The Haunted Graveyard, of various locations in Connecticut over the years, has become a Halloween institution in New England for well over 20 years now.
My first time going was in the late 1990s, when it was hosted at Lyman Orchards, an extensive pick-your-own apple farm plus more in Middlefield CT, and it was fantastic! Middlefield is out in the countryside, and the long, dark drive out there definitely added to the whole experience.
If I remember correctly, somewhere around the year 2000, The Haunted Graveyard moved its operations to Lake Compounce in Bristol, CT. The vibe of the attraction did change a bit, but overall the Haunted Graveyard was able to expand, host more guests, and became more technically sophisticated.
(click the collage below for a video)
As of its most recent year in Bristol, it boasted over 14 different haunted house scenes and employed over 200 actors, with a wide variety of imagery, moods, and themes. Every setting was extraordinarily detailed, it was clear that a ton of passion and care went into making it a terrific haunted attraction: lighting, props, sounds, and effects have all been top-notch.
In 2020, they chose not to open during the pandemic -- totally understandable. Such a large and beloved haunt would surely reopen when the time was right.
What I (and many others) didn't expect is that The Haunted Graveyard would be moving to a new location for the 2021 season!
Just last week, as I have been looking for haunted attractions to go to while I visit CT again this fall, I spotted a few announcements like these on The Haunted Graveyard's social media:
(click the above pic for their Instagram page)
Tickets aren't on sale just yet, but many haunted attractions wait til September 1st or so to release advanced tickets. I haven't yet decided whether I want to visit The Haunted Graveyard again this year, or wait til 2022 for them to settle into their new "home" (if they continue to stay at Quassy).
So far, no word on why they made the move, but I am asking around and will report back if I find out anything. In the meantime, I am continuing to plan my Halloween, haunted house, and fall activities.
Midnight Syndicate has just released a new album: Bloodlines, which dropped on 20th August, 2021. I've been a fan since I overheard one of their earliest albums, Born of the Night, in a shop in Salem, MA many moons ago.
Bloodlines is a continuation of their habit of creating themed albums, and is reported to be a prequel to the story behind the 2005 album The 13th Hour. The majority of their works are instrumental, and the stories behind the albums are only hinted at through the song titles; the rest is left up to the listener's imagination.
If you're not yet familiar with the work of Midnight Syndicate, they have produced a 20+ year discography
of dark, gothic, orchestral atmospheric compositions that sounds like
the musical scores from forgotten horror films. Their albums are used
often in haunted attractions, so if you attend those, chances are pretty good that you may have heard their music
even if you weren't aware of it.
Click the image below for a link to buy the album.
Spent some time in Seattle (and surrounding towns) over the weekend. We live about 40 mins away, so it's an easy trip to grab dinner or spend time exploring. My spooky senses are on full alert this time of year, and I spotted these great skull stickers.
The orange one had to be inspired by the iconic skull seen in the classic film The Burning (1981):
(click above for a clip from the film; if you haven't seen it, watch it!)
When I left for my brief trip to the east coast halfway thru August, it was still summer here. When I returned just about 10 days later, it already felt like fall. The leaves are beginning to change, reds and shades of orange peeking through.
Halloween retail seems to be lagging behind a little, though. This is one of the first Spirit Halloweens I've seen. This was a costume-only location though (Auburn, WA), so we didn't bother going in.
When I was planning my summer visit to the east coast for a camping trip with friends & family in upstate NY, I did a bit of searching for stuff to do in the area, and was delighted to find this place in Lake George that was nearby -- The House of Frankenstein Wax Museum!
So, a couple of weekends ago, I went! They seem to be open for most of the summer tourist weeks as well as Halloween season. If you're in the area and in need of a Summerween fix, this might just do the trick.
I won't give too much away, but overall this is campy, good fun. It wasn't too crowded when we went, despite the downtown Lake George area being very active with tourists. There was no wait to get in, although there are some fun horror-themed things to look at in the lobby to keep you occupied in case it's busy when you go. I loved this friendly guy who greeted us, he had to have been inspired by Roger Corman's film,The Raven.
Once you pay your admission, you ascend a flight of stairs and follow the hallways from scene to scene, many of which are interactive and/or animated. It's mostly campy and endearing in the way that old horror films are (and indeed, some of the scenes involve familiar horror characters), but there are some genuinely spooky moments to be found. One scene actually made me jump -- and THAT is no small feat, I'm not an easy scare when it comes to these things.
It's a self-guided tour which you can take at your own pace, but I'd recommend planning at least half an hour to 45 minutes in there, especially if you're with a small group.
If you find yourself in the Lake George area, check it out!
I recently unearthed some pages of a water-damaged photo album that contained a bunch of old photos I had taken on a weekend trip to Salem in October of 1998.
Two tracks have been released so far, and the full album comes out on 24th Sept. 2021. I love what I've heard so far and I can't wait for the rest! Click the album cover pic above for a link to the Bandcamp page, where you can listen to the first 2 tracks.
Well, shit, I've only been back in town a couple of days and all hell breaks loose.
Today started off relatively uneventful; the friend I'm staying with had to work today and I brought my laptop with me so I could work as well -- one of the big perks of being a remote freelance designer.
It was HOT today, I mean HOT. Summers in CT are extra special because humidity always makes it feel hotter than thermometer says it is. Heat index was probably 105 F. Thankfully, my old room has an AC in the window so I was comfortable.
I was about to join a Zoom meeting today a little before 6 PM when I realized it seemed kinda dark out there. Storm clouds were rolling in, and it soon started to rain. Summer thunderstorms are common as hell around here, and I was actually pretty psyched about it. We don't typically get t-storms in western WA, but summers are dry and don't usually get above 90 -- the conditions for storms just aren't there.
My old room is on the second floor so I had a good vantage point for watching the storm. It seemed peaceful enough at first but quickly intensified. Needless to say, I cancelled my Zoom appointment.
Thankfully we were all home at the time. My friend and I had just gotten
back from an errand about an hour before when the sun was blazing and
no sign of a storm. The wind started to REALLY pick up and the rain was coming down in torrents. The lightning was right overhead and getting crazy.
The streets started to flash flood a bit, branches and debris flying everywhere, the house was shaken a few times by the wind, trees were bending in half. Roof shingles and pieces of siding were strewn in the street. I started to feel a bit nervous about it, wondering if we should go to the basement for safety. The strength of the winds made it feel like we were in the path of a small tornado.
I don't recall ever witnessing a storm that got that intense that quickly, and we've gone through hurricanes, ice storms, Nor'easters, and plenty of strong thunderstorms. The damage from this event is more extensive than most any other storm I've personally lived through. I haven't heard any official confirmation yet, but there are rumors that a small tornado moved through the area. It passed pretty quickly at least; the wind and rains seemed to stop rather abruptly. It was an eerie feeling. We went outside to walk around the hood a bit to assess the damage.
A bunch of our neighbors were outside as well, everyone making sure everything was okay. Sirens in the air and reports on the scanner showed us that we were pretty damn lucky on our street, and relatively unscathed.
Some trees, including one in the park next door, were completely blown over. Our power went out for a few hours afterward. We heard many reports of fires and downed power lines, crushed vehicles, blown-out windows, destroyed gardens, flattened gazebos, and damaged homes. I don't think anyone was hurt though, what a relief. It was a fucking scary storm.
The air temperature cooled off considerably, though, so at least we weren't dying in the heat. The skies cleared up gradually, in unsettling neon shades as the sun set.
We lit some candles and sat outdoors for a bit and enjoyed the relative quiet, listening to the night bugs and the hum of a nearby generator. It was actually quite peaceful then, despite the inconvenience of the power being out.
Enjoy this 20 seconds of New England suburb summer night sounds.
It
was a pretty crazy experience, but we're all okay. The power was
restored close to midnight, hopefully it will remain. As I type this, I
hear more thunder rumbling in the distance. It is a dark and stormy
night...
Those of you who follow my Instagram account (and if you don't already, please do) may have seen my post yesterday about me arriving in Connecticut for a visit. If you're new here, one thing to know about me is that I was born & raised in CT and spent the majority of my life in and around the New England states.
I think my love for Halloween has a lot to do with growing up here. I moved to the Tacoma, WA area about 6 years ago, and while that part of the country has its own charm, it feels so different than New England.
The Pacific Northwest and New England both have their own flavors of spooky/creepiness. The PNW feels like an animalistic, untamed place, like it will catch you & eat you alive. But New England is seriously ancient,* spanning eons of dusty memories & full of ghosts that will haunt you forever.
*(literally true, in the geological sense, there are some pretty fucking old rocks in eastern North America)
Cornfield, East Windsor CT, ca 1999, photo by me
No matter what time of year I'm here in New England, it always feels like Halloween is just around the corner: about to occur or just passed. Right now, we're nearly halfway through August already and the late-summer/early-fall funk is hanging in the humid, uncomfortably warm air. I can feel time and timelessness so much more intensely with every one of my senses. I generally despise hot weather, but there's something about being outdoors on a sticky August night that feels eternal, free, and wild.
Which leads me to my story from earlier this evening. My friend and I had been out doing errands just after sunset, and decided to stop for takeout on the way back to her place. We had about 10 or 15 minutes to wait when we arrived at the restaurant, so we had music on in the car and were chatting with the windows and sunroof open, the strip mall parking lot mostly dark and quiet, near about 10PM.
Then -- as we were talking -- every few minutes, we heard some sort of cry/song/vocalization of an animal, which sounded fairly close by to where we were parked, but not on the ground -- higher up, as if it were up on the roof of the strip mall. The first time we heard it, we didn't think anything of it, it was just background noise partly drowned out by the music. The second time, we wondered if maybe it was just part of the song that was currently playing? But no. We stopped the music to see if we could hear it again. Every few minutes or so, we heard a similar sound coming from the same spot. Sometimes, we heard another similar call from further away, and then the closer creature (???) would call out again, seemingly in response. Was that its mate? Who knows.
Both my friend and I immediately thought that it must be a bird of some kind - but nothing similar to anything we had ever heard before in the wild, and definitely not at night. Was it an owl? Didn't sound like any owl either of us knew of. Was it a parrot, I wondered; maybe somebody's pet who escaped? Part of the sound/call was almost a "laughing" sort of sound that a money or kookaburra might make, but like... what the hell lives in CT that would make that noise? So strange. And whatever it was, there were at least 2 of them. We wondered for a few moments if was it a recording of some kind designed to scare off other birds or creatures from the rooftops -- but the sounds we heard were slightly different every time. Baffling.
We kept our eyes peeled but we never saw anything. Finally, it occurred to me that I should pull out my phone and see if I could capture any audio. The video below was all I got:
I suppose that I will someday find out the answer to this mystery -- perhaps someone will listen to this audio recording and laugh, it being obvious to them what is making that sound. But for the time being, the unknown is a little unsettling.
