The Blog Where Horror Dwells: A Sleepy Hollow-een

Lyndhurst, a.k.a. Collinwood, from House of Dark Shadows and

Night of Dark Shadows

Periodically, it's necessary to make the pilgrimage to Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow, NY, just north of New York City, where the two Dark Shadows movies were filmed in the early 70s. The Halloween season is the perfect time for it, so this past weekend, that's where you would have found Kimberly and me. We left on Friday afternoon—I with GPS in hand for a bit of geocaching—and stayed the night with friends Elizabeth Massie and Cortney Skinner in Waynesboro, VA. On Saturday, we set out on the long drive to Tarrytown (more caches), and on Saturday night, we met my daughter, Allison, for a fine dinner at The Striped Bass, right on the Hudson, next to the impressive Tappan Zee Bridge. Tarrytown was beautifully decorated for Halloween and even had a Halloween Parade on Saturday afternoon. (We didn't hang around to watch it, though; eight bazillion raging muggles did make getting around something of a chore.) We ended the evening with a midnight lantern-light tour of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Most impressive, as well as rather relaxing. In fact, Sleepy Hollow is the kind of cemetery that might make being buried somewhat less annoying.

Lyndhurst against the rising sun

Old dude at one of the huge copper beech trees on the Lyndhurst estate

Sunday morning, we were up bright and early to visit Lyndhurst, the beautiful, historic estate that served as Collinwood in 1970's House of Dark Shadows and 1971's Night of Dark Shadows. We spent the better part of the day wandering about the house and grounds, and then, after a fabulous sushi dinner at Yama Fuji Sushi in Briarcliff Manor, we headed to the Great Jack-o'-Lantern Blaze at Van Cortland Manor, about ten miles north of Tarrytown. Four-thousand jack-o'-lanterns at this attraction, intricately arranged around the estate—many carved as individual components of incredible structures, such as huge spiderwebs (along with attendant spiders), dinosaurs, bats, cats, skeletons, scarecrows, monsters, and ghoulies. Without a doubt, this was one of the most impressive Halloween spectacles Kimberly and I have ever seen.

The too-short trip ended today with our long drive home...and fortunately, the hunting of a good many more geocaches. I must say, this was every bit the ticket for kicking off Halloween week. I'm certainly in the spirit now, and tomorrow, I'll be carving my meager jack-o'-lanterns; child's play next to the spectacle of the Jack-o'-Lantern Blaze, but you can bet your axe my pumpkins will be sincere.

Click on the pics to enlarge.