We drove into the valet which appeared like any other and hauled our baggage to the front desk while looking around in awed fascination. Haunting aside, this place was gorgeous. There's no other way to put that. Antiques and elegant furniture were scattered around like a perfectly choreographed dance. It absolutely transports you to another time. It took us a moment to reenter 2017 and realize that we had to check in to get any further within the hotel. The staff was incredibly courteous, much like any other hotel of this caliber, apart from one glaring difference. They clearly wore the energy of the hotel like a scarf. You could almost see them shifting it around as they moved, transferring the weight around their bodies. Did it get heavier the longer they stayed within these walls? I wondered, absently, if they were able to unwind it from their necks after a long day of hauling it around. I imagine it's something learned- something that becomes easier over time.
When we got our key cards and directions to the room, the real adventure began. Up the ancient elevator and down the hallways that appeared to be cut and paste straight from The Shining. Or was it the other way around? Even if you weren't aware of the long history of this hotel, you could feel it. You could feel it in the way the sweet smell of a soap long forgotten hit your face, and in the way the floors creaked beneath your feet as if telling you over a 100 years of secrets.
We made it to our room around 5:30pm and were pretty excited to see we had a pool view and a balcony. This trip wasn't all business, after all. We set our bags down and took a quick tour of the room before heading down to the River Walk to spend time with friends until our midnight walk-through. If you haven't been to the River Walk or The Alamo at night, you are seriously missing out. San Antonio has such a fun atmosphere and the Alamo surrounded by darkness is the perfect combination of haunting and amazing. Seeing it in the daylight is nothing compared to the sheer beauty of it sitting in the moonlight with spotlights dancing up the walls. If you happen to be in San Antonio, make a nighttime visit to see it. You won't be disappointed.
After we said our goodbyes to our friends, we toured the River Walk once more to enjoy the twinkling lights surrounding the river and kill a little more time before our midnight tour of The Menger Hotel. The strong feeling of the paranormal leaves you a little as you're walking through the crowds by the river but engulfs you once more as soon as you ascend the stairs back to the street. Our walk back to the hotel had a hint of foreboding but it's something we fully anticipated. The Menger isn't listed as one of the country's most haunted hotels for nothing. We knew what we were getting ourselves into and as we would come to find out, it wouldn't disappoint.
Midnight
Just before midnight, we loaded up our equipment (which consisted simply of cameras and recorders) and stepped into the hallway of the third floor. We left our throng of ghost hunting equipment behind in favor of a simpler form of investigation. If any place called for it, it was The Menger. The hallway was completely empty of guests which suited our needs nicely. We had no doubt we would run into a midnight straggler or two but for the moment, we were alone.
The hallways were like mazes and very disorienting if you've never traveled them before. We gave ourselves a little bit of exploring time to get our bearings before getting down to the business of the night. One of the first things I noticed was how the spooky feeling of the place didn't change from day to night. There have been dozens of locations we've scouted during the day where we felt absolutely nothing only to return at night and have intense fear hit us like a wave. This place didn't change with the setting of the sun. You felt it's paranormal power with the sun just as much as with the moon. That's very unusual. I knew we were in for an interesting night.
After scouting a bit, I turned on Facebook live (which was poorer quality than I had hoped) and we officially started our journey through The Menger. Mind you, we hadn't hit any floors but our own at this point. We only pinpointed the stairs and elevators to make things run a bit smoother. Anything beyond that, we discovered live with those watching the feed. We began on the third floor and simply recorded our surroundings and soaked in the energy. Right away we both felt the heaviness of the 138 year old history. As if each year lay on top of us like a blanket.
We pushed through the atmosphere and crept down the hallway so as not to disturb the other guests or a cranky ghost. Each door we passed was closed to the hallway apart from the intensely loud area that housed the ice and soda machines. They sounded much louder on the live feed than in person-sorry about that, ya'll. I didn't realize how deafening the noise was or I would have passed by much quicker. As we made our way down the seemingly unending hallways, we came upon the Victorian Lobby. This is probably one of the most photographed places of the entire hotel. It's oval and surrounded by gorgeously detailed columns and if you gaze straight up through it, you see one of the most amazing skylights I've ever seen. I think we kept circling back to this area, visiting it both on the second and third floors that night, just to keep looking at it.
Walking around the third floor of the hotel gave us no solid evidence of a haunting other than the energy that started to wrap it's tentacles around us. We ignored the tightening grip and ascended to the fourth floor in search of paranormal proof. As we wandered around the halls we took notice of the the suites named for The Menger's most famous guests. At one point we heard what sounded like a child but being that there were other guests in the hotel, there's no way to tell if it was made by someone corporeal or something more ethereal.
Moving a bit further down the hallway and through the twists and dead ends, we started to let our guard down a little and just soaked in the beauty of it all. As we rounded a corner just past a soda machine, a door opening and slamming to my right had us jumping out of our skin. I turned to look at the door but noticed something unnerving. The door directly to my right (and every other door in the hallway for that matter) was closed. Absolutely no door in the entire hallway had opened, let alone the one just a foot from me. That was easily one of the most startling things to happen on the fourth floor but certainly not the most startling thing to happen that night.
When we had circled the fourth floor at least twice, we decided to make our way up the very top floor, the fifth. As we made our way up the stairs, the air started to get increasingly hotter with each step. As we approached the top, it felt like we had just been thrust into an oven. Both of us actually broke out into a sweat before we made it to the end of even one hallway. The heat aside, it felt very unwelcoming- as if we had just stepped into someone's home unannounced. The longer we stayed, the worse it felt. We kept walking anyway, both noticeably sweaty and just turning down hallways at random.
Nearing the end of our journey around the fifth floor, we rounded a corner and stumbled into a dead end. Having decided to make this hallway our last, it definitely seemed like a sign that our tour had come to an end. As we turned around to make our way back down to our own floor, I felt an intense rush of fear. It was as if someone was walking up quickly and aggressively behind us. There were no footsteps, only that hair-raising feeling that someone was about to tackle you from behind. I gasped and turned only to see no one. I fully expected there to be someone, alive or not, behind us. The hallway behind us was as silent as a...and just as empty. We quickened our pace just a bit and found the stairs. Down we went until we made it to our own room on the third floor. And that would end our brush with the paranormal at The Menger. Or so we thought.
We got ready for bed, turned out the lights, and slipped into our beds after an exhaustively long day. I'm pretty sure we both fell asleep instantly but I certainly didn't stay that way. Sometime around 3am, I was awoken by someone whispering directly into my ear. "Hey," the voice said. My brain barely registered that I was being spoken. "Hey!, "they said again. Much louder and more urgent. My eyes shot open and I sat straight up. This was not a voice I recognized. I looked around as much as I could in the pitch black without my glasses and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The room was still and very much asleep. I sat watching for a moment before sleep pulled me back to the bed and back into oblivion.
The Next Day
The next day, we reluctantly packed up our things and took the ancient elevator down to the lobby to check out. We took one last look around at the closest thing we will ever come to a time portal and walked out to the valet. We still felt the weight of the time that passed within the hotel and the energy that engulfed the entire surrounding area. I looked around at all the tourists who were lazily enjoying their day around this historic part of town and wondered if they felt it too. That hilt in your stomach that told you more happened here than we can ever imagine. That tiny tap on the back of your shoulder from a soldier gone too soon. Were they wandering around the streets, seeing a different version of San Antonio than we were? Was the battle raging around us while we stopped to buy a snow cone? I guess that's one thing we'll never know.
We got in the car and started our 7 hour trip back home that included a quick pit stop at The Czech Stop (of course). I can honestly say that I can't wait for another visit to The Menger. The weight of time weighed heavily on us while we were there but for every mile we drove, the weight lifted, pound by pound. Every ounce was worth the time spent there. We're already planning a repeat trip in the next few months and this time we're bringing more equipment and spending a bit more time. If you decide to visit this ghostly hotel, tell them we'll be back soon.
