Homage to the mansion

A couple Sundays ago my brother, Ryan, texted me the sad news that the Pima Mansion had burnt down. I was pretty bummed, the place was awesome and I have so many fun memories associated with it. To update those of you who are going "The what Mansion?", it's this old mansion that was built over a hundred years ago. I know, that still means nothing to you. Well, it's this place close to EA (the college me and Garrick went to our 1st 2 years) that all the college kids would sneak onto. It was this old mansion with all these natural hot tubs around it and even a huge olympic size pool that was filled with hot water from the springs and you would have to park far away cuz the grounds were locked and then walk like 1/2 to 3/4 a mile in the pitch black to sneak past the crazy old groundskeeper and get to the fun stuff. Aside from it being fun because it was "dangerous", it was also totally creepy. This picture is of the mansion (pre-burned), but it's funny because I hardly recognized it because I usually saw it as we were sneaking by in the dark. Imagine sneaking past this old huge mansion that was rumored to be haunted in the pitch black night...CREEPY! :) Here's some funny memories I have of the place...
The first time I ever went we got caught, luckily it was by the actual owners of the place who were in from California. They let us go up to one of the smaller hot tubs cuz they were at the big pool. The funny part though was that when they shined the spotlight on us to catch us we all went running and my friend, Carrie, went straight into the barbed wire. She only suffered minor damages luckily... Love ya Carrie! ;) Anyways, that time was also the first time I hung out with Garrick. We walked the whole way back in the dark just talking. Funny thing is though, is that this happened months before we started dating and after we had been dating for a while I put it together that Garrick was that guy I had walked back talking with...I hadn't even remembered it was him! :)
Another funny story is when my high school friend, Nate, came to Thatcher to visit he came with this huge, tough, African-American (gotta keep it politically correct people) track runner. A couple of my friends and I decided it would be fun to let them experience the Mansion, but Nate's friend (I can't remember his name...) was so scared he refused to let go of the flashlight the entire time and I swear he almost peed his pants. We didn't stay long cuz he was so freaked out. It was just too funny because here he was this huge tough guy who was actually a little coward! Haha! I don't blame him though, like I said, the place was CREEPY!
Last story I swear, so me and a group of my friends got caught again! (I never even heard of anybody else getting caught...I wonder what we were doing wrong?) And again, it's by the owners of the mansion! They were laughing and telling us that last time they were visiting they caught a group of kids sneaking on and one of the girls ran into the barbed wire. Then Carrie, who was with us again, raises her hand and bashfully says "That was me..." We all just cracked up and they asked how often we snuck on. We said honestly not that often, we must just have good luck at catching you guys! So anyways, the owners of the place were cool, but they are these total hippie guys who were out looking around the desert for toads so they could lick the poison off their backs and get high--SICK! Maybe that's why they were always so cool with us...they were high. They even filled us in on some of the history of the old place. There were rumors that the Rolling Stones used to own it and stuff like that. They said that the RS never owned it, but that the Mansion was an old celebrity hide out and that they used to come all the time. Pretty cool, eh?
Anyways, sorry to bore you all, but I've been feeling nostalgic about the ol' place since I heard of its demise. It was sad to hear that such a cool and historic place burnt down. Here's all that's left...(thanks for the pic Camille). :) To think of all those poor college kids that won't get to experience sneaking onto the mansion anymore--it brings a tear to my eye (almost).