Behind as usual, my Halloween review.

As with pretty much everything else in life lately I was feeling rather unmotivated about Halloween this year, especially, my thinking went, given the fact that Halloween fell on a Monday. I figured there wouldn’t by much trick-or-treat traffic in our already low traffic area, so I was not really planning to do much in the way of decorating.

However my motivation was restored by a trip to the annual LA Live Steamers Halloween Ghost Train in Griffith Park (Los Angeles). One of our tenants, ‘Pineapple’, works for the railroad and volunteers for various railroad activities and charities and knowing my fondness for all things Halloween he invited me to be amongst the friends and family of that get to ride the first couple of Ghost Trains for the evening (the Saturday before Halloween).

On my way down to Griffith Park I wanted to make a stop at a favorite used book store in Pasadena, Archives Books (a theological bookstore with a ‘healthy’ selection of creationist books) but I got a bit lost on some side streets and ended up getting a rare glimpse of the Ghostbusters mobile (I’m sure Halloween is a busy time of year for them):

Anyway once I got to Griffith Park it was still a bit before sunset so Pineapple showed me around the Ghost Train circuit, here are just a few of the sights one might encounter on the train (note the ‘trains’ are scale models of trains that can be ridden, see pictures for size):

Creepy tree at the beginning of the ride.

Cackling old witches.

Undead wedding tunnel (note the train on the right-hand side).

Frankenstein's monster scene. I was particularly amused by the plumbers helper halves used in the decor (upper left-hand corner).

Signage at the entrance area with people lined up to get in (and there were a lot of them).

Pineapple.

Above is Pineapple handing out key-chains and coloring books for Operation Lifesaver  (a highway & railway crossing safety program) at the Ghost Train exit.

It was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it to anyone in the So. Cal. area during October.  Much thanks to Pineapple and the volunteers of the LA Live Steamers for having me.

The fun of Ghost Train revived the dying embers of my holiday spirit and so when the big day came I went ahead and threw up some of my yard haunt decorations (including a new skeleton I recently acquired):

As it turned out  we had quite a few more trick-or-treaters I had anticipated so it was a good thing that I changed my mind, fun, fun, fun…