See The World’s Longest Snake And A Live Gator At America’s Scariest Haunted House

by Dave Seminara on

There are thousands of haunted house attractions that open up in cities around the country each year around this time but there’s only one place where you can see the world’s longest snake in captivity, nearly get your leg chomped off by a live alligator and slide five stories from heaven to purgatory to hell. Kansas City’s “The Edge of Hell” claims to be the country’s oldest commercial haunted attraction and some think that it, and its sister attraction, “The Beast,” are the scariest haunted houses in the nation.

When I saw a photo of Medusa, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest snake in captivity, I had to find out more about her and the other attractions at this place. I spoke to Amber Arnett-Bequeaith, whose family owns “The Edge of Hell,” about Medua, Clamp the Alligator and why people still love haunted houses.

How old is Medusa?

She’s 8. We got her as a baby; she was tiny. She weighs over 350 pounds. It takes 15-18 people to get her out and hold her.

Why would you want to do that?

She likes to go for walks in the park sometimes. Only in the summer when it’s very warm. And we get her out for media events. She has a lifestyle cage where she lives in the offseason and she’s in “The Edge of Hell” show during the season.

A lifestyle cage?

(Laughs) She has her own slide. “The Edge of Hell” has a five-story slide where you go from heaven to hell. She has her own slide where she goes down to swim. She loves swimming and she likes to climb trees at the park.

You bring a 25-foot-long snake and let her slither around in public parks? Is that legal?

It’s not a public park; it’s a private area.

What kind of snake is she?

She’s a reticulated python.

Did you have any idea how big she’d get?

No. In captivity, snakes don’t usually eat regularly. But she wants to eat all the time. She’s very hungry. She loves to eat.

How big is she?

Twenty-five feet, two inches.

What does she eat?

She still eats rabbits, but they’re really small for her so she might have to eat 7 or 8 of them at a time. She’s graduated up to eating hogs, goats, deer. She really likes raccoons too.

Hogs, goats and deer? You drag an entire dead deer or hog into her cage for to eat?

No. Constrictors have to kill it themselves, otherwise they won’t eat it. We buy her organic hogs and organic food.

So you put the live animal inside the cage and just let her go at it? That sounds grisly, do you watch this unfold?

The trainer stays in there to make sure she doesn’t choke.

What’s he going to do, give her the Heimlich maneuver?

That’s what we always joke. I don’t know what he would do. Our trainer was made unconscious by a snake before. He passed out before he even knew he was in trouble. His wife saved him.

So does Medusa eat an entire hog or deer in one sitting?

Constrictors swallow hole, so she can’t eat half and save the rest for later. They don’t bite that way. She has to eat it all in one sitting and the lump moves down through her body.

How large an animal can she swallow?

She usually eats 50-75 pounds at a sitting. She needs at least a 50-pound meal about once a month, sometimes more.

And does she snack in between?

No. She just has the one big meal.

Where does she come from?

She comes from the Sulawesi Islands in Indonesia. The trainer bought her on the Internet, but you can’t do that any more.

She doesn’t just slither around the haunted house free does she?

I don’t know, you’ll have to come to the show (laughs). No, she has her own cage at “The Edge of Hell” and we’re open two months out of the year. Her cage is probably 20-by-20, but we’ll have to expand it next year because she’s getting too big for it.

How did she get big enough to make it into Guinness?

A combination of her eating habits and genes. Also, she’s very happy and just loves to eat.

Tell me about “The Edge of Hell.”

“The Edge of Hell” is the oldest commercial haunted attraction in the U.S. It opened in 1975 and this is our 38th season. It’s a family business. Before we did “The Edge of Hell,” we did one called “The Chambers of Edgar Allan Poe.” It got rave reviews and the next year we purchased the building and opened “The Edge of Hell.”

Is Medusa one of the things people like to see the most?

She’s something people look for. We study the psychology of fear. Every person scares differently and has their own adrenaline reaction to things. “The Edge of Hell” is a five-story warehouse building. The premise is that if you live on the edge, you’ll encounter these sorts of demons – rats, snakes, the hounds of hell, vampires. You get a glimpse of heaven, but unfortunately you made too many bad choices and you go to purgatory down the five-story slide and end up in hell. People gaze at her; she’s a beautiful beast. Mesmerizing.

Does she scare the crap out of people?

She does just by capturing their gaze.

Has she bitten anyone?

Oh no. I was bitten by a black snake when I was young but I still don’t have the snake phobia that others do. Sometimes she isn’t in a good mood when we get her out though. She gets nervous and has to go to the bathroom when people are taking pictures of her. But she’s very loving toward her trainer, Larry Elgar.

Is this something everyone likes to do at Halloween time, visit a haunted house?

It is. Especially here in Kansas City, with us being the oldest, and “The Beast” is really the best haunted attraction in the U.S. And we have “The Chambers of Edgar Allen Poe” and “The Macabre Cinema” and those are 501 3c’s for a local charity called the Dream Factory.

What’s “The Beast”?


“The Beast” is patterned around time travel. You go into a Southern Louisiana mansion; you enter into a swamp where we have a live alligator. His name is Clamp. You look at this live alligator and proceed into the swamp and an animatronic alligator snaps at your leg. And then you go down a shoot slide to Jack Ripper’s London, and you’re in a pub.
And the werewolf forest is a quarter acre in size and over 10,000 square feet. In the old days, people looked over rails into attractions; we pioneered the open theme where you are inside the attractions. In “The Beast,” it’s all about the phobia of being lost. There are people who are in the werewolf forest for 45 minutes and can’t find their way out.

Tell me about Clamp.

He’s growing like a weed. We’ve had him since he was tiny. Now he’s 8 feet long. He’s very fond of chicken.

You throw him live chickens or give him breasts?

He likes all chicken parts. We don’t feed him anything live.

And how often does he eat?

He prefers to be fed regularly – every week. But Larry doesn’t worry about him choking on anything like he does Medusa. That’s his love.

And what does he do in the offseason?

He has a lifestyle cage as well but he’s a real bear about being transported. We have to wrap his mouth but he likes to swat around a lot. He’s funny like that.

[Photos courtesy of “The Edge of Hell” and Kevin Scott Ramos, Guinness Book of World Records]

Roadside America: Drinkin’ Moonshine In The Cornfields Of Culpeper, Virginia

by Libby Zay on

Chuck Miller not only speaks in the same Southern twang as Jed Clampett from “The Beverly Hillbillies,” but he kind of looks like him, too. Dressed in a straw cowboy hat and a button-up shirt tucked into his jeans, the silver mustachioed farmer’s destiny, however, didn’t lie in black gold – instead it was in corn whiskey.

Along with his wife Jeanette, Miller owns Belmont Farm Distillery, where he produces a true American spirit: moonshine. The homemade corn whiskey is made in the Appalachian tradition using a recipe passed down from his grandfather, a real bootlegger who supplied thirsty flappers with the drink during Prohibition.

Unlike his grandfather, however, Miller’s moonshine is legal. It’s even sold in Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) stores throughout Virginia. Even better, this concoction is as straight-from-the-source as you can get; every single ingredient in the hooch is grown right on the Miller’s 189-acre farm. Even the leftovers are used to feed the livestock at the farm, which is why Miller explained they have very “happy cows.”

“We make it all the way from scratch, and we use the old time methods,” explained Miller, the master moonshine distiller.

Even though you can purchase Miller’s corn whiskey in stores throughout the country (and in some cases abroad), one can only get a true taste for the spirit by visiting the distillery, which lies off a dusty road about 15 minutes from downtown Culpeper, Virginia.

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The couple’s distillery sits in the middle of a cornfield and was built using the remains of a church that burned down in the 1960s. The only leftover evidence of the building’s former incarnation is a pair of peaked doors that lead to the gift shop and the start of a distillery tour, which is open to anyone who passes by.

If your lucky, Miller himself will lead you on the tour. As you wind your way through the tiny distillery, he’ll spout off facts about the Prohibition-era copper pot he uses and allow you to take a big whiff of the drink as it’s being made (if you can handle it, that is). You’ll also understand why this drink became known as “white lighting,” a nickname given because it’s bottled straight from the still without any aging. This method was developed so that bootleggers – including Miller’s grandfather – would be able to produce the spirit quickly.

But just because Miller’s moonshine is made quickly doesn’t mean it’s made with any less expertise or enthusiasm, a fact that becomes immediately clear within moments of stepping into the distillery. Miller himself has encyclopedic knowledge of the drink.

“The first time corn whiskey was ever made was in 1612 at the Jamestown Colony,” explained Miller as he bounced around from machine to machine. “The settlers had the technology, and the Indians had the corn.”

As you’ll see on the tour, the resulting spirit is clear like a vodka and although it smells a bit like rubbing alcohol, it goes down smoother than many other whiskies. And even though the drink is technically a whiskey, this is one place that you won’t find on the American Whiskey Trail.

“We asked to be on the Whiskey Trail, but they didn’t think moonshine was suitable,” said Miller with a smile. “So if you see any of those Whiskey Trail people you tell them they’re missing a big thing!”

Tours of Belmont Farm Distillery are offered Tuesday through Saturday from April 1 through December 24. Groups of 12 or less depart every 15 minutes.

[Photo by Libby Zay]

Roadside America: Marietta, Ohio

by Elizabeth Seward on

Marietta, Ohio, is your quintessential small town. With a population that wavers around 15,000 and a little liberal arts college, Marietta College, nested within the downtown perimeters, Marietta is a quiet escape, especially for those spending time in the relatively larger nearby cities of Columbus, Pittsburgh or Cleveland.

As the first permanent American settlement in the Northwest Territory, history often guides the sightseeing in Marietta. Established in 1788, reflections on Marietta made by famous historical figures are readily recited by schoolteachers. President George Washington remarked on the beauty he had seen in this area in 1788 when he said, “No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum … If I was a young man, just preparing to begin the world, or if advanced in life and had a family to make provision for, I know of no country where I should rather fix my habitation …” Benjamin Franklin acknowledged Marietta’s beauty a year earlier though and said, “I have never seen a grander river in all my life.” But Marietta’s historical intrigues extend beyond the settling of the area for the Northwest Territory.The Native Americans, primarily Shawnee, were settled in the region of Marietta prior to 1788. The large, still-standing burial mound, which is the oldest west of the Appalachians, is erected in the middle of Mound Cemetery. Many Revolutionary Soldiers, including Rufus Putnam, are buried within the cemetery. Mound Cemetery is now a must-see attraction when visiting Marietta, but the town’s attractions aren’t limited to the history books.

Marietta was built at the confluence of two rivers, the Ohio and the Muskingum. The town is nestled into the Appalachians and so if Ohio makes you think of flat cornfields as far as the eye can see, you’re not thinking of Marietta. Just across the river is West Virginia and like West Virginia, Marietta is marked by the dramatic slopes of the hills. Because of the rivers and the low mountains, Marietta is a great destination for outdoors enthusiasts. Whether you’re hiking, biking, or water-skiing, it’s nice to be outside in Marietta. But the town is also recommended for those who are drawn to antiques and haunted tours. There are a few good restaurants and bars in town and a strong arts community that keeps the town interesting with concerts and art walks, among other activities.

If you manage to make it to Marietta, here are some recommendations from a person who grew up there (me).

The Lafayette Hotel
The Brewery
The Adelphia Music Hall
Rinks Flea Market
Downtown Shopping
Sternwheel Festival

[flickr image via gb_packards]

Exploring Zion National Park In Autumn

by Jessica Festa on




As summer nears its end and fall is just upon the horizon, travelers are beginning to think about where to go to check out vibrant autumn foliage. One recommendation I have is to visit Utah’s oldest national park, Zion.

The end of September is usually when the temperature begins to drop to a more bearable number in the 70s. Luckily, it’s also when the flowers turn a rainbow of colors and the already beautiful park is enhanced with bright hues of purple, red, green, orange, yellow, blue and pink. If you want the best views of changing shades, hike to the higher areas where the colors tend to change first. It’ll also reward you with a more encompassing view of the park. Think about starting in Springdale, skipping the highway, and taking the SR 9 to Virgin, then up to Kolob Terrace Road, viewing every layer of the mountains, canyons, forests and rivers until you reach over 7,500 feet.

For a visual idea of autumn in Zion, check out the gallery below.

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[Images via Shutterstock]