I had been riding a wave of good luck and fortune throughout this Halloween season... and unfortunately that luck just ran out.
Our neighborhood trick-or-treat was Sunday night, but I wanted to keep the display up and running through Halloween night to keep the spooky orange-and-black vibes going. My plan was to run the full show on Halloween night, just as a worthy sendoff to another incredible season (even if nobody else would see it, I could bask in the glow of my hard work one more time this year). I decided to go to work on Halloween, blasphemous I know. And that's when I got the call...
The winds had REALLY picked up and had started to devastate the display. I cut out at lunch and headed home to assess the damage. By the time I got home, it was too late. Tombstones were blown from their mounts, my 12 ft. skeleton had almost completely blown over due to a break in the metal frame base, and worst of all, my entire arch entryway had blown over, snapping the arched sign in half and heavily damaging one of the pillars. Gah, my heart sunk.
With the help of Mrs. Highbury, we quickly pulled in the damaged pieces and then pulled in anything else that could have been the next victim of the whipping winds. Suffice to say that Halloween did not end the way I had hoped, but in a rare glimmer of optimism, I took stock of everything and quickly realized that all of the pieces could be repaired and will be used again in next year's display. I'll definitely have my work cut out, but it will fuel the determination for 2025.
So Halloween ends on a sour note, but overall it was another jam-packed amazing season. I'll keep riding this high for another couple of weeks, and I still have quite a bit to share. So let's keep this thing going for a bit. Check back tomorrow for more post-Halloween Halloween fun.
Only 364 more days to go. Are you ready?
