic hotel – which was the same entrance where Jimmy Carter cut the ribbon during the Grand Re-Opening ceremony held on June 15, 2010.
Once our outside images were finished, the two of us went back inside the enormous building where my photographer didn’t waste any time carrying me into the Grand Dining Room. It was in that huge, elaborate room where President Carter and his wife had dined in November 2002. While that large dining facility wasn’t open during our previous night’s self-guided tour of the hotel, it was open for business on that Sunday morning. As a matter of fact, the friendly Maître d’ showed Tom where Jimmy and Rosalynn had dined during their ’02 visit.
But since Jimmy Carter wasn’t the only President who visited the Windsor Hotel, my photographer and I wanted to find the areas where Franklin D. Roosevelt hung out during his stay in Americus. While the Roosevelt Boardroom was closed to visitors, at least during our visit, Tom and I were able to access the balcony adjacent to the boardroom where FDR addressed the Chamber of Commerce in February 1928; which was about a year before Roosvelt became Governor of New York and five years before he moved into the White House.
As soon as Tom and I finished our early morning self-guided tour of the Windsor Hotel, the two of us returned to the Presidential Suite where we met up with Vicki. While I watched my photographer load up the luggage cart and then guide it through the hallway to the third-floor elevator, I wondered if we’d catch a last-minute glimpse of Emily and her daughter Emma Mae near the area where they met their demise in the early 1900s. Or would Floyd Lowry, the 77-year-old bellhop who died in 1982, make an unexpected appearance to help with the luggage? Unfortunately, none of that happened. Perhaps the ghostly trio were recovering from shock after their three o’clock visit to the bathroom of the Carter Presidential Suite.
Outside of the historic Windsor Hotel, Vicki went on a mission – a mission to find bagels. After a passerby mentioned the best bagels in town were located four blocks away at the Cafe Campesino Community Coffeehouse, my photographer’s wife was gone faster than a fart in a windstorm. Tom, on the other hand, wasn’t about to walk that far, especially for a bagel. Instead, the two of us took the Jeep and rendezvoused with Vicki at the trendy eatery where we saw her order and then devour an egg and cheese bagel. During the thirty minutes we were inside the cafe, I heard my photographer’s stomach growling. Funny thing was, I don’t think his gut was rumbling due to hunger but instead was growling in anticipation of us visiting another significant Jimmy Carter site in Americus.
Then out of nowhere, Vicki said something that changed our entire morning. My photographer’s wife casually mentioned she had passed an old-looking theater during her four-block hike, and she believed the theater had a connection to Jimmy Carter. When Tom and his wife conducted some quick research while seated inside the cafe, sure enough, Vicki was absolutely right. And the best part of all, that site had several Carter connections and it was just two blocks down the street.
The Rylander Theater originally opened in 1921 as a vaudeville house. By early 1924, the theater also began to feature motion pictures. One of the first movies shown in the historic theater was called Black Oxen, a silent film starring Corinne Griffith and Conway Tearle. In 1945, a young naval ensign named Jimmy Carter brought Rosalynn Smith to the Rylander on their first date – a date that would transform into 77 years of blissful marriage.
On February 4, 1978, President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter returned to the theater in Americus, and they were accompanied by special guests. Those guests were Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and his wife Jehan, and the four were in town to see the movie Star Wars.
Carter once said the Rylander Theater sparked his love for motion pictures and as President, he watched 480 films in the White House Family Theater during his four years in office, making him the most prolific Presidential movie watcher of all-time. The first movie Carter watched in the White House was All the President’s Men, which he saw just two days after his Inauguration on January 20, 1977. Perhaps the most controversial and surprising moment came when Jimmy screened the 1969 movie Midnight Cowboy, which made Carter the first President to watch an X-Rated film in the White House – although its rating had changed to ‘R’ by then.
Once Vicki parked our Jeep in a nearby lot, the three of us headed on foot towards the Rylander Theater. From in front of the theater, the place looked incredible, and it brought back a true sense of nostalgia from bygone years. But the theater’s history traveled along a very uncertain pathway to the present day. After the Rylander closed its doors for good in 1951, the future of the historic showplace didn’t look good as the theater fell into a state of disrepair and decay. After sitting vacant for 48 years, the theater was renovated and re-opened on Jimmy Carter’s 75th birthday on October 1, 1999. After the former President used his Naval Academy saber to cut a giant birthday cake, a reception in the newly named Jimmy Carter Auditorium followed. That birthday bash was also attended by Mickey and Minnie Mouse, ABC News Anchor Sam Donaldson, and musical artists The McGuire Sisters, Lynn Anderson, and Pat Boone.
At one point, as I posed for photos in front of the historic Rylander, I noticed the sidewalk in front of the theater featured a countless number of hexagon-shaped brick pavers embedded into the sidewalk. Each of the pavers sported a plaque, along with handprints and a signature of someone who was elected to the Americus Walk of Fame. For a brief moment, I thought I was standing in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood – however, John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe’s handprints had been replaced by those of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter.
For the three of us, the Rylander Theater was the hidden gem of the trip. It was one of those historic sites that my photographer didn’t know about prior to the trip, but fate or a Divine entity seemingly guided us there. In fact, had Vicki not walked to Cafe Campesino and had driven the Jeep instead, there’s no way we would’ve known about the theater or its connection to President Carter – and that would have been a tragedy for both Tom and me.
I noticed there was a bounce in Tom’s giddy up as he carried me from the front of the Rylander back to the Jeep. I was equally as excited, but mostly because I was able to envision young Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Smith as they walked out of the historic theater in 1945. Their first date at the Rylander was a moment made in heaven for the young couple from Plains. And our unexpected moment at the Rylander eighty years later seemed to be heavenly made as well. Okay, it was likely made of eggs and cheese slapped into the center of a bagel.
Our last Carter site in Americus was located about one-and-a-half miles Southwest of the Rylander Theater. As soon as Vicki dropped Tom and me off in front of the huge, four-story building, however, I immediately knew the ambience at this site was going to be a lot different than it was at the hotel and theater. While the other two sites were ones filled with the better times in the life of Jimmy Carter, the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center building in front of me was where the President endured some of his most difficult and challenging times.
The Phoebe Sumter opened as a modern medical facility in 2011 after an EF-3 tornado destroyed the Sumter Regional Hospital in Americus four years earlier. Over the past 14 years, the medical facility was where the former President received his primary care and treatment for everything that ailed the aging Chief Executive. Everything except the metastatic melanoma that had spread to Carter’s liver and brain in 2015, which was successfully treated at the Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta. On February 18, 2023, President Jimmy Carter entered hospice care at Phoebe Sumter and was cared for at his home for the rest of his life, which ended on December 29, 2024.
Following his death at the age of 100 years, the body of the 39th President was transported from his home in Plains to the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center where it was placed in his casket for the week-long State Funeral events and ultimate burial.
At 10:15am on January 4, 2025, the nation watched as the flag-draped casket of President Jimmy Carter was carried through the front doors of the Phoebe Sumter by his dedicated Secret Service staff and placed in the awaiting hearse. Hundreds of people lined the roadway as the hearse left the facility and headed for the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Home before it made its final stop of the day at the Presidential Library in Atlanta.
As I stood near the entrance to the medical center, the beginning of President Carter’s State Funeral came to life before my painted eyes. It was easy to envision the nine Secret Service agents walk past me; the same agents who guarded Jimmy Carter during his long life and were there to protect and escort him in death.
Our tribute to President Jimmy Carter was finished in Americus, as well as in his hometown of Plains. It had been a visit filled with emotion and memories of a great man who lived an incredible life. But at roughly 10:30am, the three of us were headed North with the goal of visiting the State Capitol Building in Atlanta. While there, Tom planned on having me pose near the spot where the hearse carrying President Carter’s coffin had paused on its way to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library on January 4, 2025.
When the funeral procession left the medical center in Americus, it traveled West and paused for a tribute at the Jimmy Carter Boyhood Farm near the community of Archery, Georgia. But since we had already visited that historic farm the previous day, the three of us headed North along the backroads until we reached Interstate 75 just outside of Chappel, Georgia. During that entire drive, however, the three of us kept an eye on the weather as the sky in front of us was growing darker with every mile we put behind us.
While the threat of rain was becoming an issue, the traffic was growing heavier as we neared Atlanta as well. As the cloud cover appeared ready to burst at any second, I heard Tom say to his wife, “If it’s raining by the time we get into Atlanta, I’m going to abort the plans to visit the Capitol, and we’ll head directly to the Bigfoot Museum instead. I don’t want to get my camera equipment wet, especially since the Capitol Building isn’t even open today. We’ll visit the Capitol on our next time through Atlanta, which will likely happen whenever the National Park Service opens up the Jimmy Carter House to the public.”
Those words were no more out of my photographer’s mouth when it began to rain. To make matters worse, Tom’s Siri GPS System indicated a horrendous traffic jam near downtown Atlanta. The moment we had reached the I-285 loop that took traffic around Atlanta, Tom officially pulled the plug on our visit to the Capitol Building. Instead, we were on our way to visit Sasquatch.
Expedition Bigfoot was our new destination, and it’s billed as a museum dedicated to the elusive Sasquatch, along with its cousins, the Himalayan Yeti and Florida Skunk Ape. The 4,000-square foot museum opened in 2016 and is owned by BFRO (Bigfoot Field Researcher Organization) member David Bakara and his wife Malinda. The pair founded the museum near the town of Cherry Log, which is roughly 90 miles North of Atlanta. The Bakara’s chose that area because of the numerous Squatch sightings over the years in the Northern Georgia Appalachian Mountains.
While the sky was still overcast when we arrived at the museum around 3:10pm, my photographer was happy the rain had stopped as he wanted to snap a couple of images near the exterior of the building. But as Tom and I were ready to step out of the Jeep, Vicki said she wasn’t going to pay nine dollars to see “the same shit I saw in Oregon during our trip in July.” I laughed to myself when my photographer added fuel to the fire by mentioning there would be more exciting things to see in that Bigfoot Museum than she saw at The Found Cottage in Hudsonville, Michigan. But nothing Tom said mattered and Vicki remained steadfast in her decision to remain in the vehicle.
It didn’t take long after Tom paid the nine-dollar entry fee before the two of us realized how many more exhibits were in this museum compared to the North American Bigfoot Center in Boring, Oregon. As my photographer carried me around from room to room where he set me on a few of the artifacts that were on display, the legend of Sasquatch began to once again come to life before my painted eyes.
The 45 minutes Tom and I spent inside the Expedition Bigfoot museum was money well spent, at least in our minds. We saw a countless number of original castings of alleged Squatch footprints; an active DNA lab where scientists are able to test samples of hair, turds, or other items that may have been touched by Bigfoot; an actual footprint cast of a Himalayan Yeti that was collected by Josh Gates of Expedition Unknown fame; and perhaps the strangest of all, a giant skull of a primate that may or may not have been related to Sasquatch that was found in a Mexican cave in the early 1900s.
Whether you believe in Sasquatch or not, please take a moment and check out the images my photographer captured inside Expedition Bigfoot. Perhaps you’ll be singing the Monkees song ‘I’m a Believer’ when you’re finished!
After our tour of the Bigfoot Museum had concluded and we had gotten our “Squatch Fix” for the trip, Tom and I returned to the Jeep where Vicki had been patiently waiting for us. From the parking lot, my two companions went to work on finding a suitable place to spend the night in nearby Blue Ridge, Georgia. Although some of the hotels in the area were quite expensive, Tom and Vicki decided the price was right and the reviews were great at a place called the Reid Ridge Lodge, which was located just north of downtown Blue Ridge.
But since it was just after four o’clock in the afternoon and my two companions were hungry, they decided it was time to dine on some Chinese cuisine before going to the hotel. Luckily for both of them, there was a Chinese Restaurant called Tin Loong, and it was located almost in the shadow of the Reid Ridge Lodge.
Once inside and seated, Tom ordered his usual meal of pepper steak, fried rice, egg roll, and wonton soup. Vicki, on the other hand, went with the sweet and sour chicken meal. My photographer always compares the pepper steak he orders from an out-of-town restaurant to the food that’s prepared by the Dragon Wok in downtown St. Clair or the homemade pepper steak dish he puts together. After his first few bites of pepper steak at Tin Loong, Tom told his wife this food was very good. Then he added it wasn’t quite as tasty as his own pepper steak, but it was comparable with the food from the Dragon Wok.
But then it happened – shortly after my photographer devoured his fortune cookie, the Chinese server came to our table to grab the credit card my photographer was using to pay for the meals. As the server reached for the card, Tom said to the guy in a straight face, “You’re not going to believe this, but my fortune cookie said, ‘Today is lucky day, your meal is free!'”
At first, the server had a stunned look on his face, almost as though someone had punched him in the stomach. Then he began to laugh hysterically, as did my photographer’s wife. The guy said, “Good one, I remember that one”, and he walked away with Tom’s credit card – laughing all the way until he vanished from view. When the poor bastard returned to our table, he still had a huge smile on his face and was still chuckling. As the three of us walked out of the restaurant, Vicki said to her husband, “Sometimes I don’t know what’s rolling around inside that head of yours, but that was funny. That poor Chinese guy didn’t know whether to shit or wind his watch. The look on his face was priceless.”
After the laughter had died down, the three of us were in the Jeep and on our way to the Reid Ridge Lodge. But as soon as Vicki pulled into the motel’s parking lot, I knew something didn’t seem right. The entire lot was empty, and it was nearly five-thirty in the early evening. It was obvious to me that Tom and his wife were concerned as well, but my photographer blew off the apprehension by saying, “Well, we are in the middle of nowhere and it’s almost December. It’s not the prime time of year to be doing anything in this area.”
My photographer unloaded the gear onto a luggage cart while his wife registered in the vacant lobby. From the exterior, the Reid Ridge Lodge looked nice and cozy, and well kempt. But that was all about to slide downhill once we made the pilgrimage to our second-floor room.
Once inside the wood-paneled room, which reminded me of a hunting cabin, Tom placed me next to the television set where he immediately tried to watch the Sunday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and Washington Commanders. Not only did the remote not work properly, but once my photographer was able to get the TV turned on, the live NFL game was nowhere to be found. It turned out the motel had a streaming option on the television and only a small handful of stations were available – and NBC’s Sunday Night Football was not one of them.
If the TV fiasco wasn’t enough to anger my COBS infested camera guy, that changed when I watched him walk into the bathroom. A second or two later, Tom emerged with the toilet lid in his hand. My photographer told his wife as he lifted the lid, the darn thing fell to the floor because it wasn’t attached to anything. The first thing that came to my warped resin mind was the lid was blown off from all the Chinese food Tom had eaten.
My two companions discovered a few additional things that were in need of attention in the room, but they were too tired to pack up and move to a different room. Before she fell asleep, I heard Vicki say, “I don’t know who left those reviews for this place, but those folks must’ve been on drugs. One thing’s for certain; the review I write in the morning won’t leave anything to the imagination.”
For over two hours, I watched as my photographer attempted to get the television set to work properly, but his efforts went by the wayside. At one point, he became so frustrated, I thought the remote might be hurled through the dirty window. But fortunately, Tom kept his composure and turned out the lights at roughly 8:20pm. But even that small task became an effort as the switch was broken, which forced my cameraman to unplug the light to turn it off. In my mind, the only thing missing in our room was Arnold Ziffel from the Green Acres television show.
For the remainder of the night, I stood alone in the darkness with only my vivid imagination to keep me company. And after spending nearly an hour in the Bigfoot Museum a few miles South of town, I couldn’t help but think about that tall, hairy, stinking critter with the huge bare feet – the elusive beast known as Sasquatch.
I wasn’t concerned at all of being a potential witness to a Squatch encounter in Blue Ridge, Georgia. Not in the least. One reason was because I figured a Bigfoot wouldn’t come anywhere near our fleabag hotel for fear of catching something; plus, I also knew we were thousands of miles from the Pacific Northwest and the epicenter of Squatch activity. In my mind, the Devil may have went down to Georgia, but the Sasquatch stayed in Washington.
Boy, I couldn’t have been more mistaken! It turned out there have been a little over 140 sightings of the elusive creature reported to the BFRO over the years. Those 140 reports of a Squatch were just the ones in the Peach State, and for the most part, the majority of the sightings came from the more mountainous region in the Appalachians, which was exactly where we were situated.
The latest report of a Bigfoot in Georgia, however, came on October 28, 2025, which was only a month earlier. Fortunately for us, that credible sighting originated in Folkston along the Florida-Georgia line, which was just North of Jacksonville and a long way from where we were staying.
Does Bigfoot really exist? What about the Yeti or the Skunk Ape? One thing was for certain – I’m a Believer!
