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WELCOME TO AMERICA’S HAUNTED ROAD TRIP

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

If you are like 52 percent of Americans (according to a recent Harris Poll), you do believe that ghosts walk among us. Perhaps you have heard your name called in a dark and empty house. It could be that you have awakened to the sound of footsteps outside your bedroom door, only to find no one there. It is possible that you saw your grandmother sitting in her favorite rocker chair, the same grandmother who had passed away several years before. Maybe you took a photo of a crumbling, deserted farmhouse and discovered strange mists and orbs in the photo, anomalies that were not visible to your naked eye.

If you have experienced similar paranormal events, then you know that ghosts exist. Even if you have not yet experienced these things, you are curious about the paranormal world, the spirit realm. If you weren’t, you would not now be reading this preface to the latest book in the America’s Haunted Road Trip series from Clerisy Press.

Over the last several years, I have investigated haunted locations across the country and with each new site, I found myself becoming more fascinated with ghosts. What are they? How do they manifest themselves? Why are they here? These are just a few of the questions I have been asking. No doubt you have been asking the same questions.

The books in the America’s Haunted Road Trip series can help you find the answers to your questions about ghosts. We’ve gathered together some of America’s top ghost writers (no pun intended) and researchers and asked them to write about their states’ favorite haunts. Each location that they write about is open to the public so that you can visit it for yourself and try out your ghosthunting skills. In addition to telling you about their often hair-raising adventures, the writers have included maps and travel directions so that you can take your own haunted road trip.

People may think that Southern California is nothing more than desert, blue skies, and sandy beaches populated by starlets, surfers, and sun-worshippers, but Sally Richards’s Ghosthunting Southern California proves that the deserts are home to shadowy entities that are seen only for an instant before disappearing in the haze, as well as spirits that frequent old, weathered buildings in real “ghost towns.” The book is a spine-tingling trip through the southern counties of the Golden State, with stops at resorts and hotels, Wild West jails and stagecoach stations, old ships, historic Spanish and Native American sites and cemeteries—all of them haunted.

Ride shotgun with Sally as she seeks out the ghosts of dearly departed sailors aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach and the Star of India in San Diego. Travel with her to Coronado, where the sorrowful ghost of Kate Morgan can be seen walking the grounds of the Hotel del Coronado, the place in which she was found mysteriously shot, or sit for a spell in the old jail at Julian and listen for the laments of long-gone cowboy inmates. And who is that ghostly man in boots and a large hat seen on the stairs of the Whaley House in Old Town, San Diego? Hang on tight: Ghosthunting Southern California is a scary ride.

But once you’ve finished reading this book, don’t unbuckle your seatbelt. There are still forty-nine states left for your haunted road trip! See you on the road!

John Kachuba

Editor, America’s Haunted Road Trip