Yesterday we went to St. Charles, MO, for our favorite annual Halloween expEERIEnce…Legends & Lanterns! This is a very special year, because the event is celebrating its 10th season!!!

Because we waited until the last weekend of the event to visit, we got to see all of the carved pumpkins ready for the evening pumpkin glow. This is a truly tiny sample…it’s hard to explain how many hundreds of pumpkins there are up and down Main Street!

The seasonal decor and atmosphere in St. Charles is always outstanding! When you see the horse-drawn carriages go by, you truly feel like you’ve been transported back in time!

Scarecrow Glen is so much fun to walk through…I’m always impressed with the creativity behind the displays!

And we stopped in the Tourism Center, where we got a behind-the-scenes look at the planning and preparation for the event:

Of course we ran into all of our old favorite characters. I look forward to seeing Captain Hook every year, the Big Bad Wolf is always a riot, and the assembled writers can be counted on to give a great performance, whether spoken or sung!

And some new favorites, too! I was especially excited about the addition of the regal and intimidating Evil Queen, and the costume and makeup of the Aos Si (similar to a fairy if that name is as new to you as it was to me) were outstanding!

I had to get pictures with my personal favorites:

This year’s program guide was styled like a yearbook…I mean FEARbook! It’s so well put together…I love all of the trivia included, and there were spots to stop for embossed stamps at some of the event locations. Each character also had a “class of” listing, so you could see just exactly when each personality was added to the event, as well as a “Sinister Superlative” in the spirit of a “most likely to” prediction.

This is such a fantastic affair, and I’m so glad we’ve been able to be a part of it for so much of the past decade…I’m already looking forward to see what they have planned for the future!