Day 23: Cornfield Maze...

I’m still reeling from my camping trip over the weekend, it really seemed to have kicked my butt. I even went to sleep at 9:30 last night, and not much later the night before.

The trip itself was awesome, and turned out to be much more fun than I had expected it to be. We went to Cowen, W.Va., and camped in the middle of nowhere. I never really knew what “the middle of nowhere,” looked like until this trip. We had to drive a good 30-40 minutes to the nearest gas station, which was also the town’s hang out. But I have to be honest, the drive was beautiful. The leaves were changing and were as bright as I have ever seen.

I took some amazing pictures, but unfortunately I don’t have them to post. Yet. My digital camera broke, so it’ll take a little while for me to get the pictures on here.

Anyway, last friday night, me, my wife, and some of our friends traveled to Milton, W.Va., for the annual Haunted Cornfield. We had to park behind a middle school and then walk/hike a good ways to get to the cornfield. It takes a little while, but eventually you’ll see it, and it’s a pretty impressive site.

You see the start of endless rows of corn, that lead to nothing but darkness. There’s a big books stationed just before the cornfield where you can buy your pass inside and candy, drinks, candy apples and such. A new addition this year was a big video wall that plays Horror movies while you wait in line. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning was playing while we were in line, which added to the spookiness.

By the time we got there, a pretty good line had already formed, but I had seen it longer in previous years. As soon as it got started you could hear the terrorizing sounds of chainsaws coming from somewhere inside the cornfield. Yea, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre ended up being a nice touch.

We were grouped in with some others, and then we made our way into the cornfield. It is such an eerie feeling, being surrounded by corn, not knowing what is lurking near you, and having the moon be your only source of light. I love it.

We laughed, and had a really good time, but the Haunted Maze seemed to have lost some of its appeal compare to previous times out.

The Good:

The Cornfield – I don’t care if there were people jumping out at you or not, being in a huge cornfield at night is very spooky in itself. Throw in the element that people are trying to scare you, and you’re going to have a good time, even with just the pure novelty of it. You can only see a little ways between the tows of corn, and though you never know when someone is coming out at you, you know it’s coming.

The Food – You can by candy, popcorn, candy apples, and so much more. It’s Halloween time, and they have all of your favorite treats for sale. It’s a nice touch.

The Duration – Man it seemed like we were walking through this cornfield forever. It came a time where I questioned if we’d ever get out, or if we were just going to be walking in this field forever. Too many Haunted walk-throughs are too short, but not this one.

The Frightened little girl – We had a girl about 10 in our group, and she was terrified from the get-go. At first, I thought she was playing around…but ohhh no she wasn’t. She was freaking out, and was even crying. It was really kind of sad, and the guide let the little girl and her mom walk up with her. Which was a good idea, for most of the ScareActors were aiming for those in the back of the group. But at one scenario, these two guys with chainsaws came busting out of the corn, weapons of choice in hand and swinging them violently. They went STRAIGHT toward the front of the line, and were chasing and circling this little girl, and other little ones around her. I didn’t want to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. The guys with chainsaws never even looked at us behind…their focus was on this little girl. She was freaking out, and I couldn’t stop laughing.

The Bad:
The ScareActors – While it is very cool that people take time out of their lives to participate in a Haunted Cornfield Maze, they did a better job out of scaring people in previous years. Previously, most of them were decked out in full costume, but this year everyone was wearing jeans, a shirt, and a Halloween mask. It just wasn’t as fun. One guy had a Michael Myers mask, one the ghost face from Scream, but it didn’t have the full effect with them wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

Wasn’t Scary – Aside from being in a cornfield and people screaming, “boo!,” the Haunted Cornfield Maze just wasn’t scary. It was fun. Just not scary.