Category: Projects

Haunted Trail of Tears 2019 – The Big Event!

Well, I’ve brought you 2/3rds of the Haunted Trail of Tears 2019 over the last couple of posts.  That included the prep, staging and day tour for the 2019 version of Halloween here at Intrigued.  As our guests continually mention, it is hard to really put the trail in perspective unless you are there to experience it.  There’s a natural spookiness brought on by being deep in a woods with little ambient light making for a pitch black backdrop.  Not to mention the sounds of a night out in the country that can make a city dweller shiver and bite their nails.  Now add to that hundreds of decorations and you have yourself a night of fun and scares that rightfully honor our favorite holiday.  One thing for sure, by the time the sun goes down and the trail fires up, my friends in haunt and I are pretty exhausted.  All that is left to do is grab a beer, stoke the bonfire and sit back and enjoy everyone have a fun night out.  Your image cache would catch fire if we showed everything on the trail, so instead, just going to hit on the highlights and provide a few comments where needed to close out the trail posts.  Hit the lights… its show time

“Halloween

You can finally see the latest addition to the trail in its full glory.  Super happy about getting that life-size horse on closeout from Home Depot the following year.  Linda had to put up with it put together in our basement for a whole year – totally worth it.  The Headless Posey also looked awesome illuminated by the flaming pumpkin.

“Halloween

Hit the jump if you are prepared for a few scares.

Continue reading Haunted Trail of Tears 2019 – The Big Event!

Haunted Trail of Tears 2019 – Day Tour

It is time for part two of the Halloween Trail of Tears 2019 posts.  Last post I took you through the multi day..err..weeks…err months process just to get ready for the one night event.  That doesn’t even cover the work that goes on non-stop throughout the year to bring new additions to the trail.  That pretty much just gets us to the starting line.  Once everything is put together (to a point it can still be transported into the woods), it is time to start creating the experience.  Up to a few years ago we did this all in about a day starting after work on Friday and then through until ~5-6pm the next  day literally adding new and fixing stuff that wasn’t working right up to the point guests start arriving.  With the size this has grown into since then, I have to take at least two days off of work to even have a chance of getting done – still a battle against time. The way the trail works is it gets scarier and more adult the further you go.  The guests are responsible for how far they want to take it and more importantly how much to expose their kids to.  We spend a lot of time making sure the kids and squeamish adults can have a good time if they only get a portion of the trail.  Go the whole way and the nightmares are on you ha!

Keeping with tradition, bringing you the daylight tour.  There is one caveat this year.  We were too busy to get the shots done before the event started – as I said, a battle against time and Mr. Murphy.  These shots were actually taken the next morning before tear down and thus some of the props had already been through a night’s worth of wear and tear as in the shot below.

Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears October 2019

New for this year was the life size zombie horse and companion homemade headless horseman.  There was a lot of concern about a) fire deep in the woods, b) stability of the flaming pumpkin, c) how flammable the decoration might be and d) how hard it was going to be to get this monstrous prop down the big hills to the haunted trail.  As a result, I added a solid stand to hold the flaming pumpkin and opted to keep the decoration up by the house.  This way everyone could experience it and I could still keep an eye on it.  You will see in the after dark post the stand merged into the darkness quite nicely.  We received a lot of compliments for this new prop addition and can’t wait to take you through the build (upcoming post).

Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears October 2019

Hit the jump to see some scenes from the Haunted Trail day tour.

Continue reading Haunted Trail of Tears 2019 – Day Tour

Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears – The Prep

Well, it is time to get this set of posts out.  I have been avoiding it due to some emotional memories that come along with this year’s Halloween extravaganza.  Waiting any longer isn’t going to change the situation so I need to get the Haunted Trail of Tears 2019 taken care of while I can still remember all the work it takes to make this thing happen.  Original intent was to slam this into just two posts, but there are way too many images to force on you all at once.  As a result, went ahead and extracted the prep series out separately – this way you can ease into the barrage of photos that’s coming your way!

With Linda’s surgery, in August, we opted to push the date a week to give her extra time to recover and more importantly me time to make up for the lost weeks being up at Mayo.  I had spent a large part of the summer building the new all-weather prop sensors.  Think by the end I had produced over 60 of those devices building on our previous design with an added feature of being able to put the batteries in ahead of time so we could simply switch them on come event start – I cannot even begin to explain how great that was both in savings during the activation step and then more importantly being able to turn them off at the end and not have to worry about getting them out of the woods if bad weather hit us (like last year.. and year before that …).  Unfortunately, that meant rewiring all the props to use the new sensor.  Thankfully, Ron came to my aid and helped get everything converted over!

Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears October 2019

I also had to finish up a number of new props that where being worked on since a month after last year’s effort (yep, there is no Halloween downtime here at Intrigued ha).  Here’s Ron with a major addition for this year’s trail.  Something tells me you can guess what that is.  Linda was excited about finally getting that life size horse out of the basement after 10 months.  Ron actually came down a week ahead of the planned date which was greatly appreciated.  It is hard enough to get all of last year’s props out and each year it grows bigger and bigger.  The zombie horse was just one of the new items making its debut this year.

Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears October 2019

Hit the jump to learn what happens behind the scenes of the Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears extravaganza.

Continue reading Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears – The Prep

Hang Fire

Christmas is officially over and the New Year festivities have calmed down.  That can only mean one thing around here at Intrigued – yep stress time as we only have about 9 months to get prepped for this year’s Haunted Halloween Trail.  Already looking tight and worried we will once again be scrambling to get all the new decorations built and the haunt layout planned in time.  To help get me in the mood figured it was finally time to get a post out on a decoration I built for the 2018 trail.

Haunted Halloween Trail 2019

I already walked you through the witch construction (link here) – those made their appearance back on the 2017 trail.  The initial scene just had a cauldron sitting on the ground in the middle of the circle.  Had an idea to kick it up a bit for the 2018 version.  A cauldron isn’t going to get too hot if it is just sitting on the ground… what to do … what to do… oh yeah, let’s add some fire (append your own Tim the Tool Man grunts).  Getting the cauldron off the ground was pretty easy – thankfully because I left that design to the very end.  Ron and I were busy finishing up the final decoration prep the night before the main event.  After a quick build of the Nightwing stand – if I remember correctly that was around midnight (link here) – looked down at the to-do list and remembered the cauldron stand.  Happened to look over and noticed a bunch of 3/8″ grey PVC conduit laying against the garage wall.  Problem solved.  Grabbed three pieces and some twine and went about connecting them at one end.  Finished if off with three more lines to hold the cauldron.  Patted myself on the back when I remembered I had adjustable eyehook connectors laying around from a previous build.  Hooked those on the end of the support strings and then connected to the cauldron in the three newly drilled holes.  In case it didn’t click, the adjustable hooks allowed me to get the cauldron leveled without playing games trying to get the strings tied evenly.

Hit the jump to see how the fire prop was constructed.

Continue reading Hang Fire

Happy Hauntings!

It’s that time of the year…

Halloween 2019

Yep, my favorite time of the year.  What evils shall lurk in the darkest hours? Witches and warlocks, black cats and things that are left unnamed.  Perhaps, even the Galloping Hessian of the Hollow in search of Ichabob Crane!

sHalloween 2019

Whatever scares come your way, may your heart be strong and your feet be fast for nightmares await the one unfortunate to be last.

Hit the jump to see a few more pictures in celebration of the Day of the Dead – if you dare {evil laugh}

Continue reading Happy Hauntings!

Halloween Project 2018: Nightwings

Thought I would finally get around to showing off a Halloween project that was built for the 2018 Haunted Halloween Trail of Tears (link here).  Those that checked out the trail walkthrough probably noticed a couple of interesting adds that I didn’t really talk much about.   Was looking at my post queue and noticed I STILL had not posted on that project over a year later.  This must be remedied immediately (as in before this year’s Halloween hits the history books).  So without further delay I bring you Project Nightwings.

NightWings Halloween Decoration 2018

The night shots of the Nightwings didn’t come out the best because.. well, it was dark.  Last year there was close to zero ambient light on the trail making it a bit difficult on the final camera round.  Now, on the other hand, definitely upped the spook factor on the trail!  If you look closely you will see a giant pair of wings adorning the back of the gargoyle.  Now, making one pair of wings is fun enough, however, TWO wings pretty much puts this guy on cloud nine. The second pair is even harder to make out as the black wings blended into the darkness – unlike the zombie silhouette that looked awesome after an upgrade was made to the backing board that reflected the light better)

Nightwings Halloween Decoration 2018

Hit jump to see how these new props for 2018 came to be!

Continue reading Halloween Project 2018: Nightwings

Project Halloween Butters and Dragons

Seems like an odd time to be pulling out a Halloween post don’t ya’ think?  Truth be told, we were celebrating my friend in haunt’s (Brad’s) 30 year service anniversary at work and the topic of Halloween came up – which to be honest isn’t that odd as we are often talking about Halloween – a year long holiday for the two of us.  Brad is working on building a CNC machine which I am hoping is ready before too long.  I have big plans for that thing hehehe.  Anyway, all that talk about Halloween reminded me I still had some 2018 Halloween posts I had not gotten to.  So, tonight I bring you the annual Halloween pumpkin carving for 2018.

Halloween Pumpkin 2018

Only 7 month’s late, but what the hell that’s nothing compared to the backlog of wildlife pictures I need to get through.  After the yeoman work of putting on the Annual Halloween Haunted Trail event (link here) at the beginning of October, it always seems a bit of a letdown when the actual Day of Haunt comes around.  Last year we opted to drive around to check out the worthy displays in the surrounding local towns.  When we got back I was truly inspired and went to work on getting the final carving done on the foam pumpkin.

Halloween Pumpkin 2018

Hit the jump to see some progress shots.

Continue reading Project Halloween Butters and Dragons

January, the New October

It may be white and fluffy on the outside, but it’s full on orange inside at Intrigued.  If you have spent any time on this blog you should be keenly aware that Halloween is a special holiday around here.  In fact, it is pretty much a year round activity.  We spend our off months preparing for the Annual Haunted Trail of Tears so we are ready for the big event.  I say that in jest, because we are never really ready for it as every year is a mad scramble to get all the projects wrapped up, the multi-day trail build  and then the extended weeks of effort to get it all packed back away.  All that work for a single night of spook with friends and family.  One of my traditions is to carve the annual pumpkin on Halloween night.  The party is actually at the beginning of the month, so usually I just finishing up the hard work and looking for some relaxing fun to put a bow on another year.  Last year I almost go there, but I opted for a theme that took me a LOT longer than intended.

Pumpkin Carving Halloween 2018

Hit the jump to read some details about the carve!

Continue reading January, the New October

Haunted Trail of Tears 2018 – Tear Down

Well, it has finally come, the grains of sands are just about finished falling for this year and the giant blog clock is just about to turn to year … wait for it .. wait for it .. TWELVE.  So many years, so many words, so many photographs and still enjoying every minute of it.  Well, maybe not those times when I am up against the wall trying to get the blog quota in before the turn of the month.  I haven’t finalize plans for the New Year yet (do not like to rush into that due to my absolute commitment to fulfilling whatever resolutions I come up with), but it feels at this point the blogs will be once again a mainstay in 2019.  As likely the last post of 2018, decided to close out the Halloween posts.  So far I covered the prep and two posts on the trail itself.  Only thing left is to talk about the tear down.  The way this usually works, is it takes a couple of weeks to get it all prepped, another 3 or 4 days to get it set up and then excruciatingly tiring hours to get it all hauled back up the hill once all the guests have left for the night. This year it went a little different thanks to the rain that started falling as the party was winding down.  We had to take the final pictures during the rain (thankfully the tree canopy kept us fairly dry).  By the time everyone left, the rain was coming down too hard to get the vehicles down and up the now very muddy hill.  Only thing I could do was put on the rain coat, turn off all the props, remove the sensor batteries and haul up a few of the smaller electronic decorations I didn’t want expose to the night of rain.  That took over an hour to do that resulting in one rain soaked Bri.

Haunted Trail of Tears 2018 - Tear Down

Hit the jump to see a few more shots from the tear down.

Continue reading Haunted Trail of Tears 2018 – Tear Down

Nightmare After Christmas – Pt 2 of 2

We are on our way back from a short trip to Tunica Mississippi for some birding and gambling.  Birding absolutely sucked and gambling wasn’t that much better.  Tunica has gone way down since our last visit there over a decade ago.  There were at least 3 or 4 casinos completely closed down and the ones remaining are definitely on the decline.  We won’t be planning a return visit.  We hit the Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge in hopes of getting another Bobcat or finding that Cougar we located last time, but missed getting a picture of – struck out on both counts and a lot of the refuge was closed for migration or hunting.  Luckily we had a fun time at the Memphis Zoo so it wasn’t a total waste.  The good news is I can finish the Halloween post I started from the casino a few nights back,.  Yep, gonna take you on the rest of the trail so turn off all the lights and lock the doors – it’s the spooking hour.

Let’s start where we left off last time which brings us to the smoldering groundbreaker.  Ron gave me this item as a gift last year.  It jerks randomly while emitting wailing sounds and lights up.  It is set up for a fogger to enhance the effects, but we didn’t have one to spare this year – picked up a couple more at end of season sales this year, so look for that addition next year.

Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears 2018

Think I bought  this hanging lady at last year’s clearance sale,.  She lights up and has eerie sayings implying it was your fault she was left hanging on that tree.  A lot of people missed this particular decoration this year due to it being somewhat hidden on a side of the tree.,

Halloween Haunted Trail of Tears 2018

Hit the jump to see more sights from this year’s Haunted Trail of Tears.

Continue reading Nightmare After Christmas – Pt 2 of 2