Go on a Haunted Hayride This Weekend

Trick or treating? Passe. Haunted houses? Old hat.

Do something new and different this Halloween: go on a Haunted Hayride!

That's what's happening this Saturday in the Port Reading section of Woodbridge. The Port Reading Saints is holding the spooky fun from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, at the Saints Field at 100 Saints Boulevard and 6th Avenue.

But what exactly is a haunted hayride?

It's a quarter-mile track that runs through the woods in that outpost of Port Reading, where hay-filled wagons are hooked up to ATVs and make their way through the haunted gauntlet. 

About 50 volunteer spooks, ghosts, goblins, zombies, and all manner of Halloween ghoul jump out and scare the bejesus out of guests who pay $10 for the fun, said Stanley Pinkiewicz, president of the Port Reading Saints Football and Cheerleading Association.

The haunted hayride concept, the fourth time the group has held it, is a huge fundraiser for the group.

"We get a good amount of people, mostly through word of mouth and some advertising," he said.

People like it so much they line up for the rides, and when the hayride, which takes five to seven minutes is over, they pay a reduced rate of $5 and take another spin through the haunted Port Reading woods.

"It's a little bit different every time," Pinkiewicz said.

There are about 10 stations throughout the woods where the hay-filled wagons stop. The vignettes include "a cook grilling fake body parts, a scarecrow scene, a car wreck. It's fairly graphic," Pinkiewicz said.

But the ride is modulated to a more PG-friendly spin when the wagons fill up with little kids.

"We do it a lot differently for 7-year-olds than we do for teenagers," Pinkiewicz said.

The ghoulish volunteers are all friends and members of the Port Reading Saints group, he added.

The Saints Field is also set up for other Halloween fun. The first 100 kids who show up get a free pumpkin, which they can decorate right there. There are coloring book stations, trick or treating stations, and a spot where kids 12 and under can guess the amount of candy corn and win a prize.

The Saints' kitchen will also be open during the hayride.

"It's a lot of fun," Pinkiewicz said. "It's like a big, scary carnival."

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