Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Fun Halloween activity: Haunted Trails

If any of you, my handful of readers, are looking for a fun Halloween-related activity, I highly recommend the Haunted Trails at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Wash. The students of the university put it on to raise money for trips abroad. It costs $10 ($8 with a can or dry-food donation), and involves walking in groups of 10 or so through the trails on the university's grounds. Along the way, people in costume jump at you, ghosts on strings fly around and so on. Last year was my first year going. As we waited to embark, the "guide" told us that "there will be no touching," which meant that any time a scary person started toward me on the trail, I would reflexively wave my hands around in front of my face and say "NO TOUCHING!" Yeahh... I'm weird. Mostly, I'm just not a fan of being scared!


Anyway, since I was toward the back of our group, I didn't get truly spooked too often. But despite that, along with the crazy cold, drizzly weather, it was still a lot of fun. Someone in our group brought a big thing of hot cocoa -- spiked with butterscotch schnapps -- which we sipped on after our adventure. Yum!


This year, the Trails will run from 5:30 to 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday Oct. 17 and 18, and Friday and Saturday Oct. 24 and 25. They're quite popular (last year they had 4,000 folks), so I recommend going early (and of course, dressing warmly). There's also some side events going on for small kids.

More info on everything can be found on Bastyr's Web site. I'm guessing my friends and I will go again this year, but we haven't pinned down a date. If any of you (and by "you" I mean my real-life friends in Seattle ;o)) want to join in, just let me know.

No comments: