Happy Haunters’ Day 2023!

The day we look forward to every year has finally arrived and we are giddy with excitement. Some kids grow up looking forward to the more traditional December holiday, we here at Intrigued celebrate the orange and black. The heavy lifting is already done for this season as we hold our haunted trail around the beginning of the month to avoid conflicts with the rest of the parties/events that are scattered across this month. As a result, we get to sit back, relaxing around the flaming pumpkins while watching the ghosts and goblins dance about the place. We wish you similar happiness in whatever manner you choose to celebrate the dark hours.

To help get you in the mood, our “partner in haunt” Paul has already put together our promo video from our recent Haunted Trail. It is impossible to bring you the expansiveness of the trail, but Paul does an excellent job of giving you a feel for the frights and fun to be had in the spooky woods.

Note, if the embedded video will not play, here is the direct link to it – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1FMpBNo3dk

Hit the jump to see a few more of our Halloween scenes to get this holiday kicked off right

Our motto – “It isn’t a party until you flame the pumpkins”!

Direct link here: https://youtu.be/ymkX5ODxOlg

Some shots from this year’s Haunted Trail. Feel free to check out our full gallery (link here) – warning our trail is big. Here are just a few takes from that gallery.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

You can never go wrong with a 12′ skeleton (and this year we had TWO as Linda got me the 12′ Inferno Skeleton from Home Depot!)

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

I covered the behind the scenes fabrication of our two new 8′ spiders on our mothership (link here)

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

Our resident coven (link here).

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

The gatekeeper to light your way into the depths of darkness.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

Also covered this year’s new stones in our Afterglow tutorial (link here).

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

Another new stone.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

A bit of an inside joke – I used to (well, still do) get emails addressed to Brain. Always makes me chuckle.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

“Who let the corpses out!?! who, who, who who”

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

Warning, there are things out in our woods that scare the living crap out of me…

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

That is a forced smile, was the told the clown in his left arm didn’t comply with their evil clown demands…I’m smiling, I’m smiling!

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

This was the new clown addition for this year. Guests ask me if I am afraid of clowns, why are there so many on the trail – response “Cuz I can’t think of anything more terrifying”.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

Don’t go to sleep or Vax Krueger will get his revenge.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

This zombie will try to grab you. Do not fear, we put a stake through him so he isn’t going anywhere – we here at Intrigued like to be safe (except when running) ha.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

…and now we descend into bloody hell.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

If you think these twins are scary, you should hear what they say … bad girls, very, very bad girls.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

Our new 10′ Birdman and his trusty pet Wolfie.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

That wolf is 8′ long and over 4′ high to give you some scale. This was my first attempt at sculpting. Unfortunately didn’t get the eyes in (it has spooky glass eyes) before opening night, but all in all I really like how it came out.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

It isn’t a party until the Headless Horseman pays a visit.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2023

That’s all for now, we have to get prepared to eradicate the clowns in our woods (seems like a few always manage to escape when we are trying to corral them into the shed after the big party). Hope you enjoyed a look into our Halloween efforts – now go out there and have a happy haunting!

48 thoughts on “Happy Haunters’ Day 2023!”

    1. Thanks, was just hoping spread some Halloween cheer! If you are ever in the area on the last weekend in September you are always welcome to come check it out for yourself. We spend a lot of time throughout the year on it and always look forward to showing the results of that work off come haunt time .. tough on the body, but a labor of love ha.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. Almost like being there, but not quite a creepy as being there. I think this could be special on Discovery Channel. You have the entire process from creation and setup to darkness and guest reactions. Boo!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. It is kind of hard to convey the true feel of the trail, especially how dark it gets in the depths of the woods..and those damn clowns ha. Definitely not worthy of a Discovery show, but we could definitely go for some minutes on those best of Halloween decoration shows. Just got back from Spirit’s clearance sale and now have all new stuff to add for next year.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

        1. Fortunately, she was with me, so she kept me under control. She appreciates a good bargain when she sees it. The storage part..well, will have to deal with that here pretty soon, probably have to make a few more shelves.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    1. Thank you Tim! I must admit to being a little saddened now that the fright season is officially past us. Probably have a good hard week of getting everything back into storage and then we start on building the new props for next year.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

          1. Laurie and I were discussing tree roots of all evil and she was recalling how many times she has tripped over tree roots while running and fell flat on her face. Fortunately no serious injuries, but those tree roots are gunning for runners.

            I think the one with your name on it was communicating with your evil roots through the Árbol Underground Rootnet of All Evil.

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply

            1. Yikes, the AURoAE sounds like one bad organization!! I think we need to “root” those member out out send them straight to hell..as in a burn pile ha. I recently learned from a trail running podcast that I listen to ….ironically while trail running.. that there is a big difference between Western trails and Eastern trails being that the latter has wicked roots where the Western have few roots but more rocks to contend with. Apparently the western runners are scared to death of our rooty trails hehehehe. Tell Laurie that I feel for her (glad no serious injuries).

              Liked by 1 person

    1. Hahahah..perfect (although that song is gonna be with me the rest of the day ugh). You are correct on the plum fairy front…with the exception of zombie fairies of course. Some kids count sheep over their beds, I think headless horsemen would be a fine substitute ha. Appreciate you coming by Jerry. Stay calm and haunt on.

      Like

      Reply

  6. Hundreds of cool Oooh moments! Love the lit rectangle of ground crawling with spider shadows – really effective. Cool idea to spatter-paint the woods with UV paint, really must work on the viewers’ peripheral vision! Yay, flaming pumpkins! Happy Haunting!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. You would be shocked at the number of guests that absolutely refused to walk through that square – had no idea that many people were horrified by the spiders – note to self, ADD MORE SPIDERS to the trail next year (never let me know what scares ya’ hahahah). The “spatter-paint” effect is a bit of a haunt secret for us – we are often asked how we strung all the lights in the trees. Up until the last two years, it was impossible to get a photograph of the effect, but guessing the camera phones have gotten better as guests have sent me some really good shots of it. We had and industrial strength fogger this year that gave some of the secret away for those that have been mystified in the past. Note, that fogger worked awesome smoking up the entire valley for over a mile away. We lit two more pumpkins last night to close the haunt season – it’s a sad feeling today, but we’ll start on props for next year as soon as we get all the decorations put back in storage. Take care.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thank you!! We put a lot of effort into the haunted trail each year and glad to hear when people enjoy the effort. Will not be long before we are back to building props for next year’s offering…stay tuned. Appreciate you dropping in.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. I see what you did there ..nice one. We do try to make the trail enjoyable for all ages. We design it so the deeper you go on the trail (and thus deeper into the woods), the scarier (more shocking) it gets. We take zero blame for any nightmares young our old. Each individual or parent is accountable for how far they want to take it. Funny note, leading up to the event, we always hear the children talk about how they are going to make it further than they did the year before…most chicken out, but you do see some of the braver souls push themselves. Our trail name (Trail of Tears) has absolutely nothing to do with the historical tragedy of the American Indian, rather the fact we have brought some children (and adults) to tears. If you are in the neighborhood next year, feel free to bring your ghoulfriend and check out the trail.

      Like

      Reply

    1. There is definitely a lot of anticipation leading up to the trail. It is fun to see the children enjoying it (you probably heard in the video the child saying they had been down it already 4 times that night). Each year they get a little braver and get to see a bit more of the scarier props each year. The adults seem to have fun each year as well – we work hard year round to bring fresh new scares to the trail each year so they never know what to expect. Lately we have really stepped up the overall size of the new props – much more imposing ha. Appreciate you dropping in Belinda.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Yep, we definitely have our share of noisy creatures in our woods . The weather was holding really nice so there were more than usual out that night – adds to the spookiness ha. We just had two days of hard frost and even had sparse flurries yesterday. Most of the bugs should have moved on or ended their cycle by now. The really scary part of the trail is when the Owls light up and the packs of Coyotes start howling – definitely rattles the city folks ha. Appreciate you dropping in Sharon, have a great November.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

        1. I do like listening and seeing the Owls, except we do have to keep a close eye on our 6 and 4 pound toy Poodles as they have the wing lift to do very bad things. For the most part the Coyotes will stay out of sight – every once in a while one will get too bold and have to be dealt with, but for the most part I let them keep the critter population under control. We had a few hard freezes, but back up into the 70s now for a few days…time to deal with all the leaves before we get into the white fluffy season.

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

            1. There is definitely an increase in Hawk population here as well, although our local Owls have no fear of them and will openly kill them (and any Eagles) that try to encroach on their hunting grounds – a formidable adversary to say the least. We do have a few Eagles that have taken up year round residence in a park less than a mile from us – luckily they tend to hang out in those meadows rather than hunt our woods so one less thing to worry about with the Poodles go out for their walks – as you say, they can be disruptive and those possums are about the same weight.

              Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you Tanja! We probably have about a week’s worth of work to finish getting the last of the decorations back in storage and then it is right to work on the new props for next year’s trail. It is a year round effort for us. Used to have to share the time with real work, but now that we are retired, we can devote even more time to the cause. Luckily that work doesn’t take the hard labor that comes when setting up the trail so we do get a big rest from that, but that means I have to work out twice as hard and run longer to keep the weight off ha. Take care and appreciate you coming by to see our haunt addiction.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thank you! One would say we actually have a really bad clown infestation in our woods, but for one month of the year we don’t mind it as much as it plays well with our Halloween theme ha! Appreciate you dropping in.

      Like

      Reply

    1. Glad you like the vid Sandra. My partner in haunt makes that promo for us every year to send out to the guests that could make it and more importantly, to those who could not attend so they can get a small taste for what they missed!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thank you Donna! Definitely a ways away from you being out here in the haunted Midwest, but if you are every in the area the last weekend in September you are always welcome to experience it…and we especially enjoy watching kids explore the trail.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment