Halloween on the Heights and train ride

With so many events to choose from this Halloween weekend, we opted for one that would take place a bit later in the day since we had a lot of errands to run on Saturday. We were all feeling a bit under the weather and I wanted all of us to be well rested before heading out. At the last minute, we decided to go to the event at Burnaby Heights. Every year they have fireworks, trick or treating, and a Halloween train ride. The fireworks took place Friday night but Tristan would have been scared of that anyway. We headed down there Saturday for the trick or treating with the Heights merchants from 3-5PM and for the train ride from 6-9PM. Tristan loves the train at Confederation Park!
When we dressed him up and headed down there, I didn't know what to expect and was kind of worried that he would be one of the few kids dressed up and people would look at us funny. It's kind of funny when you think about Tristan. He is young enough that he doesn't know what is going on and he is fine with us dressing him up in a monkey suit and giving him a pumpkin pail to carry. He'll just go along with it, no questions asked :) When we arrived on Hastings Street, we saw a lot of children in costume. Phew! Then we soon discovered that there were a lot of people and every child was dressed up and some parents were too. I could tell there was a lot of community spirit along that street :)


Tristan soon learned that he would go from door to door, hold out his pumpkin and someone would drop a colorful package into it. He loved collecting treats. Since he didn't know what they were, he would have been just as happy if the merchants were handing out rocks or leaves. After about an hour of this, he got tired and it was time to look for dinner. Since the train ride didn't start until 6PM, we grabbed a quick bite to eat on Hastings and then walked to the Park to line up for the train.

It was pretty nuts. We lined up for 45 minutes to get our ride. Tristan was so anxious too and every time someone else would go on it instead of him, he would get a little upset. In fact, all the kids in line were going a little nuts. Needless to say, it was not easy keeping the kids in line to wait patiently for their turn on the train. It was dark and then it started to rain. Luckily, it was mostly light rain so we didn't get soaked. Considering it was October 31st, we couldn't complain too much. It was nice most of the day!

This was my first miniature train ride at the park. Jean-Louis didn't feel well so I rode with Tristan while Jean-Louis tried to take pictures. The ride was a bit breezy in the dark but it didn't go very fast. At some parts, it was going very slow so you could take in some of the displays such as read what the tombstones said on the grass. There were lit up pumpkins everywhere, lots of halloween balloon figures, a lady dressed up in a witch costume walked toward us at one point, there were spooky lights and fog, creepy noises, haunted house displays etc. And then our train derailed. Yup, the first technical difficulty of the night and it was our train. It happened just in front of a giant orange inflatable ghost. It would deflate and then the light inside of it would go on and it would inflate again into a standing ghost. So then, Tristan got a little scared and wanted to get off the train. The train ride up until now was not scary at all. Then it started to rain harder. Joy. Luckily, five minutes later, we were up and moving again. It's amazing how a bunch of old guys in the dark with flashlights can fix things so quickly :)

After we got off the train, we entered a room where we were greeted with hot chocolate and cookies. Even without the treat, it would have been awesome since the train ride was only $2.50 for me and Tristan was young enough to ride for free. It was an exciting day and if we were to do this again another year, I would plan to arrive at the train station for opening at 6PM. We arrived at 6:45PM and waited way too long.