If you are traveling in Arizona, you will want to take Haunted Arizona with you as a guide of places to stay overnight, restaurants, museums and graveyards. Or not. It's a cautionary book -- each place featured has a ghost or two or three wandering the premises.

Once known as the Wild West, Arizona has its share of restless and mischievous spirits. Some will tweak your toe as you lie in bed while others will visit you in dreams. This happens at the Tombstone Boarding House, built in 1880, where the ghost of Billy Clinton, who died there of gunshot wounds suffered in the shoot out at the O.K. corral, resides. Mysterious footsteps and the apparitions of a mother and daughter also materialize in various parts of the building. At Williams Depot, the ticket counter for the Grand Canyon Railway, there is a ghost who likes to whistle and girls who throw t-shirts and books off the shelves of the gift shop.

Unless you are an aficionado of the paranormal, you may want this guidebook so you will know which places to avoid as you travel.

On the other hand, this handy guide will help you map out a ghostly tour if that is what you have in mind. There is a map of the state with haunted places duly noted from Phoenix to Tubac, from Flagstaff to Hoover Dam, and numerous places in between. Each place has an illustration, a description of ghosts, address, phone number, hours the place is open and driving directions. This will make ghost-hunting easy.

Even if you are not traveling to Arizona, the book has fascinating ghost stories. Just the thing to read on a dark stormy night.

- Rambles
written by Barbara Spring
published 13 November 2004

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