Wine Country's Spookiest spots

Ever feel a shiver down your spine at the Sebastiani Theatre or feel a rush of air while walking the halls of the Hotel La Rose? Does Santa Rosa's Rural Cemetery give you the creeps? If not, maybe you just aren't paying close enough attention to the ghostly activity that some say surrounds Wine Country.

Leading the spirit brigade is author and paranormal investigator Jeff Dwyer. His recently published Ghost Hunter's Guide to California's Wine Country (Pelican Publishing Co., $14.95)is an exhaustive look at dozens of hotels, cemeteries, restaurants and homes in Napa, Mendocino and Sonoma rumored to be haunted.

Apparently we're a spectral hot-spot with plenty of places for the undead to roam. With a colorful history of rogues, bandits, murders and general mayhem in our Wild West past, it's not a stretch to believe that ghosts still inhabit everything from secret tunnels in Sonoma to stately Victorians in Santa Rosa.

One place that gets even Dwyer's hair on end is the crumbling Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery he calls "one of the spookiest graveyards in America." The author recounts a walk through the overgrown graves with a spirit (as in apparition) guide named Wanda. Though your spirit guide may vary (if they show at all), Dwyer recounts the more important graves to seek out: Santa Rosa's founding family, the Carrillos; victims of the 1906 earthquake and the former site of the "hanging tree" which sometimes appears as a faint shadow despite being cut down years ago. Creeeeepy.

There's also the story of a child who disappeared into concealed Chinese tunnels beneath the town of Sonoma (and still haunts them, though the existence of such tunnels is denied). And if you're planning on wine tasting, just be sure to bring your spectrometer because wineries from Schramsberg and and Buena Vista Carneros to Hop Kiln are rumored to have spirits of their own.

At the Gables Wine Country Inn in Santa Rosa, there's a rumor that ghosts of previous owners can be seen in the tall Victorian windows if you look just right. They could also be guests, depending on your level of imagination.

Dwyer takes his ghost hunting deadly serious. Filled with fascinating historical details that few locals even know, the book is eerily convincing in its convictions. The first chapter includes a how-to guide to conducting your own ghostly hunts, including when and where you're most likely to find them. Dwyer adds anecdotes about his own sightings and feelings of dread at various locations adding to the creep-out factor.