Haunted Happenings

Ever since we moved to the midwest, I have missed the apple orchards and pumpkin farms of the east coast. Despite all the corn fields here, there are no corn mazes I know of, nor are there any places to get a good cup of cider. Yet, I have not stopped my quest to find some kind of fall fun activities here in Green Acres.

We recently attended a local state park event called "Haunted Happenings". It was by chance that we heard about this from some new friends, and when they mentioned there were hayrides I was sold. Tickets were $10 each, but included a hot dog meal, a hayride, kids games and a haunted trail walk.

We took our 3 kids and joined another family of 6. It was your typical small town event. On the park grounds were a cluster of historic buildings that were strung with lights. We immediately put our names on the waiting list for the haunted walk. We were group #27. We arrived at about 7:30pm.

CLEAN WEENIES?

We then went on to the weenie roast where we each got a bag of chips, soda can and a cold hotdog wrapped in a napkin. Right outside were 3 or 4 small campfires with a stack of branches available to roast your weenie. The branches were sharpened at the end to skewer your hot dog and then you hold the stick over the fire. This scene kind of disturbed me. First of all, any open fires trouble me. Being a Californian native, my instinct is to douse any fire not in a grill or fireplace immediately. I did not see any fire extinguishers or buckets of water on hand in case one of the campfires went wayward, but there was an elderly man keeping an eye on things, so I convinced myself he must have some sort of fire expertise in order to be in charge of this potential forest fire.

The second issue I had with the weenie roast was the use of branches to cook food. I did not know if these branches were sanitized and worried that some kind of raccoon spit or deer poo residue would still be on them. My husband, who inspects the spoons in our kitchen as if he is going to perform surgery with them, seemed not to mind the risk of catching rabies, so I tried to be at ease with this prehistoric cooking utensil. I was OK with it all until I realized that when you are done with the sticks you are to put them back in the pile to reuse. WHAT? I then imagined all the gross things people could have done with the branch I used, like eating their hot dog off it and drooling all over the branch, or dropping it in a pile of dirt. Ew.

THANKS ORIENTAL TRADING

We took the kids to the large red barn where they had several carnival like games and face painting. When we entered the barn, we were given a stack of tickets to use for the games. While the kids ran amuck, parents stood around and chatted. My kids with faces painted, proudly showed me their bags full of candy and assorted plastic tiny "toys" that would most likely fall apart or find their way inside the crevices of our car seats. But they had tickets left to spend, so off they went again. After about an hour we decided it was time to move on, but the kids still had tickets! We later found out that random older kids were handing them their tickets, so we could have been there another 2-3 hours.

These games are nice ideas, but I have to think about the complete waste the prizes are. There was a time when I thought that the 5 minutes of fun they provided was worth it. But after 17 years of parenting experience I can say without hesitation that it is not. These cheap little Oriental Trading Co. trinkets are poorly constructed and have no practical purpoe. They will not raise my kids' IQ nor will they spark any creativity. No thanks, I'd rather save for that $100 Lego set.

DUCK! (NO NOT THE BIRD)

On to the er, hayride. We climbed into an open trailer with bales of straw attached to a pickup truck. The driver took us on a paved road around the park in the dark. He was driving kinda fast and swerving a bit which was a little alarming. However, we quickly became frightened when several passengers narrowly missed getting hit with low hanging branches and road signs. It then got really terrifying when we hit a large rock. The trailer stopped briefly, perhaps to check to see if anyone was flung from the trailer, but more likely in order to open another bottle of beer. After our arrival back to the park and upon close inspection with light from our cellphones, we could see that not only did we have two flat tires, but the outside rims were badly mangled and dented. Needless to say, the guy who greeted us(possibly the owner of the trailer?) was not a happy man.

BEWARE OF KIDS WITH WATER BOTTLES

It was 9:30 and we still had not heard our group being called for the haunted walking trail tour. Our friend Aaron convinced the staff to let us go early because we had so many little kids who were getting tired quickly. We lined up to go and I immediately worried about Bryson, my 7 year old, and if he was going to be able to handle this all. I did not worry about 9 year old Brenna, because I thought that since she was a pretty smart kid, she would get that these were only people in costumes and think the whole thing was silly. Boy was I wrong.

We were led by a man with a latern who took us to several "stages" that included an insane asylum, laboratory, coal mine and a graveyard. They were actually pretty well done for a small town. I kept checking on Bryson to see how he was doing, and surprisingly he was handling it really well even after his friend Braden, who was not doing so well, almost hit one of the monsters with his full water bottle. Luckily his mom grabbed it before anyone was seriously injured. Brenna, on the other hand, was freaking out. She was shivering and had a death grip on my hand. I tried to explain to her that it was all in good fun, but she was not buying it.

All in all, it was a fun night. I did not catch any intestinal disease and Brenna did not have any nightmares. We went with a great family and survived the hayride. We would definitely go again.