October 2018 – After enjoying several weeks of waterfalls and fall foliage in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and a delightful day on Mackinac Island, we stopped to camp at Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area in the Lower Peninsula. Despite cold rain and drizzle in mid-October, we were shocked to see that the campground was packed to the gills when we arrived on a Sunday morning. It turned out that the State Park campgrounds in Michigan celebrate Halloween each weekend in late September and October, and the festivities were in full swing.
Ghouls and goblins pose for a selfie in front of their trailer home!
Families were shivering in the rain and huddled around the campfires, but nothing could dampen their spirits as they showed off their wild Halloween campsite decorations.
Grrrrr….Happy Halloween!
Smile for the camera!
After we quickly set up camp, we walked around the campground loops and were floored by how elaborate the campsite decorations were.
Some folks set up their displays under easy-up shelters!
Some were arranged under the fifth wheel overhang too.
Families had gone all out with witches riding broomsticks, ghosts twisting in the wind, pumpkins grinning wickedly and skeletons perched on everything.
Witches and skeletons hang out on a camper’s fifth wheel.
A skeleton couple took over the picnic table at this motorhome’s campsite.
The night before we got there, all of the displays had been lit up. There were power cords running every this way and that between the campsites and the displays. But even in the bitter morning air without any glow-in-the-dark spookiness, we still caught Halloween fever as we walked the campground loops and admired the decorations.
One RV was sitting in a pumpkin patch.
This pumpkin partied too much last night and got sick.
Every Saturday night in September/October at all the Michigan State Park campgrounds — and in many other midwest campgrounds too — the kids get dressed up in Halloween costumes and go from campsite door to campsite door all around the campground trick-or-treating.
An evil looking Mickey Mouse greets trick-or-treaters at the back door of an RV.
What evil lurks inside??
I don’t know who loves it more, the kids or the parents and grandparents. One older fellow told us he went Halloween camping every year for 15 or so years as he raised his kids (the youngest was now 24!), but he still comes out because it is so much fun to see the kids in their costumes and give out candy.
A ghost’s eyes lit up red as we go by.
Spooky!
He kinda laughed as he told me that if you time it right, you can hit all six State Park campgrounds in this area from late September through October and experience the fun over and over in different settings!
Dead babies… is that Alice Cooper‘s popup tent trailer?
A trailer’s front yard turned into a graveyard.
Every campsite had decorations, and some were very complex. Pumpkins and ghosts were popular themes, but it was the carefully laid out headstones in the Halloween graveyards that caught our attention!
Gravestones and skulls, a good Halloween combo!
Fresh graves – keep out! Folks who come to this trailer wind up under headstones!
The front end of a travel trailer is an ideal place to set a few ornaments, and sure enough we found skeletons and ghosts and pumpkins aplenty.
The trailer’s hitch and propane tanks make good perches for ghoulish things.
.
There were lots of skeletons hanging around too.
Skeletons hanging around everywhere!
A skeleton hangs in a tree.
Other skeletons sat in kayaks and cackled as they paddled and fished alongside their toy hauler.
Skeletons laugh ghoulishly as they fish from their kayaks.
Catch of the day – a fish skeleton!
One campsite had a big skeleton of an animal standing out in front of a cute retro trailer.
What kind of creature is this?
Upon closer inspection we realized it was the skeleton of a horse pulling a carriage. Inside the carriage were the skeletons of a bride and groom.
A horse skeleton pulling a buggy with a bride and groom skeleton inside.
Another campsite featured a skeleton bride and groom getting married in the grass under a trellis.
Newlywed skeletons.
The bodies of a pair of old retired skeletons had given up the ghost. All that remained was their skulls which peered out of the front windshield of a motorhome.
Retiree skulls in a motorhome.
As I walked around the campground loop taking photos, Buddy did his usual sniffing and socializing. Suddenly, I felt him stiffen at the end of his leash. I looked down and he was staring at a corpse sticking halfway out of the ground. He crouched really low and gingerly sniffed at the corpse. Suddenly, he jumped back in fright. Then he slowly crept in and got another sniff.
Buddy jumped when he saw this bloody corpse in the grass.
We had missed the big trick-or-treat night, so we never saw the kids in their costumes. But what a super fun way for families to celebrate Halloween and extend their camping season past the end of summer.
Witch skeletons hang from a tree.
Lots of families knew each other from previous years and there was a fantastic spirit of celebration everywhere as kids ran between the trailers and parents and grandparents unwound by the campfire.
Spiders, ghosts and goblin eyes.
Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area campground is a wonderful place to camp that sits on the shores of a small lake.
Beautiful fall colors across the lake made a great backdrop for the campground festivities.
Happy Halloween!
Walk softly out there and watch out for things that go bump in the night!
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More info about Michigan State Parks:
- Map of Michigan State Parks Campgrounds
- Metamora-Hadley Campground
- Location of Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area
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Em,
Wow… people in the RV parks really get into Halloween! Great pics. Thanks for sharing.
Bob
RVers are cool people, Bob! They gave out prizes for the best decorations and best costumes, so there was lots of motivation to get creative too!!
Unbelievable! They really do it up. Keeps them warm and smiling. I was wondering how Buddy reacted. 🙂 Wonderful pictures.
Thanks, Annie. Buddy was a little unsure about that corpse, but he loved all the people and other dogs!!!
I started looking through the first few pictures and captions. I paused and decided to get into the spirit of the moment. I went and raided the “trick-or-treat” stash, grabbed a couple of Reese’s Cups and a small glass of milk, and came back to finish enjoying the story….with a big 😊! Great stuff!
Jeff
What a great way to get the most out of our little story and pics. And I confess, I was eating chocolate as I wrote it!! Happy Halloween, Jeff.
BOO !!!! Love the community spirit in the campgrounds…reminiscent of the pioneer spirit !
It’s great family fun, and those kids sure had a lot of energy. It was really heartwarming to be a part of it! Happy Halloween!!!
Holy cow! They decorate better than I do at home! Funny how that one startled Buddy, yet not the others. I especially liked the skeleton kayakers.
Buddy is so cute with statues and things that have faces. He recognizes the face right away and it takes him a moment to figure out that it’s not real. Those decorations were fabulous, and apparently this happens in many state parks!!!