Round Rock Ghost Tour

Update on the Ghost Tour

2008-06-22T20:17:00.001-05:00

Hi there,

We have moved out to Cedar Park, but we will still do the Ghost Tour! Look for new dates in September/October... once it cools down a bit.

Thanks!
Leigh & Dayne

What is up with the tour?

2008-03-24T16:53:00.002-06:00

Thanks for tuning in...

We're currently thinking about what we are going to do with the tour. While we love the business, it looks like we may be moving a bit farther out, so we are looking to sell the ghost tour business.

We would never sell it to "just anybody," so I am talking with some specifically talented people. I'll post the updates here on the blog and on the site.

Full Moon Tour added this Friday, Oct. 26th!

2007-10-23T20:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a great October, and our Saturday night (Oct. 27th) tour is SOLD OUT!!

That has never happened before!

Since Friday, Oct. 26th is a FULL MOON, we have decided at the last minute to add a tour for this Friday!

Since Saturday is full, please plan to join us on Friday, Oct. 26th!

And remember! Our LAST TOUR OF THE YEAR
is Wednesday, October 31st!

Happy Halloween!

An original poem from a Tour Guest

2007-10-23T19:45:00.000-05:00

THE POLITE GHOST 10/19/07
by Jane Star Fisher

The room seems quiet
The blood long gone
The horror of an Old West shoot out
Faded decades past

But the old stone building
Still stands at the crossing
And with it remains
A lawman's spirit
Watching, serving, protecting
New Town's people

With a nod of his head
And a tip of his hat
He honors the one
Declaring him "Hero"
Cut down by outlaw clan

Most spirits rest
In the graveyard peace
But Grimes remains
A lawman still
Keeping the peace

Strange happenings on the tour

2007-10-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

Here's a note I received from a guest who came to the Sept. 29th tour:

Leigh,

I wanted to drop you a line and say thank you for the tour! Me and my stepdaughter, Alyssa truly enjoyed this past weekend’s tour. She had been counting the hours until this tour. I’m from New Orleans and have supplied her with many, many good books on ghosts and this was her very first ghost tour. It was so interesting learning about all the history Round Rock holds. We truly enjoyed it!

I have to say, The Palm House was very interesting. It felt very heavy in the original part of the house. A very different “feel” than the “new” part of the house. I took several pictures and haven’t noticed anything in those although, even though I don’t put much stock in orbs, I did catch an orb at the Rock Room. As you were speaking outside the home, Alyssa was feeling uneasy and thought I was playing a trick on her. She said someone was tickling the small of her back. Also, in the room with the creepy doll, I was trying to snap a picture and it felt like someone tapped me on the left shoulder. However, no one was behind me at the time, there was only a couple to my right. Strange.

Thought I would share. Keep up the great work! Thank you!

Erin Maggio Newman

Photos from the tour

2007-10-02T20:53:00.000-05:00

Hi there, ghost fans,

Paul Lang came on our tour and shares these photos. Thanks, Paul!

From Paul:

Hello, I was on the ghost tour last Saturday. I took some pictures. Although I think all of them represent dust or lens flare or normal phenomena they are still interesting.

In [the first] picture there are many orbs but the two most interesting items are the double small orange lights in the window and an orb in front of the bush that meets the criteria in ghost hunting books as a real orb.

In the next picture for no apparent reason the auto focus on the camera decided to focus on something up close. The focal point is clearly near the camera. There are about a dozen tiny orbs all over.

In the last picture there no orbs but a small orange light in the window.

Anyway, we really enjoyed the tour and will keep you guys posted of anything we come across during our investigations around Round Rock and Austin. Thanks, Paul

Recommended Books

2007-06-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

A guest asked me to recommend some good books about Texas ghosts, so I thought I would add some here.

To be honest, there aren't a ton of really great books that I have found... The best ghost stories are the ones that are fiction, and usually reporting of ghosts is sketchy at best.

However, Dayne and I used a few books to help guide us on our ghost-hunting vacations...

Haunted Texas Vacations, Lisa Farwell. This is where we learned all about Jefferson, TX, the most haunted small town in Texas. We love that place, and not just for the ghosts - it is truly a charming area up in East Texas. Farwell's stories are in the first-person, telling of her own experiences, kind of like what we do on our ghost tour.

When we were in Jefferson, we met Michel Whitington, who owns the most haunted house in Jefferson (formerly The Grove Restaurant). He also writes books about his experiences with ghosts and stories from around Texas. He has a whole series of them, and the best (in my opinion) is Ghosts of East Texas. Learn more about The Grove, Mitchel, and see his books here: http://thegrove-jefferson.com/.

You can find these books on Amazon.com or even at Half Price Books, probably.

Camera Weirdness

2007-06-27T12:19:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday, we had a guest who had been taking photos with her digital camera all night (and she had some photos from her vacation already on the camera).

After we finished up, she was taking more shots and Dayne and I were still there, talking to some friends, and the woman came up to me and showed me her camera. It said, "There are no files."

Just seconds before, she'd had all her photos on the camera, and had just looked at them, and now there were none.

She insists she didn't accidentally hit a button that would delete ALL her files (and there generally is not such a button... usually the device will ask, "Are you sure?" before it deletes EVERYTHING).

So, that was very strange. I've heard of this happening when alleged spirits are around - their energy saps battery power from devices and apparently steals photos!

Comments from guests

2007-05-28T22:02:00.000-05:00

We have recently had guests say some nice things about us... I am beaming with pride, so I thought I would share!

I wanted to thank you and your husband for a great tour. You did a wonderful job and all the Austin/Round Rock Party for a Purpose members had a great time. Thank you for supporting our cause. We will be sure to keep you in mind for future events!

Cheers,

Sara Lapacka

--------
Leigh, we went on your tour last weekend and really enjoyed it. My son was Jacob (the one that was on your heels the whole time). He absolutely loved it and says he wants to do it every weekend, but he is not going anywhere near that house ever again :-)

Danica McAllister

Jacob was really cute; he is seven (almost eight!) and had a ton of questions for me. It's funny about kids - sometimes they are just fine with all the stuff we talk about on the tour. Then at the end, they get scared! Sounds like Jacob has made it through okay!

Here are some other things guests have told me lately:

One woman who was standing in front of the Palm House said that she felt something like long skirts brush past her ankles as she stood in front of the house.

Those of you who have been on the ghost tour have heard us talk about the "possums in the wall" of the Palm House... Well, I saw the woman who originally told me that story, and she now says it was "cats in the wall." Yeah. Still doesn't really wash...

More news coming up about a surveillance camera in the basement of Louisiana Longhorn Cafe... I will keep you posted!

July 30, 2005 orb photo

2007-05-20T21:46:00.000-05:00

Most ghost hunters will tell you that "orb" photos can usually be explained away - they can easily be condensation or dust flying through the air.

It's usually created by a piece of dust being closer to the lens than what the camera is focusing on.

A guest on our tour in July 2005, Michael Trimble, took this photo, so I thought I would share it. Can you see the orb at the top?

Photo Anomaly August 2006

2007-05-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

This photo was taken by a woman on our tour in August 2006. She took it with her cell phone in the Palm House Museum, in the room on the left, as soon as you walk into the museum.

Several folks on the tour saw her take this photo, and they say she stood right up against the ropes and put her arm out straight - nobody was anywhere near the camera when she took the shot. I say this because my first reaction upon seeing it was, "It looks like somebody's finger got in the shot."

She emailed me this shot, and a few weeks later we had a gentleman who studies ghosts and photo anomolies in particular. I sent him this shot and he couldn't explain it either.

That same night is the night we saw the left arm of the dress flailing around so obviously. SOMETHING weird was going on that night; a lot of activity.

We had never had anything weird happen in this room... until two months later. That's why I had my OWN experience here... I talk about it on the tour.

I talk about it sometimes on the tour, so here it is.

April 30th Ghost Jaunt with Aubrianna

2007-05-20T20:31:00.001-05:00

If you've been on the tour, you know all about Aubrianna, our psychic advisor.

The folks at Junior's Grill & Bar on Main Street had told us about some weirdness going on in their back game room.

One night, one of the wait staff was in the back room closing up, and they heard a very distinctive conversation in the alley behind the building, but there was nobody back there. Apparently it was way past closing time and nobody was around.

The people who work there don't like to close up, to go back there and turn off all the lights. There is apparently one switch that turns off the lights and the juke box, and there are a few video games that remain on all the time. Amanda, the manager, told me that she has noticed a few times that, the juke box will be playing a song, then when she hits the switch, it turns off abruptly. Then, right after, the video game will start playing that same tune that just ended. She says the video games pretty much only play a few specific tunes, and shouldn't be able to "mock" what they just heard. Strange.

Another time, they had closed up the back room and the whole business the night before. When they came in the next day, all the doors in the back room were completely wide open - the back door, the door to the beer garden, the door to the liquor closet. Not only were they unlocked, they were wide open. And nothing at all was missing. If someone had the time to unlock and open all the doors up wide, they certainly would have stolen some of the alcohol. The person who closed up that night swears she locked everything up, like always.

(By the way, that place is hoppin'! They have live music almost every night and they have a cool beer garden, plus the game room, where you can play shuffle board. They have good burgers, too!).

So on Monday, April 30th, Aubrianna and I went over the Junior's to check it out. Aubrianna sensed some really angry energy there. She can't be sure if it's just energy left over from someone who used to work there, who maybe was a very angry person (it used to be office space), or what.

She told the folks at Junior's to look out for things to get thrown around, chairs knocked over, etc.

There is a storage closet with a locked door that OF COURSE Aubrianna did not want to look into (she is a 'fraidy-cat psychic, as anyone on the tour knows). So I had them open it up for us, and it's just a closet. She went inside and it was okay - she didn't burst into flames or anything. :-)

There is also a door that is always locked - it has one of those push-button codes you have to push a certain way to open. The guy who let us into the closet also said that one night, one of their guests got locked in there - he has no idea how he got in there! Anyway, he told us it leads to Envy Salon, right next door.

Now, way back when we started the tour, Aubrianna and I toured Envy Salon, and she noticed some very "dark" energy in a crawl space over what was the massage/facial rooms. A few months ago, that space was renovated and opened up to accommodate more hair stations, so there is no more "dark" area left in Envy... so Aubrianna thinks this "dark" energy has moved over to Junior's.

By "dark," I really mean something angry and unsettled. I don't really like to talk about these types of energies on the tour - the tour is not meant to scare anyone really. But also, we don't like to bring this type of stuff up unless we really have a lot of different stories to tell, so Junior's hasn't yet made it on the tour... but maybe someday soon.

In any case, we love Junior's. Check it out for a cold beer sometime soon!

Surveillance Camera in Louisiana Longhorn Cafe

2007-05-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

On Sunday night, May 14th, Ben Davis, a local firefighter and ghost hunting enthusiast, set up a surveillance camera in the haunted basement of Louisiana Longhorn Cafe (if you have been on the tour, you know all about the basement... if not, ya gotta come hear about it!).

The camera requires a four-digit code to be turned on, paused, or turned off. Ben set up the camera around 11 pm and it was supposed to run continuously for up to five days. It had enough power to do that.

At 3 a.m. early Monday morning, the camera paused.

There was nobody in the building during that time. Again, the camera did not shut off - it did not lose power. It just paused.

According to Ben, this is impossible without the code.

I'm waiting to speak to Ben more about this, but I thought you might be interested to know! Dayne thinks it's just a mechanical malfunction, so he's not convinced. So that's while I want to get more info before we add it onto the tour.

By the way, if you're looking to have the best dinner of your life, look no further than Louisiana Longhorn Cafe. Folks who eat there before our tour are glad they have an hour's worth of walking ahead of them - they are stuffed!!! If you like Cajun food, there's simply no place better in Austin or Round Rock.

I have to be honest myself and say that I (Leigh) don't like most seafood, but I still love this place. I really love their chopped salad, Lauren's salad (sometimes I substitute the chicken for crab cakes) and the seafood fondue is DELICIOUS. Oh, and the catfish po-boy, and the pasta salad, and the cheeseburger. Their chocolate pie is delicious and so is the bread pudding... yummmmm... I am getting hungry... We started eating there long before we met Ray and Melinda, the owners, and now we are working our way through the menu! Dayne loves their seafood platter.

We'll keep you updated on the tour about the surveillance camera!

What's "Ghosting" On!

2007-05-20T20:25:00.000-05:00

Lots of stuff is going on during the Round Rock Ghost Tour lately, and I thought this would be good way to keep everyone up-to-date.