Frightful weekend!

As it turned out, last weekend ended up being our weekend to participate in fun and special Halloween things! The local historical park just down the road from us has an annual Fright Night. Our calendars have never meshed in the past to allow us to attend, so we usually ended up attending Knott’s Scary Farm or Universal Studio’s Halloween thing on a different weekend in October. Plus, I didn’t figure the local event would be all that impressive. This year, we happened to be available, so I lowered my expectations for the event and ended up being pleasantly surprised.

True, it wasn’t nearly as scary as the "professional" places, but they did have creepy, scary people roaming around. Their attempts to scare me always make me laugh at them anyway, so I got lots of laughs. They also REALLY did a lot of work with their Halloween lights (which were everywhere) and creepy sound boxes and frightful decorations dangling around.

The old schoolhouse, lit up with Halloween lights:

Weird (headless) bride and groom on the steps of the church:

Lots of Halloween lights everywhere:

On Saturday, the same place had a family event, so we invited the family over for a BBQ and then headed down the hill. The decorations were still up, but the scary-creepy people were gone and the freaky sound boxes were turned off. They had a craft area for the kids, local vendors who were giving away swag, games, a little pumpkin patch, kid friendly mazes, a costume parade, storytelling time, and kid friendly characters, many of whom were handing out candy. Captain Jack Sparrow even showed up to take pictures and hand out candy!

All in all, I think it was really well done and I actually did end up being impressed!

The schoolhouse the next day, not so scary! And Harry Potter was inside talking to the people who were wandering through.

Captain Jack showed up. I have no idea who that kid is, I just wanted a picture of Captain Jack and his side kick!

I had purchased tickets through Groupon for one of the Queen Mary’s scary nights… and Sunday was the night. So off we headed for that! I was a little intimidated when we got to the area and the line to enter the parking lot was just ridiculous. Then the line to exchange the voucher for a ticket was ridiculous… more ridiculous, even, than getting into Disneyland on a busy summer day. At one point while we were waiting in one of those lines, I told Tony, "This event better not suck once we get in, because THAT would REALLY suck!" I know, I have a gift of phrasing things, don’t I?

Fortunately, the event was really fun and cool. There were a ton of people there and, as a result, the lines for the mazes sucked, but I never felt claustrophobic like I did at Knott’s Scary Farm that one year. However, if we do the event again (which we likely will), I think it would be worth it to spring the extra dough for the front of the line pass. But — they had live DJ’s in a couple different areas, one welcoming you into the entrance maze and one who entertained the line for another maze, along with some really cool pyrotechnics. They had a ton of creepy, scary zombie people who were really talented… better than the ones at Knott’s Scary Farm, I thought. One guy slid about 15 feet, sparks coming up off his knees, and stopped within inches of me! My response to him? "Whoa! That was cool!" He just stared at me. ha

We only had time to do a couple of mazes, and one of those went through the alleged haunted pool area of the Queen Mary. The whole thing was just a cool experience.

Queen Mary:

The “welcoming” DJ:

The haunted pool area:

Fortunately, the Groupon deal I purchased includes a day pass that we can use anytime through December 2012. I’m really looking forward to going back for that! This week it’s just been back to the usual… almost the weekend again!

(I’m trying out the post-by-email feature with this blog post. Hopefully it displays correctly…)