Haunted Hayride

HAYRIDE

Grandpa and Spiderman on the hayride.

Every year, the volunteer fire department for a nearby city (Payne Springs) has a haunted hayride as a fundraiser. My dad offered to take us and my uncle out to it this past weekend. It was a long wait from the dusk start time that they claim on the site to when the hayrides actually started boarding, but they had a concessions stand and a movie playing so it wasn't too bad. We were the last group to fit on the trailer so we each wound up sitting on a different row. My uncle was in front of me, Chad was behind me, and Jacob and my dad sat in the very back. I had Joshua in the Ergo on my back so I wouldn't have to worry about him squirming out of my arms while the trailer was in motion.

We ride the short distance to the start of the woods and as we approach, the driver turns of the headlights. Since we are in the country, there isn't any light pollution. Looking up to the sky, I decided to break into song. "The stars at night are big and bright!" Of course, the rest of the trailer does the *CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP* and we all start giggling. We pull up to a path marked with solar lights when the engine cuts out. The driver turned around and announces, "Oops! We're out of gas!" Jacob gets a very concerned look on his face. The driver steps down and lets us know that he's just waiting for the other group to start heading back before we can go in. Apparently, Jacob didn't hear this and his concern leads him to start freaking out. "What are we gonna do? We don't have any gas!" I took this opportunity to let him know that the driver was joking and to remind him that it's all pretend and just people in costumes. We start down the path and a sasquatch starts walking out of the woods and follows the trailer. Jacob turns around and, in his bravest voice, yells to the sasquatch, "I'M NOT AFRAID OF YOU!!!" This continues the entire hayride. Every single "monster" (as Jacob called them) got told off. I told the rest of the group that it's nice to know that he won't have to pay a therapist to learn how to face his fears!

We're on our way back to the fire station. We've waved at the group that was entering as we left. The family at the front of the hayride had 4 or 5 kids with them ranging from 3rd grade up to the teenage girl that my uncle wound up sitting next to. There were parts of the ride that the younger kids were still kind of freaking out about and one of the older boys took this opportunity to give them a hard time about it. Suddenly, two guys with chainsaw run out of the woods and jump on the front of the trailer. This boy freaked out. Of course, the guys pick up on that immediately and both stand over him revving their chainsaws. He's crying and telling them to leave him alone and, in their deepest, scariest voices, start saying, "COME WITH ME!" and grab at his arms. They tortured him for a good 2 minutes before finally jumping off. The boy was STILL crying and his younger siblings were cracking up laughing. "Stop laughing at me!!" Yeah, didn't help. All the adults were trying so hard to suppress our own laughter.

Since Jacob did such a great job on the hayride, my dad got him one of the cool shirts they were selling:

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