An Excursion Aboard the Abandoned Hayride

 

An Excursion Aboard an Abandoned Hayride

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for October 16, 2022

Sly like a fox, autumn has crept back into our lives and summer seems to be officially over.  

The colors of the leaves changing are beautiful even if it is a sign for us that Winter is Coming.  I'm not a big fan of winter anymore.

I suddenly had an urge to visit Mystic Lake Casino, but I don't know why.

Last weekend we went down to Elko, Minnesota to meet our friends, the Walters Family, for some dinner and a night of debauchery.  We make real good debauchery together.

On Friday night, the boys and I went to Chaska, Minnesota to take a tour aboard an attraction called the Abandoned Hayride.  Miss Sheri isn't a big fan of haunted houses or things like that so she chose not to go with us.  We joined about 30 other strangers and squeezed into a wagon being pulled by a tractor.  It just seemed like the thing to do.

I found it to be a pretty unique experience.  The wagon is pulled down a trail in the middle of a cornfield and eventually we came across different sets.  Each scenario depicts some kind of psychopaths doing naughty things and trying to scare us in a variety of ways.  I did pretty good until one of the actors snuck in a door behind me with a chainsaw and gave me quite the shock.

Some scenes were scarier than others.  This witch doctor was conjuring up some sort of spell and several of the characters seemed to have problems playing well with others.  They all had their own individual charms though which made each stop entertaining.  

The scene with the lady giving birth to an evil creature was pretty creative.  Actually, I found the entire experience to be rather unique and unlike other haunted houses I've visited.  It was a fun way to spend an hour or so with my sons.

On Saturday, we drove down to Waverly, Iowa to visit my old buddy, Ron "Sugarman" Myers and his lovely wife, Kristie.  We hadn't seen them in awhile so we thought it was a good time to take a road trip and pay them a visit.

Miss Sheri's college alma mater, Wartburg College, is also in Waverly and it just happened to be Homecoming weekend.  So we stopped by campus to visit her old stomping grounds.  She regaled us with stories of all the shenanigans she used to get into before we met one another.

We visited various buildings and classrooms and explored places that we probably weren't supposed to enter.  Just another fun way to spend a Saturday.

Ron is a formerly certified firearms safety instructor so we took advantage of the opportunity to visit the gun range and get some new lessons.  I enjoy shooting but prefer to do it in the attendance of someone who really knows what they're doing so I don't end up hurting myself in the process.

For the rest of the evening we hung out with the Myers family, played games, had some laughs, and even had a campfire.  It was a pleasant way to spend the weekend!