Halloween California Style

After our 3 mile hike in the San Timoteo Canyon, and a little rest, we wanted to go experience the sounds & sounds of Halloween in Redlands.  The police block off some of the streets, houses are decorated in the typical Halloween "spooky" decorations and thousands of people trick or treat from dusk to 11:00PM.

We decided to go early before the sun went down to enable us to get some pictures of the decorations. After night fell, the houses were lit up, but the details of the great decorations were lost in the darkness.

Body parts "for sale"!

OMG, I can't handle all these kids!

This display was animated. Watch on YouTube below.

Some of the people estimated that they get around 4,000 "Trick or Treaters" each year.  They were mostly giving out small candies such as lollipops, etc.  The highly decorated houses seemed to be businesses along this main street such as lawyers, dentists, doctors, etc. 

 Other well decorated homes had sponsors that helped defray the cost of the decorations & candy.

 Some of the homes were extremely well done, others were "over  the top"!

Great Halloween display!

It was fun watching the parents and the little children enjoying the sights.

 Later, after dark, the older children & teens were about. Bands were playing their music on a mobile stage set up by the city,  and a party atmosphere prevailed for the rest of the evening.

We were thinking about our past experiences of Halloween back in New England.  In New England it always seemed to rain (or snow!) on Halloween, the children wear coats over or under their costumes, the houses are farther apart in the country, and the weather is just not that conducive to outdoor activities like this.  People were trick or treating in flip-flops, tank tops and shorts.  This is a BIG holiday in California. You can read more about it in the local paper here.

After we had seen most of the attractions we headed to San & Mike's home for dinner as we hadn't eaten since our 3 mile hike and the walk around looking at the decorations made us even more hungry.

Mike said his pedometer registered over 6 miles of walking today!  Elly and I were a little "pooped" because we have not been keeping up with our daily walks.  After a lovely dinner by our gracious hosts, we packed up the pomegranates (see earlier post) and drove out through the San Timoteo Canyon and headed home.