The Haunted Ghost Tour
Now here's what we're talking about! This is what we call a motherquacking ghost tour. We, pointlessly clad in red fanny pack and Alcatraz t-shirt, blew our tourist cover because we kept running into friends and friends' roommates and waving, and paling noticeably, even in the dark, when the tour got a little too close to our house for comfort. Note: never do a ghost tour in your own neighborhood, unless you are prepared to walk past the same spot at least 3 or 4 times a day, thinking every single time: "Oh yeah, whatev, Charles Manson lived there. Across the street? Yeah, they have a little ghost girl that they buy dolls for. See, you can see them on the mantel. Not frickin' freaky at all. Oh no. What, you don't sleep with the light on too?"
On a chilly Sunday night in front of Coffee to the People, we met our genial tour guide, Tommy, an honest-to-goodness ghost hunter, There were only two of us on the tour, but that didn't phase him. Us, a little at first, but we got over it. And most importantly, he had goodie bags for us. With candy, a book of the tour, and fun goodie bag stuff. Take notes, Chuck and Ingmar, take notes.
SFist Jessica, contributing
The two-hour tour wasn't a moment too long, even with just the three of us. It was informative--a nice balance of ghosts and Haight history, surprisingly creepy, and overall full of ghost tour fun. One of us even won a dvd of scary movies. We don't want to share with you what we learned, because you should go on the tour and learn for yourself. Seriously. That's also why there's no pictures. (And possibly our camera takes crap pictures at night.) So imagine the Haight at night, with ghosts, and a nice (key word: nice) guy leading you around with a laser pointer. And there's candy.
The giant spotlights from the ex-Cala, currently Halloween Superstore, reminded us that even though it is always Halloween-like on this tour, it is actually almost Halloween and as a result, the tour is the most popular in the next two weeks. Definitely don't wait to buy tickets if you're planning to go soon. If you would rather a less crowded, less tied-into-the-current-holiday tour, the least busiest times are in December and January.
Plus, going on this with your out-of-town, or even tourist-leaning friends, saves you the Saturday day trip (or stumble down the street) to the Haight and its sea of slow-moving window shoppers, and after you'll have a few Haight facts up your sleeve, impressing everyone when you show them where Jim Jones' old house is and that you know all about Magnolia Thunderpussy.
Rating: 4 out of 5 trolley (ahem, CABLE) cars
Educational?: Yes, ma'am. We learned so many fascinating things: Cranston buildings, different types of ghosts. We so smart now.
Tourists met: negative 0
Fanny packs worn: Still only one, but still handy. Held the camera that was never used!
Quacking? Too terrified to quack
Nipples flashed: Once again, none. Beginning to think that was a special perk of the duck tour
Secret tunnels under Chinatown mentioned? Nope, and it would have been a little weird
Link to ghost cams from the Haunted Haight tour website
Most memorable quote? When we tried to lie to the tour leader, saying we felt fine when we were supposedly in the presence of a ghost, keeping how we really felt to ourselves, and then he described how some people say they felt, and we in fact did feel the exact way other people commonly describe feeling (how's that for vague? we don't want to spoil anything): "Oh &#@*. Are you kidding me? I'm not walking back past that &#@*in' house again. No way. No &#@* way."