Hudson River Valley: Sleepy Hollow

We explored the town of Sleepy Hollow in the morning. We started at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Old Dutch Church. It was a beautiful cemetery and the light drizzle added to the moodiness. We paid a visit to Washington Irving's grave of course. (The cemetery is also the burial place for Andrew Carnegie, Walter Chrysler, William Rockefeller, and Elizabeth Arden.)

Sleepy Hollow reminded me and Ben of our visit to Prince Edward Island and the Anne of Green Gables sites. We walked through the forest that Anne Shirley walked with her kindred spirit Diana Barry. And then we would have to remind ourselves that Anne and Diana didn't actually exist. They didn't actually walk there and live there. And Ichabod Crane didn't actually seek refuge from the headless horseman in this cemetery. Because Ichabod Crane was a fictional character. Right?

But it was fun to see where Irving drew his inspiration for the story.

Headless Horseman Bridge. Not the original of course. Because it no longer exists. And because the headless horseman wasn't real. Or was he?

We stopped by Philipsburg Manor which was a farming, milling, and trading center in the 18th century.

 

Hudson River Valley: The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze

The main event of our New York trip was the The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze in Croton-on-Hudson (near Sleepy Hollow). I can't begin to describe how amazing this was. Over 5,000 hand-carved jack o'lanterns illuminated and set up in these amazing displays (900 are real pumpkins that have to be re-carved each week, the rest are hand-carved artificial pumpkins called funkins). There were snakes slithering along the ground, a field of sunflowers, a creepy cemetery, spiders and a huge spider web, an undersea aquarium and sea serpent, dinosaurs, and so much more! It was amazing. My pictures don't do it justice at all. And for some reason I didn't take any photos of our group. I guess I was too enthralled with the pumpkins.

Beehive with bees flying around it.

There were three of these huge cubes and we weren't sure what they were until we had almost passed them and a creepy pumpkin head popped out of the top. Jack O'Lantern in the box!

 

The Tunnel O' Pumpkin Love.

Headless horseman out of legos in the Museum of Pumpkin Art.

This kid passed out about halfway through.