Sleepy Hollow

October 30, 2023

We finally made it to Sleepy Hollow this fall! This was another stop I wanted to check off my Halloween list and this year I was able to make time for it and on my birthday of all days. We were able to make a nice day trip out of it since it was only about an hour and a half away. For some reason, in the past I thought it was longer because anything ‘upstate’ seems like forever. In reality, this isn’t that much upstate of Manhattan. It was an easy drive up and back, especially if you’re able to avoid rush hours.

It’s a relatively small town so it’s very easy to see everything in a day. We got there around noon so we were able to explore a little bit of the cemetery, see the famous town sign for a quick pic, take a tour of Lyndhurst Mansion and walk the grounds before having dinner at Horsefeathers. The town is well decorated and very festive, being a popular tourist spot. I didn’t get to check out the shops on their main street because we arrived later in the day but because it’s so close, we plan on coming back again next year because it’s just such a beautiful and easily walkable town.

The iconic Sleepy Hollow sign is on the side of the road right next to Sleepy Hollow High School. It was easy to spot, and conveniently marked on Google maps as well. And because we went on a weekday, it was easy to find a quick spot to park, get out and take a quick pic. You don’t want to loiter too long since it is a school zone area. Weekends during October I’ve read can get pretty busy. This comes down to pros and cons of what you want to experience though. Weekends are busier so it may be harder to find a spot to park and have to wait your turn for things, but it’s also when they have more festivals and fun special Halloween events. If you walk a few blocks over from the sign, you’ll find the famous Beekman Ave, where there’s a big clock and the Jack Skellington looking pumpkin display decorated right at the intersection.

Drive a little further down the road and you’ll be at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. The Old Dutch Reformed Church is right out front with a couple of parking spots inside the entrance but you can drive alongside the one-way road and park on the right all along the cemetery if you can’t find a spot, as long as you follow all the marked signs and rules. We didn’t get to see inside the church this visit because it was closed albeit coming during visiting hours. Note that the bridge right outside the church is the official “Headless Horseman Bridge” - you literally drive on it to get to the cemetery - but it has since been replaced by a more modern looking construction. If you walk through the cemetery to the Old Style Horseman, you’ll find a more iconic, traditional looking wooden bridge the town installed to fit in with the legend of Sleepy Hollow better, to appease the tourists and makes for a better picture opportunity. It’s very pretty walking through the path to get there during this time, seeing all the beautiful fall colors and the stream that runs through it. I came at just the perfect time as the fall foliage in this area was reaching peak. Driving through the cemetery as we left was also a very pretty ride. I know, it seems weird to describe a cemetery as ‘pretty’ but there’s something hauntingly beautiful about the mausoleums and different tombstones, especially during this time as the colors change with the spooky season. Speaking of spooky season, the hubby noted there were a lot of Hot Topic looking girls also visiting during this time. I imagine the weekends are even more packed with tourists and Halloween fans. They have day and night tours for the cemetery but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go on a long walking tour at this time but maybe next time, if the weather is comfortable, a night time tour might be nice to try. We actually got very lucky this visit and it was a pretty warm day and a cool evening. It was unusually warm for my birthday weekend this year.

After the cemetery, we headed to the Lyndhurst Mansion for a tour. It was either this or the Armour-Stiner Octagon house but the Octagon house sold out before I remembered to book it, and the Lyndhurst Mansion had a lot of good reviews and gave you access to the grounds after the tour for you to wander to your hearts content. If you’re a history or architectural/home interior design buff, I recommend the Lyndhurst Mansion as one of your stops. It goes through the history of its three owners, from William Paulding, to George Merritt to Jay Gould. They used to have a Halloween tour but our tour guide said people complained and preferred to learn more about the history of the mansion than ghost stories so they only offer the classic tours at this time. (Hopefully next visit, I can book the Octagon House’s Myth and Mysteries tour to fit in better with the spirit of the Halloween season.) The mansion was built and decorated in a gothic style. I found it beautiful to walk through as all its furnishings and decor looked so regal and grand. I’ve never seen any of the shows and movies that it’s been featured in but I can definitely see why they would choose this building for their sets. And the grounds are also equally beautiful and were decorated for Halloween in good fun. Our tour ended right before sunset and we walked out to this beautiful view overlooking the Hudson river. It felt like the perfect ending to the evening for my birthday. We took a moment to take it in before leaving to head back to town for dinner.

We went to Horsefeathers for dinner, which came highly recommended by a few friends, and reviews and blogs I read online. There is definitely a wait because it is a popular spot and the hostesses to seat you do work a little slow (we tried earlier in the day before the tour and again after the tour and both times, it took a bit of a wait before someone came out to greet us and gave us an estimate for our wait time), but once you’re in, the service inside is normal. The inside decor is really festive and cute, with writers on the wall like Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe and Washington Irving. The food though, for me, didn’t really live up to the hype. I was in the mood for fish and chips and the fish was a little too crispy and the chips were more like potato wedges than fries, which I would’ve preferred to pair better with the fish. The crabcake was good though. The hubby had ribs and they were fall off the bone good but a little too oversauced. I probably should have gotten a burger instead since that’s what they’re well known for but I wasn’t in the mood for a burger. There were a lot of other things on the menu so maybe I’ll give it another shot if we visit again. I probably should’ve tried a drink but I don’t really drink and I’m in prep mode for the NYC marathon so it wasn’t really a good idea anyway. Two other recommended restaurants I’m looking to try next time are The Bridgeview Tavern and The Hudson Farmer & The Fish. Hopefully they fare a little better. After dinner, we walked around the block a little to kill time and check out some decorations. The shops were all closed by this time but it was a beautiful cool night to just walk since we were waiting for rush hour to die down before heading home. I found Sleepy Hollow very charming and everyone very friendly and informative. Hopefully next Halloween season, I can experience a spookier tour and see more of the town. I missed the Headless Horseman statue but that just means I need to make another trip back, of course!

The Pumpkin Blaze

October 21, 2023

I finally got to visit The Pumpkin Blaze this year!

I’ve been wanting to go for years since I found out about them back in 2018 but it’s a little far and out of the way being a little upstate NY and I’ve never had an excuse or opportunity to visit the area, especially since my fall schedule is usually packed. This year was a combination of stars aligning so I finally got to go. They finally opened up another location on Long Island, I stopped going to conventions, and my bday trip was just a quick getaway trip this year due to marathon training taking priority, which helped give me more free days back in my schedule as well as kept me more local this season to do fall things in state.

So what is The Pumpkin Blaze or The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze? Their website describes it as “a walk-through experience of thousands of hand-carved pumpkins in elaborate displays that light up the night at two historic locations in New York. At Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson and Old Bethpage Village Restoration in Old Bethpage, larger-than-life installations, along with synchronized lighting, create a magical, family-friendly experience for all ages.”

Accurate to its own description, I found it basically a fun Halloween trail filled with lit up pumpkin carvings as you walk through to view everything. I decided to visit the Long Island location for obvious proximity reasons, since both locations have the famous coveted pumpkin tunnel all the Instagrammers flock to on display, and let’s be real, that’s what we’re all here for. And yes, it absolutely did deliver! One important thing I would note is that you can only walk through the trail once - you can only go forwards, not backwards - but you’re allowed to take your time since the walk-through is self-paced, so I would definitely not rush through it and take as much time as you need to really enjoy the experience. Read everything, take as many pics as you want, linger a little, whatever you need. It can get crowded at times, but I also did find some breaks in the crowd where there was less foot traffic if I just waited a few minutes so I was able to get some shots in. So if you’re trying to get that shot, my advice would be to go on a weekday, book the first time slot, arrive at the venue 30 minutes before your time slot, and BE PATIENT when you get up to the tunnel. We were lucky and showed up before parking opened at 6pm, for the 6:30pm time slot on a Thursday evening, and we were basically the third car in line. We were able to park incredibly close to the entrance so it was a short walk, and walk in and hang around the gift shop and got some photos of the displays at the entrance before it got dark. The following 2 photos were taken just 30 minutes apart at 6 when we got there and 6:30 when they officially opened and let us start walking the trail so you can see how fast it gets dark at dusk this time of year. From there, within the hour, it got completely dark by the time we got to the tunnel.

Once it got even a little dark though, that’s when photos became a challenge especially if you want to be in the photos. So another tidbit to also note, is that the pumpkin tunnel is not at the beginning of the walk, but more towards the middle-end of the trail. And of course you don’t want to rush through the trail to get to it and miss all the great displays on the way, which I absolutely don’t recommend you do - definitely take your time and enjoy the displays at a slow, leisurely pace to get your money’s worth - but by the time you get to the tunnel, at this point in the season, it’s definitely past dusk and the light will be gone. I recommend a small hand held light if you have one, to help light your face up for photos. Just make sure your light isn’t intrusive and blinding to other guests. We used our cell phone light to help light me up in photos and it worked out nicely. I was able to get some nice portraits on my camera, but if you have night sight or live photo on your phone, those settings definitely help get some nice photos too. They just don’t allow tripods and drones as listed on their website’s FAQs, just FYI. Also another good tip, I highly recommend NOT wearing black if you’re trying to get photos in the tunnel of yourself. Lighter colors show up better and help reflect light to light you up.

Despite it being dark though, that’s when the pumpkin displays really shine! I forgot some of the displays were pumpkins at some points in the walkthrough because they were so well done and fit into the background. And there are SO, SO many of them. We got in at 6:30 and left around 7:20pm, so you definitely can spend some time looking at everything. There was great ambiance with the music they have throughout the trail, with a lot of screens on display, giving you tidbits of history of the island and background info of some of the artwork. For our particular venue, we saw shelves of carved pumpkins, each with a unique face, a pumpkin portal tunnel with a lightshow as you entered, a field of skeleton pumpkins, a firetruck, police car and ambulance pumpkins, a giant spider field, the headless horseman story carved out on display as homage to the original Pumpkin Blaze upstate, a haunted house inspired by the Amityville horror house, a sunflower field and corn field of pumpkins, a Long Island Hall of Fame, a giant grandfather clock, the Statue of Liberty, an entire zodiac of pumpkins, a lighthouse, sea creatures made of pumpkins, a dragon, and a circus train full of pumpkins with a moving carousel at the end.

Originally I felt the sticker price of admission for this was a little high, which it is for a pop-up, starting at $29 for adult admission on a weekday, and go all the way up to $54 for weekends. The timeslots are also priced differently; the earlier you want to go, the higher the price. If you don’t want to pay as much, I’d recommend going later in the night if you don’t care about your photos as much and just want to go for the experience. But if you’re there for photos, I’d recommend the first time slot on a weekday. That being said, I do think the price of admission is worth it here if you visit on a slow weekday, as it can get pricy for a family of 4+, I imagine. I appreciate all the work that went into this and making it a really nice experience. I also want to note this is a really great family friendly non-spooky event. There are no scare actors, nothing too crazy, just good fun and beautiful displays to admire. It might be a little scary for some young kids due to how dark some areas can get and some parts with witches and haunted houses, but there are tons of fun parts too that I think all ages would enjoy, like the sea creatures, alien pumpkins and bubbles blowing towards the end. The gift shop at the end is a really nice touch too. It’s cute and has some cute souvenirs like home decor, keychains, magnets, hats, shirts and even little treats. There’s a pumpkin carving area too to watch the masters at work. The ladies we met were really sweet and gave us some great tips for when we carve our pumpkin later this month for Halloween. All in all, I think this was a lot of good fun and I would enjoy attending again.

Full disclosure, this visit was not sponsored. I attended and paid full price admission, this was not an invited press visit so all opinions are my own and honest thoughts. If you’re looking for a fun fall activity, this definitely makes for a fun date night! I went with my husband for an early birthday date and we both really enjoyed it. Usually he’s very skeptic of IG traps but this was a great time and a very cool experience. I definitely recommend this for all my Halloween lovers. If you go, come back here and let me know how your own visit went!

Oh Starry Night

September 8, 2023

Once upon a time back in the 10th grade when I took AP European history, I told a cute boy my favorite painting was (and still is) Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night. Later that year, he told me he gained more respect for me after he learned in class that my favorite painting was by a madman who cut off his ear and went insane in an asylum. LOL, in the spirit of transparency, that’s not why I like Starry Night but I’ll let him have it.

I grew up always seeing Starry Night everywhere from history class to popular media. Something about it always struck with me. It’s a beautiful, simplistic yet complex painting. I say simplistic because of the nature of how it was painted; simple, quick, short brush strokes, and yet complex because it is no easy task to have all those strokes come together to compose the bigger picture of such an idyllic sky of swirls and stars and a dream-like moon shining over an unassuming village. Something about it, I always found beautiful, wondrous and calming. It’s the way a painting just makes you feel when you look at it. And Starry Night makes me feel the same way as when I’m walking alongside the beach at 5 in the afternoon, listening to the cascading of the ocean waves washing everything ashore. I don’t know how to describe it other than I feel calm. Everything can be crumbling around me but for a moment I just take a deep breath and I feel calm. Like nothing else matters and the bigger picture shows everything is so small and insignificant to worry about.

Which is ironic to say as I type this because lately I’ve been feeling like the weight of the world is coming down on me. Student loans are about to start again, I’m turning 35 this year and I’m coming close to having to make a very difficult, heavy life decision soon, which gets a little complicated because I found out about some health issues recently I have that are also stressing me out as my doctor tries to figure out what the next steps to take are in helping me prevent further complications, I have to run a world major marathon in 58 days, on top of all the regular everyday shit I have to worry about like bills, my mortgage, stress of still working on finishing my house and all the other goals I still haven’t finished. There’s a lot I want to do next year and they all conflict with each other in terms of timelines and if I have enough vacation time to spare from work so I’m worried about what I’ll have to sacrifice to experience the other. I know I can’t have it all, but it still sucks when you have to come to terms with it. Maybe some things are just not meant to happen and maybe you’re meant for something more, but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to mourn what could’ve possibly been. In another life, I would tell myself to not be so ambitious with my life expectations. I feel like I want to do a lot and somehow at the same time, I don’t really think it’s a lot at all, compared to other people’s ambitions. In the end, I just want to be happy fulfilling my own life goals. I don’t have any career aspirations of climbing corporate ladders, I don’t want to raise a huge family, hell, I don’t even want to be that rich - I just want to make enough money to live comfortably and happy sustaining my lifestyle. I don’t even care about having extra wealth/income like how some of my peers are pre-occupied with side hustles and various streams of income. I acknowledge that I am privileged to not have to pick up a second job currently to make ends meet, because I selfishly do not want to give up my days off and my fun time spent doing whatever it is I want. Like visiting the van Gogh exhibit at the Met this summer when I discovered Starry Night was going to be on display. I know it also is displayed at MOMA regularly but I’m not as big a fan of the art on display there for the price of admission and if I'm being honest, I’m cheap, lol. I don’t like that I have to pay for tickets at MOMA while the Met is pay as you wish for NY residents and has so much more to offer. Don’t get me wrong, I believe artists and such should get paid too, but these big museums get enough money from donors and such, and let’s be real, my money isn’t going towards the artists whose works are on display here. And if we’re being real real, a lot of these exhibits were not exactly acquired fairly so you know they’re not being properly compensated to the original owner. But enough about that.

I learned about the van Gogh exhibit a little late in the season, basically a few weeks before it was ending. I tried to visit twice, and failed on the first occasion since the exhibit requires you to sign up via a virtual queue before 3pm and sometimes they take away the queue earlier than 3pm, which was what happened the first time I tried. I went back a week later and made it in the nick of time luckily. I would have been pissed if I had to try a 3rd time before the exhibit ended. While it is rather annoying that it was limited to a virtual queue, I understand why and I’m glad it was limited because as expected, once you get in, there’s a huge crowd in front of the Starry Night painting compared to all other paintings in the exhibit. Luckily, because it was crowd controlled, it didn’t take too long to be able to see it up close. There was one guard standing in front of it too, to make sure no one got too close or tried anything funny. He was really nice though in allowing me to get my photo with as little people around me as possible. It really is something else getting to see it up close in person. I remember seeing the Mona Lisa in person and thinking how small and underwhelming she was, so I was wary about having the same experience with Starry Night but I can personally say for me, it wasn’t the case. She was as beautiful as I imagined her and she continues to live on in my heart, representing the calmness I need when things feel rocky. Maybe that’s why she was painted. After all the instability and conflict going on in van Gogh’s mental health, maybe this beauty brought him a sense of calm, a sense of peace in his life. There’s a je ne sais quoi about my favorite painting that I will never be able to explain. Some things about art evoke certain emotions when you look at it, and Starry Night from my high school days to now, still very much speaks to me, in a hopeful “life is beautiful” kind of way.

If you made it this far, here's a cute fun fact. That same cute boy bought me a replica print of Starry Night for Valentine's day in our high school years. It was framed and everything. And to this day I still have it, although the frame and glass are gone due to poor storage at my parent's house, but I love that I still have a sentimental piece of our romance from younger years. 💖✨🌙🌀