The Haunted Dates

As you know, (or at least you should know if you follow my life with the rabid obsession that I assume you do) I have an annual tradition of going to a haunted house every October with my little sister, Mellen.

This year was no different.  However, there was a small complication.  Mellen was very pregnant and little Adalyn was going to come out any minute.  I was a little nervous, and part of me thought we should call it off.  Mellen assured me that she would not give birth in a haunted house.  I told her if I had to deliver a baby I was keeping it.  She didn't actually agree to those terms, but she seemed confident enough so I went with it.

We had heard that the Castle of Chaos was supposed to be pretty good.  I bought a Groupon that said that it was good starting October 1st at the Castle of Chaos. We drove up there the first weekend in October, all ready to get scared out of our minds.  There was a nice man there letting people know that it wasn't open.  He said, "Sorry, we tried to get the Groupon site to say it won't be open today."

I agree that the Groupon site should reflect that.  However, the castleofchaos.com website also said they were open.  Oh well.

For most people, they would have come the next weekend and not worried about it.  Unfortunately, if we came any later, Mellen was going to give birth and I was not interested in delivering a baby.  We decided that the Haunted Forest was a tried and true haunt, so we'd go there.

That's when we learned that where the Haunted Forest was supposed to be was a car dealership.  Luckily, Google knew where it had moved to.  We found it and had a great time.

You always have to pose being tortured.

Who do you think wore it better?

I actually think the new location is better than the old.  It's in a more rural area and really feels like you're in a forest and not just a grove of trees in the city.

Aren't we so cute?

The forest isn't as done up as it used to be.  There is lots of area where you're just walking on a dark path wondering if someone is going to jump out at you.  But truthfully, I think it works really well.  The old Haunted Forest had more things to see and more "scary" areas.  But there's something creepy about just walking down a dark path.  The lack of things jumping out at you makes the ones that do jump out more scary.  I really liked it.

We had a great time at the Haunted Forest but I still had a Groupon for Castle of Chaos.  

As predicted, Mellen had her baby and she was not up for going to any more haunts in the month of October.  Luckily, Castle of Chaos was open until November 14th.  So we decided to make a go of it on the last night it was open.

We tried to get a selfie with the sign, but the phone couldn't make out the bright words in the dark.

But we did get a selfie with the grim reaper as he hung over the door, so there's that.

Castle of Chaos has a thing where you can sign a waiver and the actors are allowed to touch you and move you.  They say that if you do that, you may get separated from your group.  We decided to go with a no touching policy since we came together in order to actually be together.  However, we quickly discovered that it's designed around people being touched.  The whole thing is super tiny.  If you're not being dragged around by the actors you just walk by other people being dragged around.  We quickly learned that there isn't much there for people who don't want to be touched.  We walked through the whole thing in 15 minutes.

I get that the program is designed around the "X-scream Hands on" as they call it.  And it actually looked like those people were having a fun experience.  But, I don't think they should offer anything besides that since there aren't really any scares for people who aren't participating in that.  Several areas were completely abandoned because the actors (I assume) had gone off with someone already.

Oh well, I guess we just weren't meant to do 2 haunted houses, especially not in November.   Maybe we'll try the Castle of Chaos again in 3 or 4 years after they've gotten more established in their new location.  For now, it wasn't too great.

It was fun hanging out with Mellen, and the Haunted Forest was really good.  The Haunted Date was still a success despite the attempts to thwart our good times.

I shot zombies

For a few years I've had a tradition of taking my little sister on a "Haunted Date" as we like to call it.  This date serves a number of excellent purposes.  First, I get to spend quality time with my sister.  Second, I get to do something scary, which I cannot do with my wife.  (She really tried once.)  Third, and most importantly, I get to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.

That's right, Mellen and I got to SHOOT ZOMBIES!!

It was possibly the greatest thing I've ever done.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I have to start at the beginning.  We bought the combo pass that includes the Haunted Forest as well as Zombie WarZ.  We did the Haunted Forest first.  I hadn't been there for at least 5 years.  They've definitely upgraded a few things since then, but it was still the same Haunted Forest that I know and love.

Most importantly, they had the little area where you can be tortured.

You can see my diet has really been working.

They also had this creepy statue that totally scared Mellen.

You can see in the picture that it is a person in a costume because their hand is sticking out.  We didn't see that until after it jumped and scared Mellen.  It was pretty fabulous.

I had to share this picture because it was just precious.

After the Haunted Forest it was time to head over to Zombie WarZ.  This was a new attraction this year, so I had never been before.  I think it's owned by the same people as the Haunted Forest, or at least they are partnered together to sell combo tickets.  But, it's located about a mile away.  We had to follow signs to get there.  It's in a field in the middle of nowhere.

After you show them your ticket you get into a big truck with paintball guns mounted all along one side of the open bed.  When we got there, there was no line.  We got straight into the truck and sat down.  There is a big bench sitting in front of the guns, so you just claim your gun and sit in front of it.

It was good practice for the zombie apocalypse.  However, I did have to ask myself, "What if the zombies attack the other side of the truck?"  It was definitely a weak point that should be addressed.  Especially since the guns are mounted so that you can't pull them off and shoot behind you.  (You also can't turn them far enough to shoot the person sitting next to you, which was probably an important design specification.)

The truck drives through a few acres of land.  There are a few spots where animatronic zombies pop out of swamps or out of garbage cans, but for the most part there are actors that actually run at the truck.  I tried to video what I was seeing.  It was too dark to get a good idea of what it was like, but at least you can here how happy I was.

If that video didn't convince you of the joy of zombie killing, perhaps these pictures will.

Look how happy shooting zombies makes me.

Even Mellen was happy to shoot zombies.

The last picture I have to share with you is kind of funny, mostly because of the situation it was taken in.

It looks like I'm yelling something like "Die zombie die!"  But I was actually out of ammo at this point and was ad-libbing a song about the importance of killing zombies. (While still continuing to pull the trigger)  It was very passionate.

If there's one thing I realized on this year's haunted date, it's that I'm really excited for the zombie apocalypse.  As long as the zombies agree that they will not eat me if I get paint on them.