[Haunt Tour] Behind the Scenes - 1639 Miles Down

Wow, just wow. Haven't been back here at the Haunt Tour HQ 24 hours yet and I can't help but think how nuts the past weekend was. Saying it's one of the larger treks that we make during Haunt Tour, would be a bit of an understatement. It's not so much the the number of haunts we visited, it was only two, but the distances involved to get there. Overall, this trip was 863miles of travel done in just about 75 hours.

Thankfully, had the power of mocha mint from Wawa to keep me going! Seriously, that stuff is like liquid crack for me. I don't know what it is, but I have to have it whenever I can. What have you done to me Wawa?! If you haven't tried it, and live near a Wawa...do so at  your own risk. I am so very not responsible for the consequences!

Just a little bit of driving

Anway, speaking of the haunts, they were pretty big and full of things to see and do. The first being Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, and the second Halloween Haunt at Kings Dominion. Both, massive events with tons of mazes, scare zones, and shows to try to cram into our visits. We're only there for one day, and don't get to go back, so it's always a challenge to hit everything we can. This time? It was really only the mazes and a few other smaller experiences, but such is the way of it.

Thankfully, the weather was on our side a bit. Apparently there was a huge storm that threatened the entire weekend to be a complete loss but it never did more than a very steady light rain, and only for parts of each day. We definitely dodged a bullet with things, but it did keep the crowds down. Sure, we do get front of line access and things like that, but not having to navigate huge crowds speeds things up too.

Actually, smaller crowds let us check out details a bit more easily as well. Mazes aren't "conga lined" and the scare zones aren't full of people either. So, from a reviewing standpoint, it's probably better all around for us. The parks want as many people, so do the scare actors, but hey...at least we can get a better picture of things to share with everyone, so there is that at least.

Wait til you see the DSLR version!

The weather also had another effect, the fog and atmosphere was just killer in both parks. I love taking pictures at these events to capture the feel of them, and there's really no substitute for the way the weather cooperated.

I mean, it's night time already so an overcast sky, low lying fog, and cooler temps all add up for some really great things to happen through the lens. Just can't wait to get into the photos and see how everything turned out, I'm hoping pretty good!

Overall though, it was a really fun weekend and we noticed a lot of things that had improved at both events. We also got to do a few things that we normally haven't had the chance to, like being filmed going through a maze and things like that, should be fun to see us being dorks. It was supposed to be a "scare cam" but I think it turned more into "this is what Carrie and I do in a haunt when we review them". It'll be interesting, I haven't watched it yet.

That said, we also noticed quite a few things that were lacking and problems that still persist, but you'll be hearing all about that stuff in the reviews from +Carrie H.C. and myself once we get to writing them. It's the one thing that's frustrating for us, but that's why we do what we do!

Skulls with wings!

So, what's coming this week? Well, it's pretty jam packed. We really only have about two days of "down time" until we get back to things. During that time, we'll be recording new podcasts, writing reviews, processing pics and video, and all that plus real life work...not much of a down period when you think about it.

What we're up to exactly, I'll be talking about more in the preview post coming up here soon. I will say that it's Pittsburgh Weekend.

What does that mean? Well, we'll be allover the place in our neck of the woods and hitting up 5-7 attractions...again, depending on weather. The nice thing about Pittsburgh Weekend is that we're close to home, so updates tend to fly around randomly which is fun. Makes it not as quiet here on the site as with during the longer trips.

Oh! Before I forget, I did record BitS clips, but thanks to the shitty nature of our hotel's Wifi, I couldn't upload them at all. I tried over the regular network but it was way too slow and didn't really want to eat up that much data. So, they'll be coming here soon...just after the fact! 

That's really about it, not much else report and I doubt you want to hear about how boring some of the roads we drove on were, so I'll close this off here. Stay tuned for the reviews, all the video, and everything else in the next 48 hours or so.

Stay safe, and scare ya later!