How was your Halloween? Mine was everything I wanted this year. But I have even more great Monday news: I'm going to be traveling to Salt Lake City, UT after my visit home in January!! And to celebrate this, and the end of Halloween-time, here's a little recap of one of my favorite times I visited Utah during the spooky season (two years ago). Including general Halloween ideas for next year ;) 

Watching "Children of the Corn" in a cemetery

For starters, there was night ONE. Literally the very first night I was in Salt Lake City, Brittney and Scott had a surprise for me. They blindfolded me and took me to a cemetery! It was secretly — and now openly — one of the coolest things that has ever happened.

I felt so giddy trying to figure out where we were. We parked the car and Brittney told me not to step out because I would fall so I thought we were on some sort of cliff. And then we're walking and I could feel my feet on pavement, and then on grass, and then walking up a hill, down a hill, under a tree, up another small hill and finally we were where they wanted to be.

I actually guessed where we were before I took off the blindfold. They gave me clues like, "There are a lot of people here but they won't bother us," and "there are a lot of squares/rectangles everywhere." Even when I did guess it though, they didn't let up.

To further this crazy fun night, they had brought a laptop and a hotspot to connect to wifi so we could watch the movie "Children of the Corn," in this huge cemetery, in the middle of the night, on top of this small hill. The air was chilled just right too so we curled up in blankets and watched as the movie opened into the goriest part before proceeding for creepy shock as the children killed their parents and buried them in the corn fields. I am never going to be able to look at corn fields the same way again.

Nighmare on 13th Street

You can actually still "enjoy" this place — they have a special event coming up in Novemeber. But in other fun Halloween-spirited nights, Brittney, Scott, and I went to a haunted house. In California, I don't hear too much about set up haunted houses because we have amusement parks around that you go to and get scared like I talked about here. 

I sort of nonchalantly thought I was over being scared since I've been to Knott's Scary Farm a couple times, and I don't get freaked out anymore. So with this whole thing I just figured it would be a fun evening. A casual walk through some rooms that were made to make you feel spooked with people who you might see in your worst nightmares.

I didn't think it would become my nightmare.

We conquered the Dark Harvest area, and then made our way to the Thirteen Levels of fear which included fear of claustrophobia where you had to push your way through these inflated air things that suctioned to your body, and fear of clowns that had one clown coming from the ceiling.

At one point, we were about to step into this vortex sort of thing that spins in a circle to make you feel like you're moving, and all of a sudden the creepiest monster character came behind me and got really close to me. It freaked me out so I started walking away really fast, unlinking arms with Brittney and subsequently nailing my body into a banister and slipping through the open space. "I'm OK!" was all I could really muster before picking myself up as quickly as possible like nothing happened, the creepy guy now gone as if I had just imagined the whole thing, and followed Brittney and Scott through the vortex.

The one that really irked all three of us was the Fear of the Insane room. It was a black and white illusion room that made you go around a banister in the center to get to the other door. This guy lurked behind the door as we came in and followed us again with a painted face and an odd smirk. That was the only other time I could not get out of the way fast enough. Poor Scott was thrown to the side as Brittney and I hastily made our way to the front and out of that room.

Logan's Corn Maze, Haunted Maze, & Hay Jumping

The finale of all these Halloween spooky things was when I got to go to Logan with a couple friends who just came from Los Angeles. We met our friend Allyssa there and headed out to something I've been wanting to do since I came out to Utah the year before this: a hayride. The idea of open space, small towns, and farms made me so excited and wanting to do any stereotypical thing I could think of — like a hayride — seemed so appropriate. 

We got the "do-it-all" package and it was worth every dollar. First, we went on the "spooky" hayride. It was adorable. And I was definitely spooked at times. I made a new friend — Jack the cute dog — and learned about Charlie the scarecrow that was causing quite the raucous in the corn fields including stealing people's clothes because he was tired of getting hand-me-downs. I also was selected to see if a spider was dead and then it launched at me (it wasn't real thank goodness). It was all a bunch of trickery by the scarecrows so we wouldn't bother them. Obviously.

Then we made our way over to the haunted maze thing. I don't know what to call it because they had a separate corn maze that we also did — not as exciting as I'd imagine. Actually, I've found that mazes in general are more frustrating than fun. Especially when you're just wandering without any clue as to why or what you're doing. So we did the small corn maze and walked out the way we came in, not entirely knowing that we did just that.

In any case, I'm thinking this haunted barn thing wouldn't be that terrible. There were five of us, walking together, and I thought it was just going through the barn.

NOPE.

We walked through the barn, out the door, into a shack, down some other path, through the corn, through another shack, past a set-up graveyard... it went on for 30 minutes! We kept wondering when it was over, if we were at the exit, and then we'd be on a whole other trail! They really did an amazing job. KUDOS to you guys for really scaring me. Especially when that person just showed up in the corn maze out of nowhere. Or when that body just flew out at us from the tree. Or when we went through that part of complete darkness. Ya, thanks for the nightmares. But seriously — thank you. Because it was the most scared I've been in years.

We ended our do-it-all package by climbing Parkour-style to the top of a hay-bale pyramid. And then jumping off a lower level onto some mattresses. Exhilarating! You can just call me adrenaline-junky. Scary mazes and everything.

Don't neglect an opportunity to do any one of these Halloween adventures next year. It could be the scariest set of adventures you'll have yet! ;)