Halloween In Sleepy Hollow

So this year we wanted to do something special for Halloween, so we packed up and headed to Sleepy Hollow NY! I was excited, as I've been a huge fan of the story for years, ever since I saw that Disney cartoon, and then sought out the original story.

The weather was supposed to be nice on Thursday and Friday, so we were set!

We got into town early and headed into Tarrytown to look around. The place was decorated to the nines, with scarecrows on every street lamp for like a mile. We ate dinner at a cool place called Horsefeathers. A little pricey, but very cool Halloween decorations and good food.

We stopped at Sleepy Hollow High School, where there was this cool sign:

We checked out the town--decorations are everywhere. This place loves Halloween like I do...

And you can tell this is a historic place. Such old, cool looking architecture...gives off a very gothic feel.

Then we headed to the Great Pumpkin Blaze. It was PACKED, but this is seriously one of the coolest things I've ever seen. A long, long trail full of various pumpkins. Tens of thousands of them. The pics above, and then below show you a small sampling.

Inspired by Bradbury's Halloween Tree?

We got back to the hotel late, so went to bed. A busy day the next day!

We had scheduled a tour of a well-known mansion.

It was cool, but to be honest--a little boring too. The tour wasn't so much about Halloween, but the grounds were decorated with stuff like these:

Then we had dinner on Main Street at a place called Main Street Pizza. A little tiny hole-in-the-wall. And the pizza sitting in the cases didn't look great, but we figured...let's take a chance. We ordered a whole pizza.

Man, that pizza was good. Damn good. Some of the best I've had.

Then we headed off into town. A couple of blocks were barricaded for a block party, so we went there and checked that out. Everybody's friendly. A good time.

Then to the Headless Horseman's Hollow. An outside/inside haunted maze thing. It scared the crap out of my kid. It was pretty freaky, but fun.

We hustled off to our last planned event--the lantern tour in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Started at 10pm, and ended after midnight. The cemetery is around 90 acres, and we walked with a group for over two hours. The guide was great--had a lot of interesting stories, including an anecdote about the mausoleum used in the Dark Shadows show that I loved as a kid.

Even took us inside that one...

Anyway, they wouldn't let us use tripods, so I had to get creative in order to get these shots. (it was WAY dark in there, so these are all long-exposure...without a tripod)