| There was a period of time this year when we believed The Dragon's Eye Haunted Barn wouldn't open in 2007. Actually there were several times throughout the year through all our ups and downs that the thought crossed our minds. Sometimes life happens and things don't go quite as we have planned. It's been a very bumpy year for us --- we thought about maybe just skipping a year and coming back in 2008. We thought about closing for good. There were many thoughts .... many plans ....many tears .... and finally the realization that The Dragon's Eye must OPEN. Too many people count on us now. Too many people are talking about The Dragon's Eye. We've come too far to close our doors now. |
| As we said on the home page --- this year is dedicated to the Fans ..... who knows what lies ahead. Will this be our last year? Will there be many more years ahead? Only the big man above knows what's in store for our future. |
| For now ..... we build. For now .... we scare. For now ..... is "THE DRAGON'S REIGN" |
| BUILDING BEGINS |
| September 8th -- The arena is prepped.... |
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| Marvin comes over to help us take all the sand out of the arena so it's not so dusty this year as people walk through. This was a huge job ..... took one whole day of hard work. THANK YOU MARVIN AND KIDS FOR SPENDING THE DAY WITH US HERE!! |
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| Lindsey (above) and Maverick (below) help Kelly carry props from the garage to the barn. They also helped clean up the washrack area and sweep and cob and decorate the office (pumpkin patch). These guys worked very hard today!! ... but of course there was always a little time to play with the puppy and have fun with the halloween toys!! |
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| September 15th -- The walls go up.... |
Zach and Kelly started the day by sheeting the perimeter of the arena and started hauling out the dirty, dusty, DISGUSTING wood from the storage stall all morning. (**I don't think I have ever been this dirty in my LIFE!! EEEWWWW!!!! Plus there were spiders all over those boards ..... I don't mind FAKE spiders ..... I DON'T LIKE REAL SPIDERS!!!!!!!) Nick came a little later and also helped unload the wood. Then Steve came over and also started carrying things out of storage. Mike, Barb, Colton, and Levi showed up later in the afternoon and we all got the castle room put up in it's place. This should be the hardest room to do since the wall pieces have to fit together in a certain way. |
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| September 16th -- The rest of the walls go up.... |
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| The day started out early. Pam, Gary, Leroy, Debbie, and Rachel all came over from Horrid Hollow to help us get our walls up. Shortly after they arrived, Steve, Nick, and Megan came. Later in the morning, Zach stopped over, too. We had quite a building crew!! We went straight to work putting Nick and Leroy up in the rafters on the big ladders and the rest of the gang on ground duty. The main beams were set in about 45 minutes and the rest of the walls followed quickly behind with all the helpful hands. |
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| At noon, Mrs. G's Bakery (sister Kerry) showed up in her lunch wagon and had some very tasty beefburgers ready for everyone. She had a cooler of pop, chips, and some homemade halloween cupcakes for dessert. Everyone washed their hands with the hose in the washrack and then ate in the barn. |
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| Then it was back to work again ..... |
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| At the end of the day ... all the walls are up ... we're ready to start sheeting .... |
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| .... Russ and I went back out later that evening after we took a nap. We finished up chores and then took some doors off the stalls, picked up, did a quick walk through to assess what needs reinforced, and tested out our new blow up hearse .... |
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| Our new blow up horse drawn hearse with a little muppet man that pops up out of the coffin in the back .... it's SO COOL! |
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| September 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th -- Slowly seeing progress.... |
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| Steve and I have been working all week in the morning and then I go out again in the afternoon and Russ and I work in the evening. We're slowly getting the main line up area ready to go...there are LOTS of changes this year! |
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| This is what everybody will see in the line up area --- we've moved the little bed out into the line up area and made a little scary set right there for people to look at. OR ...... we could put an actor on that bed to scare people out front while they're waiting ..... who knows?! The two headed dragon went up last night inside one of the stalls ..... |
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| Finally got our sign repainted and up out front. Put a cute pop up ghost out next to the sign to attract attention. The ghost guy pops up and down out of the pumpkin. So far we've watched three cars go by slow tonight since we've come in the house!! They're reading the sign!!!! I've got a big banner on order that will go over top of the KnR Arabians sign on the barn. I'll take a picture of that as soon as it gets here. |
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| The devil guy's head moves back and forth (oscillating fan) .... the ticket area is different this year so Russ is back inside a stall instead of out in the line up area..... two headed dragon is inside a stall and will (hopefully) breathe smoke at our guests (if we can get it all hooked up ok!!) |
| September 23rd -- More building! |
| We had our first "Decorating Party" today. We had a bunch of people come over to help us out and we got a LOT done!! It was a really hot day so the more sheeting that went up inside .... the hotter and hotter it got. This is really hard work getting this to all come together. We thank everyone who came out today SO MUCH for taking time out of their busy schedules to come over and make this thing happen. We won't ever forget you all!! |
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| Ashley, Drake, Vicki, and Cassie worked on "The Swamp" room. They got the mattress buried in the sand, hung up all the camo netting and then finished things off by strategically placing all the snakes. This room is scaaaaarrrrrry!! |
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| Everybody really kicked it in high gear and grabbed a staple gun, screw driver, and hammers and they went to work! |
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| The clown room started to really come together as the afternoon progressed ..... |
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| Vanessa, Heidi, Dani, and Callie worked on this room ..... they decided to paint white stripes on the walls to make it look like a circus tent ----- it turned out really eeeeeeerie looking. |
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| The guys chipped in all over putting up cross-beams and helping everyone get shelves put up in their rooms. |
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| Daylen and Ashley took over "The Jason Room". Daylen crawled up in the rafters and strung the lights while Ashley randomly placed the Jason Masks. We dare you to find the REAL Jason in this room this year --- there are twice as many masks this year ! |
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| Poor Dani .... She's SO TIRED!!! This girl is such a trooper ..... She performed last night in the ASPIRE Dances With Horses presentation in McElroy Auditorium in Waterloo riding her horse Khountry in costume. She didn't get home until after 1:30am .... then had to get up and go to work from 6:00am - 1:00pm ....then came out here right after work to help us work on the haunted barn. What a sport!! Ok ...this isn't Halloween related, but click here to see Dani and her horse Khountry -- they rode for a great Charity .... ASPIRE. (Click here for pics) |
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| Kerry the Cookie Lady!!! YIPPEE!! Kerry is here with all kinds of cookies and popcorn and koolaid. Time to take a break!! Kerry takes such good care of all the workers making sure they have everything they need. She's bringing her sno cone machine next Sunday --- I can't wait!!! |
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| The kids take a much needed break from all the hard work they've done this afternoon. It's really hot in the barn today --- it's really wearing everyone out fast. |
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| Everyone mingles during break time .... |
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| Scott and Tyler took over "The Boogie Room". They padded the stall bars so nobody knocks themself out when they duck .... Tyler crawled up in the rafters to put the finishing touches on the red wall paper. |
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| Vanessa and Heidi check out Steve's butcher room before heading back to the clown room .....Apollo (the big white dog) finds a cool, quiet resting place ..... Scott and Tyler finish up "The Boogie Room" |
| September 30th -- Here we go again!! |
| Lots of helpers again today. We got a lot done today and finished up several rooms with so many hands working all together. I can finally see the light at the end of tunnel. I think we just might make it to opening night!! |
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| Russ and Tyler make a good "BOO CREW" team! |
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| Steve has his "Butcher Room" almost finished ... just needs a ceiling and some lights and it's ready to go! |
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| Justin and Ben had a great idea for a corn hallway. These guys worked all afternoon and the finished hallway is AMAZING! You won't believe what these guys did in this space --- VERY SPOOKY!! |
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| Dalen and Ashley worked all afternoon on the "Bloody Bathroom". Ashley had to leave for work so she missed getting in the pictures but here's Dalen posing in front of his 'special' work of art ...... the bloody toilet!! Here he is also with the bloody mullet haired doll on a stick (I have no idea what the doll head on a stick is for .... but he likes it ...so we took a picture of it.)_ We believe that this might be the one of our scariest rooms this year ..... |
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| Here's Kerry again with her sno cone machine!! Everybody takes a break this afternoon and has whatever flavor of sno cones they want --- cherry, lime, grape, and blueberry. Or 'suicide' sno cone .... all the flavors mixed together!! |
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| Vicki, Cassie, Ashley, and Drake came back and worked on the spider hallway. This is really gonna get to some people. This isn't just a small room this year ---- this is a looooong hallway FULL of spiders, cockroaches, scorpions, and infested, rotting corpses. Yeah --- this is NOT a good place to be ....They LOVE IT!!! |
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| Tim and Louise came over for the afternoon and helped us get our buzzers and our lightning and thunder hooked up. |
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| Tyler and his dad worked on finishing up the Boogie Room and worked on the Devil guy in the corner ..... Zach and Nick worked on the Hannibal Lector room and in one afternoon they transformed that space into something very terrifying ...... theres's a lot in there to see but I have a feeling nobody's gonna stick around long enough to look at anything in there!!! |
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| Steve and I worked everyday this week putting up ceilings, putting up lights, hooking up cords so nobody trips, perfecting the lighting in several rooms. We totally finished the Dot Room, the Swamp, the Boogie Room, the Butcher Room, the Blacklight Hallway, and the Jason Room this week. |
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| Ok ..... We worked all morning and afternoon on Saturday and Tim got the thunder and lightning finished up. We finished the ceilings everywhere and did some finishing touches on gore decor in everyroom. Then we went inside, cleaned up and headed over to Waverly and Waterloo. We stopped at FRONT YARD FRIGHT first and got an 'insiders' tour of his yard haunt. He's added several rooms and really stepped up his whole set up this year. If anyone is in the area we really suggest you check our FRONT YARD FRIGHT this year. Zach is 17 years old and has built most of the props and scares himself. Quite an undertaking for someone still in high school!! Then we all headed over to HORRID HOLLOW in Evansdale. They have transformed a plain old morton building into a very morbid mortuary. It's so realistic. Every room is highly detailed. My favorite room was the actual mortuary room .... the kids liked the cornfield and the oven. Overall we rated them HORRIBLY SCARY!!! At one point I was seriously hyperventilating and couldn't breathe because I was screaming so much. DEFINIELY worth the trip over! After we all got out of there alive, we headed over to THE HEART OF DARKNESS in rural Evansdale. There was a LOT of screaming coming from our group while going through there. They have some really neat effects throughout their buildings. Many things we had never seen before. It was great. The HEART OF DARKNESS and HORRID HOLLOW are very close to each other so we highly recommend making an entire night of scares. Go out to eat and then hit both of these amazing places. We also saw a poster for PANIC PARK but never made it over there. We hope to maybe go back again and go another night we aren't open. |
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| Sunday the 7th we finished up
the flying white dragon finale, patched a few places that were sagging, put
up a few last ceilings that got overlooked on Saturday, and did a final walk
through to see what little things needed changed. We all still
think this year is the darkest and longest the maze has ever been.
We ordered 40 "I Peed My Pants In The Dragon's Eye Haunted Barn" t-shirts
..... I think they'll all be gone quickly!!
We still have quite a list full of things to do. I sure hope we finish by opening night on the 13th!! If we work every day and night this week ..... we just might get it all finished! We're really excited to show you what we've worked so hard this past month putting together!!!! |
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| OPENING NIGHT
IS HERE!! CAN YOU HANDLE IT !!?!! |
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(**A Division of KnR Arabians) |
| www.knrarabians.com |
| 1262 170th Street |
| Hampton, IA 50441 |
| (641)456-4944 |
| Contact Us: knrarabians@iowaconnect.com |
For problems or questions regarding this web contact
knrarabians@iowaconnect.com
Last updated:
03/11/2008.
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