The Pumpkin House

 The Pumpkin House (also referred to as The Pumpkin Palace) is a very well decorated house near Downtown Salt Lake City. It has been posted on social media, and local news outlets several times this year and was something that I was hoping we would get around to seeing sometime this year. I was starting to think it wasn’t going to happen until we got a last minute chance to see a Halloween concert downtown, so I thought, it was not much of a detour, we can totally go see it!

Quick Details:

Length: NA
Trail Type: Get out and see.
Difficulty: Get out and see, DR1.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: No. You will need to find a gas station or something else.
Dogs? Dogs are allowed on Salt Lake City sidewalks. Just be sure to clean up after your furry friends.
Other Info: While they do seem to like the attention, be sure to respect the fact that this is a private house that people are living in. Stay on the sidewalks, and don't bother the residents. Also, if it's not obvious, this is a seasonal thing.

To Get Here:

Located at 800 East and 300 South.

Take 700 East to 300 South and head east. It will be on the left side after a block.

The Adventure:

Aside from being a particularly gorgeous house built in 1909, the amount of pumpkins is truly impressive!

From the front. I just love the commitment to the theme. Plus, it is a good house design for this kind of idea. I would not be surprised if that was something they considered when they bought the house. Some people (myself included) are just really into Halloween.

Again.

Portrait mode.

Not saying this is a thing… but this does happen to be photo # 666, which is quite the fun coincidence.

The other corner.

Archway pumpkins.

Landis was amazed at all of the pumpkins they carved. I told him that I am pretty sure the vast majority, if not all of them are Styrofoam reusable pumpkins and not slowly rotting pumpkins. Like, if I were to do this kind of display, decaying pumpkins I would absolutely not waste my time on, but Styrofoam that I could reuse, yeah sure. I will carve a few of them every year.

That said I am up to …. 4 live pumpkins that I have carved this year due to various activities with my friends haha.

The upper levels. I wish we had some daylight time to enjoy it, but heck, I will take what I got.

The neat house again. I heard about the homeowners Instagram page (outside link). They have been slowly renovating the old house and absolutely destroying the Halloween competition in Salt Lake City.

The other corner.

Since they have decorated to the nines, I assume they expect a lot of lookyloos like myself. And like The Up House I suspect they would also expect a bit of privacy as well. So you know, limit your time to just a few minutes, be respectful and stay off of their property and outside of the fence… at least unless Trick or treating.

I decorate, and while not as awesome as this, I absolutely am, and love being the spooky house of the neighborhood. I absolutely love people coming by to see the spooky yard. I also appreciate that at least as far as I know, people haven’t been too intrusive.

From across the road.

Random Sinclair Dinosaur (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)). I guess that means it is their corporate office (confirmed it is their headquarters). Also you can see the Astra Tower to the right (our newest tallest building), lit up purple right now. The colors are an air quality forecast station. I still haven’t found a guide as to what the colors mean yet. Oh here we go. I guess it follows the Fox 13 AirView Monitor code, so purple is bad. Fox Article. (Both outside links).

That was a fun little add on adventure! I wanted to make a special trip out to see it, but I am glad we got to add it on to another random adventure we did today. I still might try to come and see it during the daytime, but for now, hey that was neat. Good job homeowners making something super neat that weird people like me want to come out and see. 10 out of 10 squirrels today!

As for difficulty, this is really just a get out and see. DR1.

Dogs are allowed on Salt Lake City Sidewalks. Be sure to clean up after your furry friends.

Candlelight: A Haunted Evening of Halloween Classics

 Candlelight appears to be a huge network of companies that perform various little concerts around the world via… candle light. Our friends had tickets, but had a family emergency to deal with so they gifted them to us without a lot of time. Which was a little stressful because they have a pretty strict "butts in seats at starting time" policy (honestly, more places and things need to enforce that). Anyway, I am not too familiar with the company, so I don’t know how it always works, but we got a cute little all women quartet of string instruments and they played a lovely mix of spooky movie and TV show themes, as well as some spooky classical music. This particular event was held in the Grand Ballroom of the Grand America Hotel. It was way more fun than expected. It also made up for the fact that we missed An October Evening This year.

Quick Details:

Length: Just a short walk from the parking garage to the Grand Ballroom.
Trail Type: Get to it.
Difficulty: DR2. It is ADA compliant.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: Of course, and it is quite opulent.
Dogs? No.
Other Info: This is a seasonal thing, and requires tickets. But it appears they have various concerts just about every weekend from here to the end of the year at least. Here is the local website (outside link).

To Get Here:

From i15 take the 6th south exit and head east to Main Street hang a left, then at the light, go right and right again into the parking garage. Follow signs for Grand Ballroom Entrance. Note: it does cost money to park here. Alternate options include finding street parking, or taking Trax.

The Adventure:

After we parked, we took the elevator up, and still had a bit of an adventure getting to the Grand Ballroom, but we found it, with just a couple minutes to spare.

The fancy hotel hallway.

I don’t make it a habit of taking pictures in bathrooms… but it was just me, and I wanted to show how freaking big and opulent it is. Wow! I am pretty sure this is almost as big as my house.

While waiting in line for a beer (I was surprised to see a bar option tonight). I took a picture of some of the displays.

Closer view of the chairs.

Like I said, they were really strict about the butts in seats on time. I was a little worried we would get locked out while we waited in line. But, we made it, just in time. Phew! If I ever do one of these again, I am definitely allowing more time. But, for a totally last minute date night, it all worked out in the end.

After we found our seats I took a picture of the stage. wow, that is a LOT of candles!

Before long the show started. They say absolutely no photos until the last act, and even then, no flash!

So… from what I can remember, here is a gist of the songs they played tonight.

Thriller
Beetlejuice Theme
Addams Family Theme (with audience participation)
Munsters Theme 
Exorcist Theme
Halloween Theme
Ghost Busters Theme (with audience participation)
Psycho Theme
Danse Macabre?

Alongside the last song they tossed in a few classical pieces, it was really just wonderful.

They did say that they had set aside the last piece for pictures and video, no flash! (some peeps failed on that end, but I get it. Phones just tend to want to turn it on whenever they feel like, so you have to really pay attention. I tend to, but it still pops up randomly when I am not paying attention.

Here they are playing the last song which was The Nightmare Before Christmas - Main Theme + What's This. They made a fun joke at the Grand America’s Expense saying that this seemed fitting considering all of the Christmas Trees you passed in the hotel to here. We all thought that was funny.

Landis decided to film it for our friends that gifted us the tickets, and well, lets just toss the video on here. They did say it was allowed and said to share it.. for this song.

After they got their much deserved standing ovation, they asked if they could play one more song for us. Fancy way of saying an encore I spose.

The woman with the Cello (man I suck at retaining names, sorry lady) said they wanted to do Hall of the Mountain King, but in the style of what she grew up with, a Classically trained Heavy Metal Band called Apocalyptica. Which made me squee, cause I totally dig them. That was an amazing encore!

Then we got our little touristy photo, thanks to a nice lady, whom we returned the favor for of course.

Fancy.. and also creepy hallway as we make our way back to the parking garage. It kind of makes me think of The Shining.

I wish we had decided to explore more of the fancy hotel, because getting out of the garage was a bit of a cluster… But meh, we made it out and found another small adventure I have been wanting to do so, again, it all works out sometime.

That was a way cool experience! I am super glad we got to see it tonight! The amount of goth people was a little higher than I thought I would see, but hindsight being 2020, I suspect the Venn diagram of goths, people who like spooky music, and people who like classical music probably overlap quite a bit! The atmosphere was great, the quartet were super talented and fun to watch. 10 out of 10 spooky squirrels tonight.

As for difficulty, a super easy meander along a hotel. DR2.

Dogs are not allowed. So be sure to leave Fido home.

Conservation Nature Park: Halloween

 The Conservation Nature Park in West Jordan is a wonderful little park that teaches you how to save water in your yard. I noticed they had a fun little Halloween activity so I decided we should come check it out. We’ve been meaning to come in the fall anyway. It was exactly what I expected, just a bunch of cute Halloween decoration added to the various garden displays as well as a couple fun play along activities you can do as you explore. I thought it was pretty neat for a free activity.

Quick Details:

Length: Depends how much you wander. We did about 3/4 of a mile.
Trail Type: Meander
Difficulty: DR2. It is paved and ADA compliant.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: 2 but the outside one is seasonal.
Dogs? ? I saw one today, but can’t find the policy on the website. I generally lean towards not bringing ours without knowing the full policy.
Other Info: Almost the entire thing is located outside, so be sure to dress appropriately.

To Get Here:

From i15 take the 90th south exit heading west for 1.5 miles. Turn right onto 13th west. Go about 9/10ths of a mile and it will be on the right.

The park signs (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)).

The Trail:

Adorable Frankenstein Arch outside the main entrance.

After this there is a little lobby area with a bunch of information pamphlets and such. This is where you will find the fun self serve activity sheets.

Back outside into the gardens. Fun pumpkin display.

The garden is split into several sections, each teaching you something different. We tend to like to start with the Design area, and do a counter-clockwise loop.

Cute scarecrow.

Cute witch hats. You can find some cute ones of your own at nearby Gardner Village.

Wewt! I already got a bingo!

I didn’t see the sign saying what these are, but they are pretty.

They need to come harvest their vegetables. The plants are looking a little sad.

Some sunflowers.

This was my favorite! They put the headless horseman on the bison statue. According to my bingo card they called it the Headless Bisonman. Yay.

Again.

Butterfly bush. We planted one of these from seed 2 years ago, and it just decided to bloom this year, near the end of summer. We were starting to think it was a weed until it bloomed.

Mountain view in the back.

Inflatables.

Spider and fall color.

Ned. I love how they dressed all the skeletons like employees. They called this scavenger hunt the Skeleton Crew.

Fun big spooky eyes. I kind of wish I had a big bush to get a set of these.

Hah, this one made us giggle. The sign says “Oops, I used to much water” and is a melted witch. I love that the little activities are educational as well.

Pretty tree lined corridor. We ran into some unknown coworkers here.

Some color.

Fun ghosts.

Little graveyard.

These flowers totally got us. We were both just like, wow! these are stunning this late in the year! And then we noticed the eyeballs. Doh! But still, fun!

Neat spooky tree.

Another fun hedge monster with giant eyes.

Looking back along the tree lined path.

Into the little pergola with a tree growing up it.

Seed pods.

Another Skeleton Crew.

The ghostly pergola again.

The Outdoor Classroom.

Some color and some pumpkins.

The classroom is in the Localscapes area.

Fun witch hats.

Fun ghost witches.

Another Skeleton Crew. I just loves them!

Cows at the farm next door.

Some lovely color.

A fun scarecrow, plus a pumpkin of pumpkins.

Got another bingo here. Wewt.

They put spiders in almost all of the water pipe displays. Fun!

Quite a few of them.

Even in the superpipe!

Information sign. I didn’t take pictures any of the other ones.

The sign says these giant pipes have replaced open canals because they protect water from contamination, evaporation, and seepage. However we still have quite a few canals throughout the valley.

I thought this was a canal at first too, but now I am not 100% sure.

Cute ladybug art.

Pest control methods.

Some honeysuckle hanging on.

Color.

Well, that is a super creative thing to do with a big planter!

Canal again.

Upstream.

The cauldron plus fun ingredient names.

Color.

What do we have here? It looks like they have a deciduous conifer! In other words, a cone bearing tree whose needles change color and drop each fall. At first I thought it might have been a dawn redwood, but those cones just didn’t seem right. So after a little bit of digging around I think it is a Bald Cyprus. I was under the impression that there were only 2 types of deciduous conifers, but with a little digging today I learned there are 5 genera. The Larch which we found not to long ago. and the dawn redwood, which I think I found, but want to go back and double check if it is changing color (guess I need to get my but in gear for that) this guy, the Cyprus, and 2 other Cyprus types. Sorry, I think this is absolutely fascinating! Plus, look at how beautiful this one is!

Again.

Another one right next to it! So neat! I guess these are much more common than larch for general landscaping, but I honestly can’t say I have seen one before now.

Again.

The first one again.

Both of them. How neat is this? I will have to come back a few more times to check out what they are doing over the next few weeks.

The orange needles.

Both trees again.

Another happy scarecrow.

Grilling Skeleton Crew. These really are still tickling me.

I love these bright red bushes. I failed to see what they were.

Giant chess board.

We also quite enjoyed that they are wearing the employee clothes.

The big chess board again.

Pretty red bushes again.

We just came out of the Maintenance section.

Fun pumpkins.

The Irrigation section… we will come back out of that in a minute.

We decided to head back into the inner loop via the Planting section.

It’s not a perfect loop in a loop, but pretty close. Doing a little … scooting around you can see it all without too much overlap, but it is a little awkward.

These pumpkins were telling the Legend of Sleepy Hollow (a projection onto them). But, we both found it to be quite neat! I want one.

More pumpkins.

Neat plant.

Different types of grass and their water use.

Ghosts.

Some daisy like flowers still hanging on.

Okay, I am totally loving the giant eyes in the hedges. I kind of wish I had some hedges to do this with.

Pretty red bushes again.

Interesting leaves.

The sign again (PSP).

Well, poop. I did not get a blackout on my bingo card, I missed one of the Skeleton Crew, and I missed more of the water spell than expected. In my defense I didn’t notice the games until after we were done and hoped I caught what was needed, but obviously not haha. But I still had a fun time and enjoyed doing it. This is kind of what I was hoping the Murray Haunted Woods would be, but that was way closer to one of the big spook alleys, so it was nice to find just a little chill walk with fun spooky decorations. Plus, it was free! 10 out of 10 squirrels.

As for difficulty, it is paved and easy going. DR2.

As for dogs, I am not 100% sure, but leaning towards only service dogs are allowed.