My husband had to go to Savannah last week for work. Since it was Father’s Day weekend, we decided we’d all go and make it a mini-vacation. I love Savannah. It’s a very historic city with tons to do, both kid-friendly and adult-focused. Because ALL of our vacations are geared around kid-friendly activity, I decided that we were going to do just ONE thing that didn’t involve cartoon characters/blow-up jumpy things/massive amounts of candy.
I wanted to go on a ghost tour. And so we did.
There are several haunted tours you can take in Savannah; I picked the kid-friendliest version. Before the tour trolley came to pick us up, we decided to take the kids to the Savannah Riverwalk. This is an area with a TON of touristy shops just waiting for people like us to buy their overpriced crap. But the kids needed to burn off some energy, so off we went.
Look, it’s starting off so well! We’re the two best friends that anyone could ever have!
Then we hit the shops. Things got crazy. You just can’t take a 3 and 5 year old into cramped stores full of pirate/beach paraphernalia and expect a positive outcome. Then it happened. DMo spotted a double-sided light saber that he OH MY GOD HAD TO HAVE. We tried telling him that bringing light sabers on ghost tours wasn’t a good idea, but that didn’t work. Then the tantrums came. Then the rolling on the ground happened. Then the “JUST GET THE LIGHT SABER ALREADY SO WE CAN GET OUT OF THIS 120-DEGREE STORE” happened. I know… parenting at its finest. Quit your judging already- if you have a kid, you know you’ve done it too. I blame at least 50% of this incident on Star Wars for making such an awesome weapon of destruction. I cursed you on this day, George Lucas.
Then we bought this magical blue drink, and everything was better.
Finally we arrived at the Sorrel Weed house (the most haunted house in Savannah) where our tour guide was waiting for us outside. Though there were other children in our group, you could see the look of concern on her face when MY kids disembarked. It’s as if she could sense what was going to happen. Immediately the Mini-Assassin started with questions. “Do you have spider webs on your dress?” “Are you a witch?” “Do you talk to ghosts?” “Where’s the potty in this house?” “Do you like light sabers?”
After about 134 additional questions, we began the tour. The SW House is supposedly haunted by the woman who originally owned it- they say that you can see her in photographs taken inside certain rooms. While most people on the tour were a little freaked out by this, MY kids were discussing the outcome of a ghost vs. avatar battle if the avatar had a dual-sided light saber. Every now and then our tour guide would say things like “Oh, you’re just too precious and full of wonderment” to the boys because people from the deep south are too polite to say “WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE SHUT THESE KIDS UP?”
Here are a few pics from the tour.
The parlor: it is said that people have felt "possessed" upon entering this room.
The "Green Room": Spirits in this room have been seen coming from the portrait on the wall.
Murder couch / orb room in basement (more on this room below).
Finally we came to the most haunted room in the house. They had EMF cameras filming the room and screens just outside so you could see the “orbs” hovering around a couch where somebody was murdered (maybe they weren’t MURDERED… died of old age? Took a nap? Sorry, the blue drink made some of these details hazy). The guide asked if anybody would like to go inside, and of course my kids ran in. Because ghosts?! WHAT GHOSTS? Apparently, my kids are too bad-ass to be scared by anything. After jumping on the murder couch for a while, they came back out to investigate the orb screens. This is the conversation that DMo and our guide had regarding the orbs.
Guide: The orbs are the energy of spirits who are in this room.
DMo: I think that’s dust.
Guide: No, it’s not dust. I was just down here 2 hours ago, these orbs were not here.
DMo: It’s dust.
Guide: No, they are orbs.
DMo: Dust.
Guide: Orbs feed off of children’s energy.
DMo: I don’t think any orbs tried to eat me.
Guide: ….let’s move on.
As we headed outside, I heard my kids let out a blood-curdling scream. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. I mean, it just isn’t possible to be completely unfazed by all of this… right? We’re talking ORBS and MURDER COUCHES here, people! When I turned around to comfort them, I discovered what they were screaming at.
This dead fly.
I’m sure it’s spirit is haunting the tree it was lying under.
So… yeah. I learned a few important lessons last weekend.
1. Ghost tours probably aren’t ideal for young kids (did you just say “DUH”?).
2. Magical blue drinks cure everything.
3. Houses built in the early 19th century do not have toilets.
4. Avatars can defeat ghosts ONLY with dual-sided light sabers.
TTFN,
AMo
