Halloween Best of the Best: X-Country Frights and Fun in 2008

Ask anyone who loves Halloween what they like most about the season, and they'll tell you they enjoy the fun or fright most. Finding the perfect spooky or fun thing to do in America is easy for those folks who take in as much Halloween as possible. Spectacular haunted houses, pumpkin festivals, and great autumn fun is subject to the attendance of these revelers of the holiday which embodies and "out-of-body" experience to the delight of its fans. All across the country the best of the best Halloween attractions and events are put down for you to use during this year's spooky travels. Reporters have found that when it comes to Halloween, the creators of these fantastic gatherings have given us all something to behold in October.

The Headless Horseman Hayride in Ulster Park N.Y. is the traditional autumn hayride gone amuck. Staring in September 2008, this ride in the country soon turns into a hayride of terror. Located just miles from Sleepy Hollow, the creepy woods that surround the Headless Horseman Hayride create the perfect backdrop for frightful events. 13 different sets filled with ghastly ghouls and perfect creations of fright await the travelers of the yearly rides. Only the arrival of the famed Headless Horseman himself will signal the end of the terror filled cruise. What guests get from this Halloween trip is exactly what the creators wanted.

Remembering the girl who jumped from the ride one year, only to run screaming down the path, the owners and operators of the Headless Horseman hayride suggest that this is not for the faint of heart. They report that the fun is multiplied when someone on the ride is so terrified they don't know what to do. When they see people who have just finished the ride, they know their passion has been achieved. By creating the scariest Hayride in America, the Headless Horseman hayride is perfect for this year's Halloween traveler.

If you're in Lathrop California during Halloween, then you might want to join thousands of folks who enter the largest cornfield maze in America. Created just for the Halloween and the autumn season, this cornfield transforms into a 25 acre creation of Halloween love. Over 100,000 people will try their hand a finding a way out once entered. This maze is actually an intricate design which can be viewed from above as a perfect piece of art. From the ground, the maze is everything it is supposed to be. A fun way to gather around a traditional Halloween can include more than fear and fright. In Lathrop California you can find something fun and fantastic that only comes out around Halloween.

What you get at the Topsfield Fair is BIG from October 3 thru the 13^th, 2008! The New England Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off hosts world record breaking pumpkins which sit side-by-side, all waiting to be weighed. When the smallest pumpkin in the competition is 300 lbs, and the largest pumpkins grow to over 1000lbs, these contestants arrive via forklift to the weigh-off held in a rodeo type corral. The owners who display their massive pumpkins at the Topsfield Fair keep their prize giants hidden from view until the show. Not until the scale reaches the 1000lb mark does the competition get serious and when Joe Dukris had his world record breaking 1680 lb gourd weighed, it showed in pounds how fantastic this Halloween event really is.

Manitou Springs Colorado is where you find the Emma Crawford Coffin races during the Halloween season. Since 1994, over 5000 screaming fans attend the coffin race. 30 different types of coffins race down the streets of Manitou to the delight of the race fans. These races of dread are a legendary result of the former Mayor of Manitou, Emma Crawford whose coffin is believed to have been raised out of the ground by flood, and carried 60 miles downstream. It's stories and legends like this that make today's Halloween events more meaningful for the fans of great spooky fun who come out to show their support of Halloween and everything it entails.

In Worcester Ma, you will find the Halloween Outlet. It is the world's largest Halloween super store which is open to the public year-round. Over 30,000 sq. feet of massive store space allows for over a half a million different things to choose from. Included in the store's inventories you can find every type of Halloween gadget or costume. The prop isle at the Halloween Outlet in Worcester has bloody limbs, cut off fingers, and eyeballs that are wrapped like the meat department. Things like 100's of fang types and 30 different kind of fake blood, makes this the largest Halloween store in the country.

The space includes a rental section for those who just want to rent a costume and not purchase their own. Folks who need a little help deciding on the perfect Halloween item will find that the Halloween outlet offers their own customer support ghouls to help you work on the perfect fit or prop. This outlet stays open all year long, but in October, 10's of thousands of customers converge on the outlet to look at what they have. So many people come just to see the different costumes and props that the store has to have full-time security just to keep everyone moving.

At the Keene New Hampshire Pumpkin festival, more than 3000 volunteers cut, carve, and clean 1000's of pumpkins to be displayed on through much of the square feet of the town. In 2003 the town broke the world record for over 3500 jack-o-lanterns lit at one time in one area. More than art, this town dedicates itself to the pumpkin before, during, and after the Halloween season. If you're around Keene during Halloween, then you'll surely get a chance to see this great jack-o-lantern display during this annual festival of pumpkins.

Vegas does everything big, even Halloween on long weekends from October 3^rd thru Halloween 2008. Because a mere haunted house would not be enough, now next to Circus Circus you can find the Fright Dome. With 5 haunted houses and 23 rides, this place is all razzle dazzle right from the start. Chainsaws abound as you wait to enter, and when you do, every inch of the 5 acre dome is haunted or filled with excitement. If you are unable to find something to like about this great Vegas Event, then you haven't seen everything this gathering of fright has to offer. More than a theme park, this dome includes roaming terror like dropping demons from the ceiling. For the lords and ladies of misery, it's the things other haunted houses don't have that makes this Vegas tradition the must be seen to be believed Halloween event. Because it takes up to 5 hours to enjoy everything they offer, this is much more than a haunted house. Dropping elevators and Vegas fright shows are all a part of the night. The freaks are out at the Fright Dome in Las Vegas all around the Halloween holiday.

Now that you've seen some of the most bizarre Halloween events and gatherings, we end with what's believe to be the best Halloween Scare show of them all.

A "Scare Palace" is too simple a description. The House of Shock October 3^rd thru November 1^st on long weekend days Thursday-Sunday. The most hauntingly hellish, head-banging Halloween experience on the planet is located in New Orleans Louisiana. You need to go now because it may just get shut down before you get there, so get there fast. 15 Years of damaging young minds and scaring the pants off their visitors, they not only do it with a visual that cannot be beat, but they include heavy metal music to everything they do.

Ramp it up the owners say about this extreme freak show. Don't call it a haunted house, this collection of events and shows include far-out body piercing, hanging flesh, war scenes, devil worship and fireworks begins when you enter the funeral parlor, where the dead come alive. Where evil doctors cut into flesh with saws and hatchets, the rooms are separated from each other and are close-in, making the participants feel like they are going to be the next victim of every freak in the room. Butcher shops, barber shops, and more make every participant watch out because they may leave with more fear and less fingers if they don't watch out.

The climax is Satan's church, where demon priests attack young virginal souls for their own favorite god. This event is so horror filled the locals thought the owners were recruiting youngsters into a real church of Satan. So believable it's real, the House of Shock is the most X-country Halloween gathering of ghouls in the country. With everything that happens around Halloween, these attractions will give everyone something to love about Halloween. Get into the spirit of the best holiday of the year, and get your Halloween fright served up right in 2008.