Soul Real Visits the Bohemian Grove

 Yesterday September 4th I , for the first time, visited the infamous Bohemian Grove in Monte Rio California while on my way home from a vacation. First let me say that the area is absolutely beautiful and we definitely enjoyed our trip there. Now, I have heard rumors about the Bohemian Grove and I was not sure what to think about it. My disagreements about it were based upon various beliefs I hold which are,

• Politicians should not be meeting in secret anywhere
•  if our politicans are there and the media knows about it, they should be obligated to report it to the people
• Politicians should not be meeting with bankers, corporate heads or anybody else who has an interest in lobbying them without there being a full disclosure of what is discussed.

This is my opinion as I believe it is absolutely necessary to keep our elected representatives honest and without the temptation of a political buyout. So, I can say that I disagreed with the Bohemian Club being what it is but still had some skepticism about many of the claims such as the locals not talking about it and the heavy security. Now I am convinced by my experience and let me explain why.

Now, it was easy to find the Bohemian Highway that leads up to the grove because it is on one of the maybe 3 streets in Monte Rio. On our first attempt we ended up turning the wrong way because I had just assumed that it would be down the longer street. When we realized that we made a mistake we returned to Monte Rio. We stopped at a store in town and I decided to check to see how to get there and how far it would be. Since I was going to do that I decided to dig for info from the locals.

The first store I entered was a small market with various items and I asked the lady at the counter if she had ever heard of the Bohemian Grove. She asked me if I meant the Bohemian Highway and I said no, the Bohemian Grove. It is a place where very powerful men attend every year. About that time a young man in his early 30′s came into the store and I noticed that she was a bit nervous that I asked her. She sort of shook her head and then pointed to the guy who was now standing behind me with an item and said to ask him.  He looked at me and I asked, “have you ever heard of a place called the Bohemian Grove”. He sort of said something to the effect of, “um, oh, its like over there somewhere” (pointing). I asked really, “where exactly”? Go across the bridge and take a left on Bohemian Highway and it will dead end down there. I asked “do you know anything about it”? He said, “naw, just that it is over there if you want to find it”. He then cut the conversation off quickly and headed out of the store. The woman behind the counter seemed to be avoiding looking at me after that. I walked out a little disturbed by the encounter but really wanting to find somebody to talk to about it. I went to another store across the street and decided to buy a drink while I was there. I asked a man who did not understand me because he had hearing aids in his ears. I walked over to the counter and asked the guy behind the counter if he had heard of the Bohemian Grove in which he hesitantly said yes. There was a woman to the right of him stocking shelves and she immediately turned in attention to the discussion. I asked him what it was and he said it was just a mens club. I pressed him for more info by playing ignorant and asking if it is someplace you can pay to go in, or if it is open to the public. They then opened up a bit to me a bit and told me that famous people go there once a year. I told them I was considering moving into the area (it is true) and we really like the area. They then began to open up a lot and the guy told me of an encounter a couple of years ago where he and a friend were kayaking down the Russian River and decided to rest on a beach shore. As soon as they pulled there kayaks to the sand a couple of guys came down out of the trees on the ledge with guns and told them to leave immediately or they would be shot. I said NO WAY. They both shook their heads and the woman said “yeah man, all the most powerful men in the world go their. Its really protected”. I asked them what else they knew and they said that they hear rumors but it was obvious that they didn’t want to talk about it anymore. So I asked them how to get there. Then the woman said a couple of suspicious things. Call it the gumshoe in me, but I did find it too strange to ignore. She told me how to get to it, how far you could go before you would be stopped and then said that if I get in to tell her how I did it. I told her that there is no way I am trying. She then told me that she was going to have to research the history of that club someday. Now, what I found suspicious about that is that she at one point was naming attendees of the grove, she knows the date it happens every year, she has “heard rumors” about it, she had lived there much of her life and she never did research on it? He said he had been threatened to be killed and that many others had stories such as that and still, it provoked no interest to research it? She said she could see them flying people in with helicopters every year and if you saw these streets, there is no way you would not notice all the cars going into it. What is the most bizarre is that she knew how far one could make it in before being confronted at a guard booth. Lastly and certainly no least, when we went to find the entrance to the grove, it was less than a half mile down from the bridge. It was like, right there. That whole scenario just seemed weird.

So here we go approaching the grove. My wife is driving and as soon as you get to the property you see no trespassing, private property signs everywhere. It is not unlike my wife to ignore such signs and onto the property we went and I told her we should turn around and get out of there. Before I got the words out of my mouth, here comes a pickup truck hauling ass down an inside area for parking. We were no more than 20 feet in the grove and here comes somebody. As we were driving out onto the main road and back toward town I noticed through the trees that the truck was following us directly to our left. I had not noticed before but the parking lot and Bohemian property extended down the road a bit and it also had private property signs all over. My wife and myself had chills as we watched this truck literally drive directly beside us until the parking area came to an end verifying that we were being scoped because it then turned around and headed back.  FREAKY!

So that was my Bohemian Grove experience and I thought I should share it. The only other thing I have to say is that the town was full of very bizarre people and that gave it sort of a horror movie feeling. All I can say is, I did not expect the experience to be so weird, but it was and it my interest in the topic has been provoked. Don’t be surprised if I do a podcast on it soon.