four-eyes rella: 2010-10-31

In a series of uninteresting events, Ryan and I ended up sleeping on mattresses in the middle of the living room last night. I woke up disoriented and scared because I heard a noise, and looked towards the fireplace. Where there was a ghost.

Okay well, I actually think my top and bottom eyelashes were kinda glued together with gunk and what I saw was just the streetlight shining into the living room window and reflecting weirdly off my eye gunk, thus forming some kind of irridescent orb-y thing that looked vaguely human. Also? I was probably still half dreaming.

Anyway the point of the story is this: I kicked it and it disappeared.

My first instinct wasn't to rub my eyes, scream, wake Ryan up or run. It was to kick the ghost. And it totally worked. So I hope that phantom learned its lesson and never sneaks up on me again.

Halloween is my favorite holiday.

Yes, that includes Christmas.

There's something about candy combined with creepy Halloween decorations, haunted houses, corn mazes and ... other weird crap ... my favorite thing on earth is the juxtaposition between cute and creepy. (That must also be why I like artists like Mark Ryden so much as well!)

That's also what makes me love Galey Farms more and more every year.

It's totally silly, it's crazy, it's so much fun!

Basically it's the can't-miss place to be in October. I have no idea what they do the rest of the year but I know you can go there and get a pumpkin or whatever in the daytime. Isn't it cheerful?

Images from here here here and here.

But you really want to go at night. Trust me. They have a pretty huge corn maze you can walk through, they have kids train rides, and they have haunted houses; one for kids (which is actually kind of scary) and an adult one (called carnEVIL, lol!) that costs an extra ten bucks to get into.

I went into carnEVIL one year with Ryan and a friend of ours to surprise her for her birthday and ... yeah it was actually kind of terrifying. We actually ran through, pushing Ryan ahead of us and screaming.It's very well done.

They also have little dioramas set up of creepy scenarios all around the farm. Some of them you have to take the train to see, some of them you will find by exploring the corn maze.

CHECK OUT SOME PHOTOS I TOOK

on October 30th.

(excuse the blurry ones, I refused to use flash the entire night)

1. Random shots

2. View from the very middle of the corn maze.

As you can see, there is a gigantic sphinx. Here it is up close.

And inside it...MUMMIES!

2. The 'graveyard' can be found by walking to the very end of the corn maze. It features a whole lot of wailing and things jumping (very comically) out of the ground and a wishing well. Also? Weird shadowy figures in the distance.

3. The train ride. You buy your ticket and line up for sometimes up to half an hour. There's nothing particularly scary on the ride, but it is rather creepy. The train tracks run around the whole place. There's trees decorated with Christmas lights, the pitch black pumpkin patch, a man in a monkey suit that jumps onto the side of the train and grabs children, an entire old-West town, and...well... and more. Here's some of the stuff we saw from the train.

4. My personal favorite, the 'dioramas'. You walk through a sort of 'town' constructed out of old sheds, and in each one there's a little scene going on. For example, the butcher shop, a restaurant, the blood bank, and more! It's so funny and there's so much to look at. I love this place!

This is also where the kids haunted house is.