Kids and Halloween

October 27th, 2006 by Potato

I love Halloween, and I don’t think anyone doubts that (though I’m a little troubled myself that I didn’t bother to make a new Halloween page layout… though my current theme is black all year long… :)

Anyhow, Halloween’s just a great time of year to be a kid, and I get kind of jealous of ones who are real kids (and not just pretend like me), and also feel like I’ve got to help the kids I see have a great Halloween. So it was so incredibly cute when Wayfare & I went to the Shriner’s Haunted Mansion this year and it was full of little ones.

The Shriners do a great job: lots of cool effects, including the ghost effects with split mirrors, an indoor waterfall with a projector, singing skeletons, a swami, a rotating tunnel, a tilted room, and lots of professional touches throughout. While most of the stuff is cool and freaky, not very much is actually scary, so it’s a good place for kids. This year they stepped it up a bit to make it a little scary, but still tolerable for families. At one point they had a long, cave-like tunnel with bats hung around. Then…

Spoiler warning!

… then, a screen came on at the far end and showed a movie of thousands of bats flying across the full moon. The room then went completely dark, and a stick with dangly bits of fabric flew over our heads, got to the other end and came back over us. It was really cool, and while I’ve been to many scarier haunted houses, I haven’t seen that effect before.

So just before we get to that part, two kids come running backwards through the place, telling us about the fright ahead, and that it might be too scary. “Bats! They fly in your hair!” “They might eat your ears!” When we went to go in, they came through with us. What was so cute was that the boy grabbed Wayfare’s hand to go through, and then the little girl sort of got a lock on her elbow… and we’re complete strangers! Wayfare’s just simply that kid & Halloween-friendly :)

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