What: Lawrenceville Ghost Tours Where: Historic Downtown Lawrenceville, Ga. When: May-September: Fridays and Saturdays, 8:30 p.m.
then
Every Night in October: Sunday-Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 and Fridays and Saturdays, 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Website:www.scarystoll.com Cost: Varies Depending on Tour Day and Time, See Website; Free parking downtown
***Special Engagement Times and Prices for Trolley Tour - See Website***
Last year Brooke and I went on the Lawrenceville Ghost Tours. This ghost tour, which was created and is run by the Aurora Theater in partnership with the Lawrenceville Tourism and Trade Association, offers both a walking tour of Historic Downtown Lawrenceville and a trolley tour that takes you around town as well as for a walk though Historic Lawrenceville Cemetery[1][2]. Having missed the last trolley tour slot last year, we ended up doing only the walking tour. (You can read my review of the walking tour here.) But we decided then to make it a point of going on the trolley this year. So last Friday, we decided to make a date night of it.
Now that Halloween 2012 has come and gone, it's time to get busy planning for Thanksgiving, Chrismahanakwanzika, and 2013! According to Wal-Mart's store displays, I should have started my holiday planning the day after Labor Day.
Well! I say *poop* to that!
In honor of one of my favorite excuses to wear costumes in public, I am fighting back and extending the spooks and chills to—AT LEAST!—the end of the year with some horror-themed mass media. Here is my short-list of post-Halloween must-do's. Join me, maybe?
This year, we got our ghost story fix from the great people at the Lawrenceville Ghost Tour. Developed and presented by the Aurora Theatre in partnership with the Lawrenceville Tourism and Trade Association, the tour is open every weekend from May through September and every night in October until Halloween. This is a 90-minute walking tour that takes guest around historic downtown Lawrenceville, stopping at places like the shops that line Honest Alley, the historic jail, and the spot where Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flint was shot on March 6th, 1978 [1][2].
Although the tour did include stories of ghosts, it focused mostly on the quirky history and founding families of the city of Lawrenceville and was less about the scary and more about the macabre. Our tour guide, Madame Macabre, spun witty campfire-style tales replete of Southern Gothic elements and masterful storytelling that would have made William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor proud. You can watch her do her thing on this video from the ghost tour website.
If you need a little more spirits with your Halloween experience, stop (before or after the tour—or hell! why not both) by McCray's Tavern at the corner of N. Perry Street and E. Crogan/Lawrenceville Hwy, where they serve themed drinks in honor of the ghost tour [3].
The tour also does a separate Ghost Trolley Tour which takes guests outside the downtown square area and into surrounding points of interest like the cemetery and the female seminary. Unfortunately, when we went this past Saturday after I finished early voting, we had missed the last day of the Trolley Tour which was the day before. So, expect a review of that next year as we enjoyed this year's outing so much that we plan to come back.
This was a wonderful date night for the wife and I and we definitely recommend it to everyone. It's a family friendly attraction and a fun alternative (or supplement) to trick-or-treating and to costume parties. A definite addition to your "must do" list, whether or not you have children. Check out their website for prices, times, and other details at www.scarystroll.com. And enjoy!
