Bayview Halloween House Tour

So here we have what was supposed to be this year's Halloween blog post, but you're going to get it for Thanksgiving! This goes to show how time has been moving lately. I've been looking forward to sharing these photos from Bayview's Halloween house tour. Some people in this neighborhood made the plan to really decorate their houses for Halloween. A list of house addresses was shared, so a person could know where to stop. 

You guys might remember all the many carved pumpkins that were in Bayview last year for the Pumpkin Pavilion celebration. Well, that would have been kind of a crowd gatherer, so I think they planned this in place of it. The houses did not disappoint! 

Check out this one with the teeth. It was one of my favorites.

The "jaw" is kind of unhinging here, which I didn't realize until seeing this photo at home. And there are some sort of Tim Burton looking tentacles reaching up there. They remind of the sandworms from Beetlejuice a bit.

Chomp! I was just thinking how these teeth must look from inside the window.

"Beware of House"

If I had to guess, I'd say that this figure was constructed with Saran Wrap over a metal frame. I would be interested to know what the materials were. I don't really understand what's going on, but it sure is creepy! This display took up much of a front window. Wait, does that look like a real-life cat lounging in front of the figure? I seriously only noticed that just now.

I like the way the different colors blend together on this house. I'm not sure why, but this is one of the creepier photos for me. Lighting can do some pretty magic things.

And how fun is this one? It's like a carnival ride.

I think I remember seeing this same inflatable in Cedarburg a few Halloweens ago. You can see the lights kind of move around in its head.

This inflatable Frankenstein display surrounded an entire entryway. I don't think I've ever seen an inflatable that does that. It would work well as a group photo backdrop. 

The owners of this house just went to town! I recall getting out of the car and having to take a cold walk to get the following photos. While walking by a neighboring house, I noticed the shadowy figure of a man sitting on the porch. I just noticed him out of the corner of my eye, and it was one of those things where you wonder if it is a person or a prop. Between him and the chilly weather, I was in a hurry to take these skeleton photos.

Can you read that sign? "WARNING Unattended children will be captured and used for medical experiments" That reminds me of some sassy signs I've seen in stores.

I like that giant werewolf thing. It looks worn out. It's walking like "Oh, my aching neck!"

That head on the stained torso is pretty creepy.

I think this zombie is a woodcutting?

This one is a classic. They had the perfect shapes and windows to work with. I think those figures in the attic are extra spooky. I'm assuming they are props.

Here's a bit closer of a view so you can see those cool rainbow light strings in the windows and the alien in the doorway.

This yard had the kind of big moving decorations you see in hardware stores. You know, those life-size ones that talk to you.

There's a pool of water in the middle of all this action.

This tree had something ominous to say, but I can't remember what it was now. Pretty cool with those red, glowing eyes!

The Reaper...

It was hard for me to choose which photo of this to post. I took several and in each one the lights were different colors. In some photos the jack-o-lantern is lit up. I like the pumpkin dark and shadowy, though.

Actually, you can see the pumpkin lit up a little here. It was difficult to choose a skeleton dragon photo to share too. It looked good in every color. There will be a dog skeleton coming up with a similar situation. Thinking back on this display, it must have been changing colors every few seconds.

I think this is scary, even knowing it was a prop, and knowing it's my own photo.

A ghoulie out walking his dogs:

And here's that skeleton dog pic I mentioned. It looked cool in purple and orange too, but I think it's best in ghoulish green. This yard really was lit well.

A gargoyle: 

I saved what appeared to be the most popular yard for last. At least, there were a ton of people in this yard. This one had a Ghostbusters theme and here they are crossing their streams. 

And here's Gozer! So much work went into this. Check out those glowing rope lights that are wrapped around something (thin poles?) to form the streams. 

Here's what I managed to get of the Ghostbusters. And how cool! I didn't even notice Zuel there until right this second! Wow, that's really looking like the real deal.

Well, there we have it! Pretty impressive displays, eh? I hope to see the massive Pumpkin Pavilion display out next Halloween, but I'd be happy if they keep up this elaborate house decorating too! I liked how people went in so many different directions with their themes. And I also appreciated the professional looking lighting on these displays. They were a ton of fun to photograph. If it hadn't been freezing out there, it probably would have been hard to drag me away from looking.

Happy Thanksgiving! 🍁

Midway Memories and Associations

Does anyone else feel like there's a dark underbelly to carnival midways? If I feel that way, I certainly have some good reasons. Actually, three reasons are coming to mind right now! I'll explain what's going through my head when I visit a midway, while showing you some photos I took at The Wisconsin State Fair's midway a few days ago.

This clown was part of a fun house I walked past at the midway. Looking at him, my mind instantly went to something scary from my childhood. That "something scary" was this guy:

As any faithful reader of this blog knows, I loved the show Are You Afraid of the Dark? when I was young. A very memorable episode of the show involved a spooky fun house and the legend of a ghost clown. That episode still spooks me even though I'm now an adult, and I've never had a fear of clowns!

If you're in my relative age group, you probably know about Zeebo the clown. If you aren't familiar with him, here's a trailer for the episode "The Tale of Laughing in the Dark"

When I was in high school, I first read what was to become my favorite book: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I've never read any other book that painted such clear images in my mind. There's a definite darkness behind the carnival in that story! If you've read that book, you know why I think of it every time I see a carousel. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't read the book, since the carousel is central to the plot.

I also first watched one of my favorite movies as a teenager: The Lost Boys. I'm sure most of you have seen that movie, so I won't be spoiling anything by saying that I also think of it when I see a carousel. When watching kids circle around on bright, colorful horses, my mind is filled with images of young, 80s vampires!

Why are carousels never this cool in real life?

I may not have seen Kiefer Sutherland on the midway, but I did run into a few other interesting characters...

I found Cousin IT airbrushed onto the side of a fun house. Another cool find were the pirates painted on the side of The Ghost Ship ride.

This guy was standing in front of the ride.

I have no idea what this next creature was supposed to be. Maybe he was an evil gargoyle. Whatever he was, I thought he was cool! This creature's eyes shifted back and forth as he made low, grumbling noises. He was sitting outside the midway's haunted house.

Nice hairy belly, hey? Here's a close up of his face:

This hairy gremlin had a little friend who was sitting on top of the haunted house.

Does he remind you of anyone? He reminds me of...



Do any of you have some childhood associations with carnival midways? I mean, are there any movies, books, or TV shows you've come to think of every time you're at a midway? Maybe some of you even have my same associations.

Well, tomorrow I'm going to our local Renaissance Faire. You might remember my Ren Faire blog post from last year. I hope to get many more pictures to share with you this year!

Who ya gonna call?

Ghostbusters! As well as a locksmith. Yeah, it was that kind of night...

Last night, I met some friends to celebrate Halloween and a few of their birthdays. In looking at this picture, you'd never know that my car had been sideswiped earlier in the evening. You also probably wouldn't guess that the guy with the goggles had locked his car keys in his car. In the ignition. Yeah, it's funny how we all manage to smile for photos...

The evening started off fine. I did my cat makeup, put on some cat ears, and was ready to hit the town!

cat clock eyes

For those who are interested, I used this makeup tutorial for part of my cat look:

After getting ready, I wrapped my friend Stacey's birthday gifts. I was really happy to find this little coffin box. It was actually made to hold silverware, of all things!

So, off I went to meet my friend for her dinner party. On the way there, I got lost and as I mentioned earlier was hit by a very fast moving car. After hitting my car, it continued to move away very fast. So if you're wondering, there's no way I have a license plate number. I was grateful not to be hurt, although my car was. In a shaken up state, I went to the restaurant.

Everyone managed to calm me down, and I had a pretty nice salad. Next, we were off to meet our college friends, Derek and Troy.

(Derek is on the left and Troy is on the right)

We rolled up in Stacey's car, because we weren't sure if mine was safe to drive. We drove up to find that Troy had locked his keys in the car. He was on the phone with a locksmith, who was lost. The locksmith continued to be lost for about 45 minutes. He eventually showed up in a very beat up car, that was missing its hubcaps. Everyone asked if it was the car that hit me. (It wasn't, but wouldn't that have been great?) Anyway, this guy didn't appear to work for a locksmith company and English was definitely a second language for him. So I didn't understand a lot of what was going on, except that it was going to cost $150 to get in the car. The reason given for this was that it was "a holiday". Maybe for him it was? After all this, I just started to laugh. You know how it gets ridiculous when that many things go wrong? Well, this was one of those times, and it made me laugh!

Back to Derek and Troy. After paying the locksmith, they were able to get into the car and get their Ghostbuster equipment. Let me tell you, this stuff is extensive! They even built their own proton packs. In case you're wondering, these weigh 45 pounds.

The straps that are holding the packs on, came from an army surplus store. As you can see, there's a lot going on here!

They also brought their ghost trapper with them. It moved around and lit up after the little doors closed!

After taking some photos, we were off to the Safe House! You might remember that I mentioned this bar in my Prohibition blog post. The bar resembles a speakeasy. It is hidden behind a regular door in the middle of an alley. If you weren't looking for it, you wouldn't find it.

I think it's the third door down on the left... This is the only picture I can show you, because the Safe House is top secret. That, and my other photos didn't turn out. The place really does have a mystique to it. You need to know the secret password to get in, and you have to do all kinds of dorky things if you don't. These dorky things are displayed on a TV screen inside, for all to see. This is my Safe House "temporary visa".

As we walked in, the DJ played the Ghostbusters theme! After that, he played Michael Jackson's Thriller, while a guy dressed as Michael did a little dance. Then he played the Time Warp. In just that order. So it was exactly like my blog party!

We then headed down to Water Street, which is a busy street full of bars in Milwaukee. There were tons of people in costume wandering around there, so there was some good people watching! I had to include my picture of the Spy vs. Spy guys after mentioning them in my Plague Doctor post.

Throughout this entire evening, my friends got lots of attention. It seemed that a voice yelled out of every passing car, "Who ya gonna call?" To which my friends would answer "Us!" This was cute the first 100 times... I was wishing that the people would think of something more original to yell as they drove by! Actually, there was one guy who yelled "Nice Protein Packs!" That was pretty funny.

My friends also got lots of attention from the ladies. Lets put it this way, if you're a guy who would like to be approached by every woman in the room, wear a Ghostbuster costume. It was unbelievable! It was also fun to watch. I got to experience what it's like for people who are the non-famous friends of celebrities. People acted like my friends were the real Ghostbusters!

I think they should get some kind of gig where they get hired for parties. All they need is two more guys and the Ghostbusters car!

After that eventful night, I was grateful that trick-or-treat hours in my town were pushed later this year. The only problem is that it rained this evening. So, only a few clusters of kids came by. The wind was raging and their costumes were drenched. I ended up giving handsful of candy to the kids who stopped by, and there's still plenty left over!

This was such a weird weekend, that I'm happy I celebrated Halloween throughout October. There was one part of the weekend that went smoothly and that was the Day of the Dead parade on Friday. I got some great pictures to share with you guys, but I'm saving them until early November.


So, how were all of your pre-Halloween weekends?