This is where it gets a little weird.

This is all a little strange. But just hear me out....

So....Lily Dale.

Now I'm not one for religion. I don't really care for it as a whole. At the same time, I'm completely cool with whatever anyone out there wants to believe. I'm very open minded to anything and everything.

Lily Dale, NY is a...special place. As the sign below reads, it's "The Worlds Largest Center for the Religion of Spiritualism"

It's located about 60 miles south of Buffalo, NY. I'm from Buffalo, and I had never heard of it until recently....while here in Western Pennsylvania....from Big Man's psychic cousin.

Yep. You heard right.

Now I've always been a little skeptical, but as I previously mentioned, I like to keep an open mind.

Psychic Cousin told Big Man years ago, while he was dating someone else, that he was to have a boy and a girl someday, NOT with the girl he was dating at the time, but rather with someone small in frame, with long brown hair and glasses....

ahem...

.....just saying. Oh, and pardon my double chin.

Pretty freaky.

Any who, I eventually did meet Psychic Cousin, and upon meeting, she looked me dead in the eyes and calmly said, "Yep. It's you." She was in town from California for a quick visit before heading up to Lily Dale, NY for a psychic gathering. She didn't really tell me much. And I was too afraid to ask.

Then last night I came across an HBO documentary on Lily Dale, titled "No One Dies in Lily Dale".

Pretty interesting stuff. I guess it was established in 1879, and has since been the world's largest center for psychics and spiritual mediums....aka "I see dead people."

The town itself appears to be a beautiful place, tucked in the woods along a lake....filled with historic and lovely old victorian homes, each one cuter than the next...

...a place where each meticulously decorated ginger bread house bears a wrought iron sign out front declaring who dwells there....

It's a magical place. Where most of the residents are senior citizens, and travel around to and fro on battery operated golf carts.

A gingerbread house, cute little grandma and grandpa filled place.....where said grandma and grandpa's are able to talk to dead people.

People from all walks of life (uhh...and afterlives) and all religions visit Lily Dale. Mostly for healing. Closure. To hopefully communicate with lost loved ones. And the like.

I've been fortunate enough to not yet have to endure losing a loved one. But I must admit, the whole psychic/medium thing has always intrigued me. I think one of these days, on  our way to Buffalo to visit my side of the family...I might have to make a stop in Lily Dale.