Traveler's USA Notebook
Surf City shows us a thing or two about how to have Halloween fun. On 31 October, downtown becomes one of the areas more popular haunts. The downtown Business Improvement District presents its annual "Halloween on Main Street" celebration. You'll find a moon bounce, petting zoo, pumpkin carving, costume contests and more. And if you have a dog that complains you never take it anywhere, be of good cheer. The event sponsors encourage you to dress up your dogs and bring them along . For more information, click here
Universal Studios Hollywood could call its Halloween touches “Phantom at the Theme Park.” Instead, the joint is going with "Halloween Horror Nights," Talented Hollywood’s top scenic and FX artists and a cast of thousands work their magic to scare you. The "Terror Tram" excursion features a brush with serial kiler clown "Hollywood Harry." This year's slate of mazes includes, "American Horror Story," "The Exorcist: The Possession of Regan MacNeil," Jason: Dream Battle," "Halloween: Hell Comes to Haddonfield," an"Krampus: The Christmas Devil," holiday spirit; and "The Walking Dead." And there is the proverbial uch, much more. It began on 16 September and will be running on selected dates through 4 November. For schedule and ticket information, click here.
When
it comes to a Boo at the Zoo, why should the
San Francisco Zoo be left out? And from 11 am-4 p.m. on 29
October, it isn’t! Gorillas, chimpanzees, lions, tigers, bears and other
animals will chow down on pumpkin treats during the "Pumpkin Stomp and
Chomp." Live animals will occupy the Haunted Nature Trail. Have a
Creepy Crawly Critter Adventure at the Insect Zoo There’ll be
trick-or-treating and interactive games. Costumes encouraged. For more
information, call 415-753-7071 or click
here .
Tis the season for Candlelight Tours at the 160-room Winchester Mystery House in San Jose through 3 November. It’s called “Mystery House” because strange features were built in. Staircases lead to nowhere. Doors open onto blank walls. It seems Sarah Winchester (of the gun manufacturer family fortune) maintained construction 24 hours a day for 38 years. (Helen Mirren stars in a movie about Mrs. Winchester and her strange house. Filming is scheduled to start in March 2017.) The tours take place 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, 22, and 28-31 October. For more information, call 408-247-2000 or click here.
California's Great America in Santa Clara presents Halloween Haunt on weekends until 30 October. (It's for people 13 or over.) Thrill to scare zones, mazes and thrill rides. new for this year is FearVR a virtual reality experience that puts you in a hospital run by "a maniacal staff." Sounds too much like real life. Also enjoy live entertainment. (Live? Really?) Note: For the younger 'uns, the theme park is running the Great Pumpkin Fest. For more information, call 408-988-1775 or click here.
The Monsters Bash takes place on the USS Hornet Museum in Alameda on 29, 30 October between 7:30 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. It's a fund-raising event. Live dance music. Less Presson and the Nails and Flock of Seagirls will provide live dance music. DJ Terrifying Tom LG will be on hand. as well as a "Burlesque Review," and, of course, prizes for best costumes. For more information, call 510-521-8448, ext. 282 or click here.
Coral Gables residents will enjoy “Halloween On The Mile” which starts at 4:00 p.m. on 31 October and takes place on Miracle Mile. The action includes musical performances, trick or treat, separate kiddie and doggie costume contests, story time at Books and Books. For more Halloween On The Mile information, click here.
Safari away to Jungle Island (dates to be annoyunced) for a Spooktacular time. If iit follows past celebrations, the park will exhibit Halloween decorator touches and there will be Halloween Costume contest, trick or treats and spectacular animal shows. There will be face painting, arts and crafts and games And then there are the live critters.Is it all fun? We hear it’s the real McCaw. For more information call 305.400.7000 or click here.f
On Halloween, Wilton Manors (a Greater Fort Lauderdale community) becomes “Wicked Wilton” and HQ for a great holiday party, sponsored by the Pride Center More than 10,000 celebrants are expected. This year’s theme is “Political Nightmare” Expect a plentiful supply of party-goers in eclectic and eccentric costumes. It runs from 7:00-11:00. (The bars along Wilton Drive will continue service post-party. Female impersonators, contests, food vendors, and bars provide some of the flavor. For more information. click here
Visitors
will wander through three seasons of American Horror Story. Maybe you'll
meet zombies from AMC’s "The Walking Dead. Scare zones, inhabited by all
sorts of foul and weird creatures, and nine new haunted houses await
visitors. They're all at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal on select
nights through 31 October. For more information, click
here.
For a young child friendly Halloween experience, there is Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Disney World. Wear costumes, enjoy the entertainment, and trick or treat throughout the Magic Kingdom. Many Disney characters -- heroes and lovable villans will be weaing special Halloween costumes. And, yes, there will be a parade and fireworks spectacular. For more information, click here.
Stone Mountain’s Pumpkin Festival concludes 30 October. Play Pumpkinpalooza, compete in the Pumpkin Pie Eating Contests and scavenger hunts, enjoy fall arts & crafts, enjoy the storytelling, Children's Costume contest and much more. New this year is Spookley's Funtastic Kids' Carnival Coinciding with the Festival is the Annual Tour of Southern Ghosts. This features professional storytellers telling stories about famous Southern Ghosts along the Park’s lantern-lit Plantation grounds For more information, Click here
Zoo Atlanta's BOO at the Zoo occurs on 22, 23, 29, 30 October from 9:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m.. In Zoo Boo Town, there are are all sorts of fun, including costume contests -- plus the sights and sounds of 1599 celebrating animals. For more information, click here.
For high-class Halloween entertainment Atlanta there’s "Ghastly Dreadfuls" running from 12-29 October 28 , 29 30 October The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra presents "A Storybook Halloween." Click here.
Watch Tim Burton’s "The Nightmare Before Christmas" while the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performs the soundtrack live on 28, 29 October. Click here.
The Phantoms of the Orchestra on the afternoon of 30 October is a one-hour "Halloween adventure" featuring prformances of Dukas’ "Sorcerer's Apprentice" and Bach’s "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor." Dress optional but there will be a costume contest. For more, click here.
The 20th annual Halloween Parade on Halsted Street (31 October, 5:00-10:00 p.m.) starts in Chicago Boystown neighborhood (self-described as "Chicago's Proudest Neighborhood: at Belmont and Halsted St. It features floats, a costume contest and a stage show. For more information, click here
The Worlds Of Fun amusement park is fully immersed in the Halloween spirit. It takes place Friday-Sunday, through 30 October, it offers many ways to say "boo." Its Halloween Haunt has scare zones, shows, extreme haunts, 400 monsters and family fun. We are told that it's mild by day (as in child friendly) and extreme by night. For more information click here
New Hampshire's official state fruit is the pumpkin. Where better to celebrate this news than Laconia. On 22 October, the New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival (previously located in Keene) lights up the darkness. Altogether, there will be many thousands of jack o' lanterns.) The festival includes a Runaway Pumpkin 10K & 5K run/walk, Pumpkin Express railway scenic excursion, costume parade, face-painting, entertainment, pumpkin pie eating contest, pumpkinseed-spitting contest, a pumpkin tower and other pumpkin diversions. For more information, click here.
Portsmouth’s Strawbery Banke Museum, a living history center, hosts Ghosts on the Banke 'haunt' on 28 an 29 October, 6:00 p.m-8 p.m.. Kids can Trick or Treat safely from historic house to house. Not only will they gather candy but they will meet pirates, seafarers and other ghostly sorts. Moreover there will be “The Witch’s House,” Haunted Hemlock Grove, wandering werewolves, and the Great Bonfire. For more information call 603-433-1100 or click here.
The annual Portsmouth Halloween Parade starts. at sundown. It’s a grass-roots kinda deal. Organizers and participants include musicians, local business owners, directors of after-school programs and artists. The parade organizers explain that "While all manner of jack-out-of-the-box thinking is encouraged, there are a few guidelines, dictated sometimes by the city, occasionally by the insurers, and mostly by common sense:" There are some fascinating fundraising events leading up to the parade. For more information, click here.
Spend the evening (4pm-7pm) in the American Museum of Natural History. Tiptoe past the dinosaurs, elephants and other earthly unearthly splendors. There will be ongoing entetainment. Past perfomers and characters have included Curious George®, Clifford the Big Red Dog®, Miffy, Peter RabbitTM, David Grover and the Big Bear Band, Big Nazo, Louie & Subanda, a magician, stilt walkers, and performers from the Big Apple Circus. f call 212-769-5200 or click here.
This Cape Fear city offers two walks. Actually, each is available throughout the year but Halloween time brings that extra (eerie) glow. When you take The Ghost Walk of Old Wilmington, you follow costumed guides through the ins and outs of Wilmington. The adults-only Haunted Pub Crawl takes you to seven haunted pubs where, we have it on good authority, spirits abound. For more information, click here
You also can partake of the Paranormal Ghost Tour (each Friday in October). The, we assume, normally sedate Poplar Grove Plantation sows the seeds of scary stuff with a walk through the house's memory lane (one of those reminiscences being a "murderous crime of passion"). Also Poplar Grove offers some "wickedly dangerous Ghost apps" for downloading to your phone prior to visit. For more information, call 910-686-9518, or click here.
What can we say about Gettysburg -- -- except that
"Ghosts of Gettysburg" has been named number one on the Top 10 haunted
ghost Tours list and its Owner author Mark Nesbitt was named best Paranormal
Investigator by
Haunted
America Tours You can avail yourself, this holiday season, of
the "Baltimore Street" tour, "Steinwehr Avenue" tour, "Carlisle
Avenue" tour and the new Saturday only "West Confederate Ghost tour.You
might want to prepare by reading Mark Nesbitt's book,
Ghosts of Gettysburg For more information, call 717.337.0445 or
click here
It’s Howl-o-ween at the indoor waterpark resort Great Wolf Lodge through 31 October. Key features are the Trick or Treat Trail, pumpkin painting, arts and crafts, storytelling, Monster Bash dance parties. Different events may take place on different days in October.For more information about event, lodge rates, click here.
Meanwhile, on 29 October Grey Towers National Historic Site, with its medieval French chateau-oid building, provides a perfect backdrop for “A Night With Poe,” a Halloween dramatic reading. Reading is at 8:00 pm (6:pm reading sold out). On 22 October there's an 11:00 am Cemetary Walk." For more information, click here.
Boone Hall Plantation, which describes itself as
“one of America’s oldest, living working plantations,” is
opening up the Happy Jack Pumpkin Patch once again this year. This
special treat will be available through 31 October. And it’s no wonder
Jack is happy. At the family-friendly Pumpkin Patch, you can pick a
pumpkin, and choose from an assortment of pleasures — Monster
Alley, Jumpiin Pillow, Happy Jack's Spooky Hayride, and the Happy
Jack Theater. And there are the Goat Tower goats that kids love to feed.
For more information call 843.884.4371 or click
here.
Spend Halloween by taking a tour of Charleston’s Most Haunted Building. Built in 1801, The Old City Jail operated for 139 years housing pirates, Union POW’s, slaves, as well as Charleston’s most notorious serial killers. The walk, operated at various times.. . Not for the easily frightened. Call 843-722-TOUR or click here
If you want to know more about the ghosts and spirits of Murfreesboro, go take a walk. Specifically, joined the Haunted Murfreesboro Tour on 21, 22 October. It takes place downtown. For more information, click here.
Join the Halloween Ghostly Gathering on 22, 29 October and get a fun look at the town’s history with candlelight and lantern tours, storytelling by the fire, and that great Halloween traditional fare, a chili and cornbread dinner. For more information, call 423-628-2441, or click here.
There is a Halloween Block Party at Courthouse Square. Entertainment takes place on two stages. Lots of food vendors are set up to fulfill your Halloween desires. There are giant bags of candy for the kids. For more information click here
The power of a mighty orchestra combines with the mystery of the holiday to delight children and adults at 11:00 am on 29 October. That’s when the Dallas Symphony Orchestra shows a high-def screening of Disney's 1940 Fantasia and performs selected pieces from its score as well as tfrm the Fantasia 2000 score.TCome early (10:00 am) early for some "spirited" pre-concert activities — arts and crafts, "instrument petting zoo" and cutest costume contest For more information, click here.
On 24 and 25 October, the Fort Concho National Historic Landmark joins the seasonal spirit with special lantern light evening tours. The staff member guides, all decked out in period (1880s) costumes and uniforms, will tell stories about the fort and its inhabitants. For more information, call 325.657.4444 or click here.
Screams, which has called itself “the world's
largest Halloween theme park,” has a month-long
season. (This year’s started 30 September and is running through 29
October.) Expect to be frightened by three haunted houses,
the CarnEvil Clown Maze and an all new Zombie Wasteland.There will
be professional actors and live music (presumably by live musicians)
Scary-Oke, games of skill, food and drink, and shopping. Screams,
located on the site of the Scarborough Renaissance Faire, is
located anout 30 minutes from the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex For more
information, click here.