Haunted in Texas

Thelma & I went to Austin, TX to visit a fellow Phi Omega Sigma pledge sister a few years ago. (We’ll call her Claudine.) When we got there, she had a big, wonderful, exciting surprise for us--an overnight road trip to San Antonio! Woohoo! Let’s repack our bags and get moving! Nothing like a road trip with the girls.

We titled the theme of this Austin trip “Are We There Yet?”. It all started with plane delays because of weather in Dallas. (I refer you back to a previous post: Stuck on a Plane.) Our theme continued as we traveled south by land to San Antonio. The traffic along the stretch from Austin to San Marcos was bumper-to-bumper.

When we finally made it to San Antonio, we found out Claudine had booked a room for us at the historic Menger Hotel. It is adjacent to the Alamo and next to the Riverwalk. Could she have picked a better place??? It wasn’t until we were checking in that Claudine informed us the hotel was said to be haunted. Yes, you read that right HAUNTED. Here, see for yourself here. There were problems with our first room, so Claudine (who is a read head so picture the fiery temper) promptly called the front desk and told them the room was unacceptable, and we were upgraded to a suite. Yay!

Once we switched rooms, we got ready for a night out on the Riverwalk. Before we left for the evening, we turned on a few lamps, so the living room in the suite wouldn’t be dark when we returned. (And, of course to ward off any ghosts that might be lurking about.) Before dinner, we went shopping for a girls’ best friend—SHOES! The previous year we had a girlfriend reunion and all of us bought toe rings. This year it was shoes. And, yes, by the end of our evening walking around the Riverwalk, our feet were killing us. But weren’t our feet cute?!

Upon returning to our suite in the supposed haunted hotel, we found the lamps we had left on had been turned off and the lamps we had left turned off were on. Hmmmm, me thinks we had visitors while we were away. Caaaa-rrrrreeeeepy. Luckily, before we left Claudine’s house that morning we grabbed some of those little sample-sized bottles of wine she had in her refrigerator. We did what any group of FREAKED out girlfriends would do--took that opportunity to crack those bad boys open. While we were sitting there getting tipsy and more paranoid talking, the lights started to flicker. Now, we realize that lights flicker all the time, especially in old buildings. The weird thing about this particular light flickering was that the flickering only happened when our conversation got steered back to the possible ghost in the room. Seriously. It was like the ghost was letting us know he was there in the room with us. As we carried on our conversation, the phone rang (again when we were referencing the possible paranormal activity). When we answered it, no one was on the other end (Claudine said she could hear breathing). At this point, we had convinced ourselves a ghost was among us. (And the wine might have been making was even more sure of that.) If one of us had to go to the bathroom, we all went. We didn’t want to be alone. In fact we had this huge suite to stay in, and we all three slept in the same bed that night. Yes, picture it. Three grown women in one bed. I have to laugh when I think back on it.

So, is the Menger Hotel really haunted? We really don’t know. We might have been creating it all in our heads; you know how girlfriends are when they get together. And I don’t really even know if I believe ghosts exist. But even I have to admit there is the possibility that we had visitors that night. Ahhhh, never a dull moment with Thelma around. Love her!