As Promised

It was well worth it!  "The kids" picked me up about 7 p.m.  The reservations were for 7:45, at the state park, about a half hour down the road.  I was so grateful that my son drove, as I no longer care to drive at night.  We squished the three ladies in the back seat of the truck, Lacey's dad rode shotgun.  I wore jeans and my jeans jacket.  I knew when I chose it that there was a pair of gloves packed in the pockets.  The sun went down as we drove, and it was dark in the park when we arrived.

The dragon was NOT the first display, but I chose it first so it will be the thumbnail.  This one and several more are photos that Lacey took, as first, she's a better photographer than I am, and second, my hands got cold and I stuck them into the gloves, and then the pockets, giving up on taking photos, and just enjoying the experience.

Every one of the 4,000 (plus?) pumpkins was hand carved by local crafts/artists.  They had the shells so thin, and I'm sure they must have put some form of preservative on them, as this display will be up for a month.  We've about a week into that month now.

It's almost a full moon, and what this photo shows is one ghost-shape carved pumpkin hung on a tree with the moon peeking through.

Full moon?  That goes with Ironman!  Yeah, back to that...

There was a display of a giant spider "mama" with single pumpkin baby spiders, and appropriately creepy music.  

On the other side, there was a "Lucky Charms" display of a giant unicorn surrounded by the classic horse-shoes, hearts, clovers and rainbows.  

There were food and beverage vendors but the line was horrid.  My son had not been able to eat before we went, having a late work appointment, so we left him to stand through the line while the rest of us tried to figure out a hill full of displays.  He was still in line when we got back, so we did it again, and there was so much to see that we didn't mind.  He shared a French fry or two around the group, and downed his hot dog, grateful to be fed.

The skill of the carving artists showed in the various displays.  I loved the one where they re-created art of the masters... Mona Lisa, Scream, The Creation of Man, American Gothic, and the girl with the pearl earring decorated one pile of bales.

Lacey could not quite get the best angle for Where's Waldo, but that he's there, too.

I am not going to dump ALL of the photos here, but when we got further in, there was a collection of dinosaurs, and that's a BIG favorite of my son's fiancé.  So the young couple spent some time trying to get the right background for a selfie:

There were embedded puns in some of the displays.  This was at a state park that has a wave pool, so they put a display of the stars and stripes in the wave pool, leading up to a display of pumpkins with ears of corn silhouettes carved in them, spelling out "Nebraska".  Nebraska used to be an inland sea... yeah, something for everyone!

As we wound through the vendor area, Lacey's mom hooked us up with apple-cinnamon filled donuts to munch on our way onward.  We still had sticky donuts on our fingers as we took the dinosaur photos.

By the time we wound our way past photo-portrait celebrity pumpkin displays to the exit, we'd been there well over an hour, and we topped off the evening by getting in the pre-heated truck to hear the final minute of the Husker - Rutgers football game.  We were astonished (and pleased) with our second conference win in a row!  It's been a minute since last we saw that.  Everybody is immediately in love with the new coach (this is his 3rd game as interim coach).

The dropped me off at home, about 10:30 p.m.  This was the second night up past my bedtime, and this morning... I'm back streaming Ironman coverage, this time the men.

Hope you all have a fine weekend, whether spooky, sporty, or Thankful... Happy Thanksgiving weekend to my Canadian friends, and those elsewhere in the world who are celebrating... it's time to start the Thankfulness exercise for the year, to last through US Thanksgiving!

Life is good.  Spark on!