We are back with another new prop walkthrough from this year’s Haunted Trail. You have heard the expression of lemonade out of lemons, well, today’s post is a Halloween take on that saying. Let’s start by revealing the final product out on trail.
By the way, we saw the results and decided to make two of them…well, that is technically a stretch of what really went down. I’ll explain after the jump.
Continue reading Project: Halloween OverhaulEveryone involved in the Intrigued Industrial Complex is fully aware of our mission statement, “It’s all about the story, bonus if you get quality shots”. This is supported by two very important strategies: “If there are no shots, it didn’t happen” and “Nobody talks about fight club”. All new members have a two week beat in…sorry, two week class where they are immersed in our corporate strategy. We even have this guiding statement on our coffee mugs, above the corporate HQ entrance and even had it flown on a large banner behind a plane above our corporate retreats to Cancun. Note the past tense there, as those retreats were suspended thanks to what we quietly refer to as “The Incident of 2016”. Thanks to the Federales, that also caused a temporary adoption of a new mission statement “No Hablo Espanol, I Want Our Lawyer”. Sorry Brad you came aboard too late, those were really good times … and why we now have such a large attorney pool. I only bring this up as today’s post is a perfect example of story or image quality.
Hit the jump to learn about how today’s featured bird resulted in the second biggest scare of my birding adventures.
Continue reading Rattled in the FieldThe Halloween season has come to a close which brings with it a mixture of sadness and relief. We hate to see it end, but it also feels like the steam has finally been released from the pressure cooker. Yesterday (the 1st) was “Spirit Day” as we have come to call it. The night before the haunters were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of ghouls and monsters danced in their heads. Away to the local Spirit “popup” Halloween store we flew like a flash for what to our wondering eyes should appear but an entire store at 50% off. A bundle of props we flung on our backs. We were heard to exclaim as we drove out of sight, we can’t wait until the next haunt night! Actually, there is a little pressure still left in the cooker as I have to find places to store all the new stuff – eh, worry about that another day ha. In addition to celebrating another successful haunting season I also managed to reach an annual running goal. In all the Halloween chaos and injury setbacks, I managed to still hit my 1200 mile annual running goal – 60 days early!
I mainly bring this up as a lead in to let you know Brad will be taking the helm to give me a badly needed rest and because his post happens to be about another trail “speed demon”.
Take it away Brad (and Jan)…
Let me set the stage here for you.
It’s late September. Jan and I are in a National Park in southern Nevada just outside Las Vegas. We are in the desert with Red Rock all around. That’s right, it’s Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, about 20 minutes outside of Las Vegas. The temperature is in the upper 80’s or low 90’s at 4pm. Yes, we remembered to bring water with us.
We flashed our Annual Park Pass (surely you all have one of these beauties by now) at the entrance gate and started on the 13-mile scenic drive to see what we could see. One of the first things we saw surprised us a little bit.
It was a “Tortoise Crossing” sign. I figured the chances of seeing a Desert Tortoise were just as high as our seeing a Bighorn Sheep in Arches National Park (still haven’t seen one there, despite the myriad of road signs). Although the Elk Crossing signs near Estes Park, CO are very accurate.
About four miles into the scenic drive, we came upon a white sedan with its doors open and flashers on, taking up the right side of the road. We crept past and parked to see if they needed any help. Two young men (college age I’m guessing) were kneeling in front of the car. I suspected car trouble.
Imagine the surprise when Jan and I got out of our car to find out what they were doing.
Hit the jump to find out what the surprise was!
Continue reading Slow and Steady…by Brad MarksThe 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
Continue reading Happy Haunters’ Day 2023!Well, I’m slowly getting my legs back under me – been a while since a run has knocked me this hard. It has been said the recovery period after an ultra is just a forced sanity check to reconsider recent decisions. Note, Linda always sends me off with “Make good choices” knowing good and well I’ve probably already made 5 bad decision in the time it took her to tell me that. On the bright side, there is a comforting sense of knowing I could probably outrun any “breathing” danger that might await me on my runs (assumption roots do not have noses). Just in case, there are always friends around I could kneecap if I needed extra get-a-way time. Don’t feel bad for them, they are thinking the exact same thing – I imagine the amusement a Bear would have if it walked out onto our trail and saw the lot of us whacking each other with hiking poles and making overt suggestions regarding who might be tastier. Speaking of humor and unexpected wildlife encounters, I know the perfect post for today and it comes courtesy of Brad’s recent drop of new adventures. While I continue to rest and ponder some of those recent decision, we’ll let Brad lead us down the trail.
Remember…”Make good choices”…
There were two old guys, probably Wildlife Intrigued retirees, sitting on the porch at a retirement home. Each had a quilt on their laps and a shawl around their shoulders, happily rocking away in the August sunshine. There was a long-forgotten elbow brace sitting nearby. Nothing is said for what seems like forever. Then Old Guy (OG) #1 says, “I saw a bear once.”
“Where did you see a bear?” OG#2 asks somewhat incredulously.
“One day when I was hiking in the woods. It just jumped out of the brambles and stared at me,” says OG#1.
“It just jumped out of the woods? What did it do then?” questions OG#2.
“It went Grrrrr!” replies OG#1. (imagine a menacing growl)
“What did you do then?” quizzed OG#2.
“I s#!t my pants!” says OG#1 sheepishly.
“I would too if a bear jumped out of the woods, looked at me and went Grrrrr!” says OG#2 sympathetically.
“No, I mean right now when I went Grrrrr!”
(This joke was brought to you courtesy of my father-in-law. I think it’s one of his favorites.)
Well, that nearly happened to Jan and I. Except for the old guy part, the rocking chairs at the retirement home, and no quilts or shawls were involved. Our pants stayed clean, too. We were in the woods though.
Hit the jump to read more details about this Sequoian sized encounter!
Continue reading Grrrrr!…by Brad MarksI’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again, I have no idea how I got anything done while I was in the corporate grind. Even with the forced downtime to recover from the recent ultra race, it still felt like I was “busy”. The bright spot is looking back I was able to get a number of the “Bri-do” items checked off. The break gave me a chance to turn my attention to the Mothership with two mega posts on this year’s Halloween Haunted Trail Prop Tutorials – the new 2023 tombstones (link here)
..and the Radioactive Spiders (link here). Along with those prop posts, also threw in the Bix 7 recap (link here) and the all too painful recollection from the recent 100K ultra attempt that caused the whole extended rest in the first place (link here). Definitely some heavy lifting posts. Now time to get back to the “wild’ side where we have plenty of material to bring you. Brad just sent me a number of new adventure posts you will surely enjoy and I still need to dip my toe into our Texas and Florida adventures. I want to give Brad and family a bit more time to focus on their affairs, so you are with me today….but first a quick brag.
Congrats to Linda and Ruger who earned their Beginner FastCAT Title yesterday. Basically the 100 yard dash for doggies. Found something Ruger was basically born to compete in and he absolutely loves it. In previous runs he was in the 19.5mph range – dialed it back this weekend to 18.5mph which is still amazing (they had two patches of straw on the course covering muddy areas which he didn’t like and basically leaped over it each time likely accounting for the slower time).
Guessing about now you are wondering if we are ever going to get to the featured duck of the day. Without further delay…
Hit the jump to see a few more pictures of our yellow-eyed wave runner.
Continue reading Brags, Stones and ScaupsSitting here relaxing after a long day of trying to get the Haunted Trail back into storage – heavy stuff is taken care of now, so it shouldn’t take too many more days. In between this effort I have actually been able to get a couple of easy 5 mile runs in as I try to get the crust shook off from the ultra race a couple of weeks back. My running coach (aka Brad’s wife) has ordered me to take a couple of days off to let the body heal. I am physically (maybe more mentally) unable to just sit and relax which means it’s post time! Been trying to focus more on the Mothership this month to appease the less “wild” side readers out there. Cannot think of a better time to tackle another Haunted Trail prop project.
Hit the jump to learn all about how this giant spider (and his brother) came about. Note, you are forewarned as these posts get into the nitty details and until I get proficient at the video format I’m stuck with stills…lots and lots of stills.
Continue reading Project Drop Dead LegsWell, crap, I might as well get this post out of the way while I’m lying here still trying to recover. A little over a week ago, I embarked on my 2nd attempt at the 100K ultra distance. This was billed as the redemption year having failed to get this distance checked off last October (link here). For a year that bitter pill hung in my throat and was right there every time I thought about missing a training run or even cutting one short. I knew I needed to be better prepared and more importantly, a better strategy to keep from losing my feet per the last experience.
I know some of you are just curious about the results, so I’ll go ahead and reveal that and get you back on the road. Results: same place, same event, same disappointing results. Once again, fought my way through 50 miles for my third buckle in three years, but opted out of the bonus loop to officially reach the 100K goal. For those of you who want the tortured details, feel free to hit the jump, the rest – see you again next year, same place, same event and hopefully better results!
Continue reading The Pain Cave Taj MahalTrying to take it easy today to give the back a chance to mend from the ultra race damage. since I cannot just lie here doing nothing, figured it would be a good time to get one of the mega Halloween ’23 project posts out. These tend to be rather involved with all the technical detail and accompanying images. New tombstones for this year’s Haunted Trail is no exception. Hopefully the DIY haunters out there will enjoy this project and hopefully get you well on your way should you want to add this type of prop to your own Halloween displays.
To give you an idea of how these new lighted tombstones look, here’s a shot of one of this year’s new stones on our haunted trail.
Hit the jump to learn how this (and several others) came to be. Warning, your browser image cache is going to be smoking by the time you get to the bottom of the post ha.
Continue reading Project: AfterglowI was getting all prepped to make a post covering the recent 100K Ultra Trail race attempt and then discovered I had entirely forgotten the only other race thus far into the 2023 season. Yes, we are talking about the event that started my entire racing career some 20 years back – The Bix 7 held in Davenport, IA.
Hit the jump to read about how the race turned out and the tragedy that occurred before it.
Continue reading Bix7 – The Comeback
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