Vegas: Bonnie Screams Halloween haunt

Bonnie Springs has no shortage of entertaining ways to while away the daylight hours throughout the entire year, but come sun down in October things shift gears quite a bit. After their normal operating schedule, the springs close down to the public for a couple hours as the ghouls start to crawl from their crypts and the venue itself changes it's name from the unassuming "Bonnie Springs" to "Bonnie Screams"! It's a fitting change in moniker as the shadows spread and spookiness prevails you might find yourself hard-pressed to silence a scream. Not only is the location famously haunted (as explored in an episode of Ghost Adventures) year round, anyway, but when the barrier between this world and the next one over thins during Halloween it's bound to get a bit spectral. Even during the supposedly safe daylight hours I found myself screeching in shock and horror in the wax museum when one of the wax "figures" sprung to life and damn near scared the shit out of me, literally... Luckily for us, it was just one of the gunmen from the afternoon shoot-out messing with us, but with the thick and ominous atmosphere of the wax museum I really wouldn't have been surprised if that had not been the case. There's a lot of history at Bonnie Springs as it was an important stop in the Spanish trail for some time and helped in the exploration ever Westward that led European settlers to build up the Americas as we know them today...  but prior to that Paiute tribes and indigenous people called this place their home for much, much longer. If all the tales of misfortune attributed towards building upon ancient Indian burial grounds holds any water, the entirety of Las Vegas and especially Bonnie Springs would be rife with curses and foreboding. 

With multiple haunted houses to explore, the cost of the tickets themselves is quickly absolved. We had a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyed our exploration of the grounds. One especially fun thing about your tickets is that you can do the haunts as many times as time permits in the evening, there's no limit- so if you need several rounds through to get your satisfaction you absolutely can! On top of the haunted houses there were live performances from fire dancers and magicians, tapping into the otherworldly powers provided by the Hallowed eve. Between our explorations of the petting zoo and daytime grounds, we did have an hour or two to pass before they reopened to the public...we opted to hang out in our van after moving to the Screams specified parking. We watched the sun go down and took a few more photos of the van, and ourselves, before we were able to strike out for the spooky fun. You have a couple of options from there- we opted out of the zombie paintball this year as it wasn't in our budget and instead took the creepy walking trail up to the haunt. Though the darkness made it difficult to snap much, I'm not terribly bothered by this as I wouldn't want to ruin the fun for anyone else! Suffice to say, winding our solitary way along a desert path in the dark with creepy sounds echoing among the terrain and the occasional hung man, clown or other otherworldy spook greeting us around various turns had our hackles well and raised before we even entered the grounds proper...

More photos after the cut...

Vegas: Springs Preserve Haunted Harvest 2017

For the record, we love Halloween. I don't know if I've spoken about this enough in previous posts, but Halloween really is THE best holiday in my opinion. It's one of the only times of year that it's socially acceptable for you to dress up and personify yourself as someone else- whether that means channeling Frank'n'Furter and not just dreaming it but BEING it, or cramming yourself into the tightest sexiest attempt at bombshell you've got in your armada, it's that magical time of year when you can be the spookiest personification of yourself... AND eat candy. Lots of candy. And the day after Halloween? ALL the discount candy! Woohoo!!!! While we've had a couple of rough years- last year I spent Halloween alone in Korea, for example- we are definitely making up for lost time by making the best of it while it's here now. I was really happy with this Halloween season and we spent it with some really good people and at some fun places. It was a good year.

The Haunted Harvest at the Springs Preserve is a family friendly affair that would kick into gear after the sun goes down. The gardens would be open during daytime hours as usual for all guests to partake of the non-spooky fun, then after closing time they'd switch over for the spooky spectacular and re-open a few hours later. This gave us time to eat, relax, take a breather and freshen up before venturing back out into the cold and spooky fun. There was a petting zoo, several haunted houses, funnel cakes, goats, free candy, a train ride and so much more! 

We were both happy to have gone and had a lot of fun. We're both members of the Springs Preserve and go fairly often...there's always something new and exciting to discover or see and with all the holiday themed events it's always changing. It was pretty neat seeing the preserve at night since we typically only ever get to explore the grounds during the day. It's a whole different vibe, especially with all the spooky decorations! While it wasn't too bad during the day, it might be a -wee- bit spooky for the youngest ones at night. To take some of the edge off there were live performances with young musicians and dancers on the main stage along with friendly volunteers aplenty to put you at ease if need be. We had fun and definitely enjoyed the free candy since at our age we're not really able to trick or treat anymore without a small child accompanying us... since we don't have any munchkins yet, it's a lot of fun to be able to channel that nostalgic joy of Trick Or Treating with the accompanying sugar high again. There were also funnel cakes and plenty of food vendors for when you need real food, too! Antho even discovered that goats, much like puppers, enjoy a good scratch behind the collar and will raise a hind foot in fake-scratchies to show their appreciation. Now we know!

More photos after the cut!

Vegas: October Springs Preserve visit

Happy Holidays everyone!

Hope your Christmas/Hannukah/Festivus/Saturnalia was an awesome one, full of good food and good company. Antho and I both had to work because the economy keeps churning even on celebratory days, but we got to spend it in the same country and actually see each other which was nice. Christmas Day last year I was making my way back to the US from Seoul, a process that was rather complicated due to the fact I missed my originally planned flight and had to arrange a last minute one for the next day. Lucky for us we were able to find a flight, and one year later I was here to spend the time with my love...after work, anyway.

 This post, however, is not about winter holidays- more of an autumnal one. I don't know about you but as far as I'm concerned Halloween is the one true holiday to rule them all, and when we popped over to the Springs Preserve one pleasant October day we were quite pleased to discover that the grounds were decked out in festive decorations! The evenings are when the real haunting begins, of course, as the ghouls all crawl forth from their graves when the moon begins to rise so never fear those of you with young ones who might fear the frights too fearsome: you'll find that the harsh light of day makes it plenty safe to walk the grounds and enjoy the flowers, even with a few spooky scruffigans loafing about. As usual we had a lot of fun and discovered some new spots we hadn't explored previously, so there will be plenty of photos ahead- even though Antho did have to leave at some point to go pick up Vanticore from the shop, leaving me to my own devices (a lot of wandering most aimlessly taking photos of flowers for the most part). After seeing all the fun decorations throughout the grounds we knew we'd have to come back for the actual Haunted Harvest- the Springs Preserve's own spooky celebration for the whole family. There will be a post of it's own about that, so don't worry! For now enjoy the sunny gardens pictured below and after the cut... 

Vegas: 710 Visuals @ Halloween House Party

 This year we were asked to provide visuals for a private Halloween house party orchestrated by Germ of Ossum Possum, and we obliged. Live music, free beer, festive costumes and scary movies are generally a winning combination. 

Naturally, Ossum Possum performed, as did Sojourner, and I've got plenty of videos after the cut for you! 

Vegas: Trunk or Treat Halloween Caricatures Event!

I was recently lucky enough to be invited to draw for a Trunk or Treat event! 

It was a lot of fun and I got to meet and draw a lot of really interesting people. 

Due to time/crowd limitations I was only really able to do black and white drawings, but they were well received regardless!

Who knows, maybe some went home and colored them in themselves. ;) Next generation of artists in the works!

Everyone had the option to be drawn normally or as creepy zombie versions, which was delightful. You never know who'll want to get the scary version...

And really, how often do you get to draw a zombie baby?!

So much fun! Thanks again for having me, guys! 

Halloweenies in Japan 2012

Halloween isn't typically celebrated in Japan. It's not a traditional part of the culture, though dressing in costume is obviously a much loved hobby for many Japanese. It's not really surprising that after appropriating Christmas (it ain't about Jeebus in Japan, I can tell you that much) the next holiday to gain momentum would be Halloween. Who doesn't love an excuse to dress up and have fun?!

While I encountered some festively dressed folks on my way to work, the real Halloween hijinks were to be had at a party with coworkers afterwords. 

Several of my coworkers were Americans as well, so we had our own version…which involved watching Nightmare before Christmas in Japanese. My favorite Japanese version song was "What's This?!", though, as Jyakku shouting "NANDA?! Nani-?!" repeatedly amuses me.