Located in Half Moon Bay, directly accross the street from Lemos, Patorinos Farm is normally a nursery with huge greenhouses to stroll through but cranks up the Halloween spirit in October. There’s the usual pumpkin patch, jump houses, slider, food stands and hay rides but there are two features that you won’t find anywhere else – a train ride through the greenhouses and a haunted house built inside a littler greenhouse that’s inside the big one. The train ride is the standard farm set up with a diesel tractor pulling some tricked out golf carts so don’t sit up front if...

Located on the opposite side of the freeway from The Great Mall is the Milpitas Square shopping center. This is a Chinese shopping center, meaning all the store fronts, the menus, and the signage is aimed at a Mandarin speaking and reading crowd. My friend affectionately refers to it as an Asiary. Throughout the bay area there a clusters of imported cultural activity and this place is a testament to our liberal (not politically, I mean in the classic definition) immigration policies. All the restaurants, and there a lot of them, are Chinese or Taiwanese, so if that’s your thing, you’ll be...

Located on Roger’s Road near Salinas, Borchard Farms grows some seriously big pumpkins. Like the kind you only see at the county fair or on the front page of a newspapers. They also have the absolute best variety of squash for sale you will find anywhere. Just boxes and boxes of every size, texture, and color possible and all at very competitive prices. The giant pumpkins and squash orgy would more than enough reason for a visit but Borchard boasts a variety of other activities – some standard to most pumpkin farm destinations and some wholly unique to them – to keep the kids whacked...

Located  just off highway 85 near Camden Avenue, Nickel City is the place to go for super cheap (and even free) arcade and redemption games. For those not familiar with the term, “redemption games” are games of chance and skill that spit out tickets based upon you score. These tickets can then be redeemed for prizes. So you get the enjoyment of play plus a prize to take home. Whether a redemption games feel like a good deal or not depends on how the pay outs are structured. Games that give out ample tickets, and a redemption counter that has lots of attractive prizes for a low number of...

There are those who subscribe to the theory of evolution because everything they’ve learned from biology, genetics, chemistry, physics and the entire global fossil record supports it. Others subscribe to the idea that everything was spontaneously created from nothing by a supreme being, in exactly the state as it now, because a single book, written by people who didn’t know that washing your hands killed germs, told them so. Then there are those who subscribe to both. Who says science and faith can’t co-exist? Not Benjamin S. Carson, M.D. and Dr. Michael Egnor who bought the...

Located on Highway 92 in Half Moon Bay, Spanish Town is your classic bait and switch – but in a very good way. Along the front is a huge selection of (more or less) life sized metal dinosaur sculptures. This in itself is reason enough to swing by. However the real goodies are inside their courtyard. Spanish Town is really an epicenter for all your statuary and fountain needs. They lead you in with the basics – classic tiered marble like fountains – and then introduce the progressively more novel and bizarre the deeper you go. Would you like 21 varieties of dog statues? Well they got...

Located near Hollister, Swank Farms is fun, piled on top of fun, with a dollop of fun on top …and maybe a spritzer of fun for good measure. What separates Swank from many other pumpkin patch maze events is that it’s a blend of authentic farming activities and contrived carnival type attractions. Like Myth Busters type contrived. Like “my buddies thought this up when we high and we decided to build it” type contrived. But don’t bother paying for everything separately – just get one of the package deals and spend a few hours. The first thing you’ll notice is...

My 5 year old daughter wanted to go rock climbing but no gym would accept her because of her age, that is except for Sanctuary in Sand City. Super family friendly with absolutely no age limits. If your kid wants to climb then they’ll suit them up and teach them how. $20 gets you a belay lesson for you and gear and shoes for you child. Afterwords  stop by Sweet Alena’s for some delicious pastry (the spinach croissant is outstanding) or run some errands at the huge shopping centers near by. Awesome! Official Website: www.rockgym.com File Under: Indoor Rock Climbing Gym Monterey, Seaside...

Note: DC Cemetery is taking 2010 off. They will up and running again in 2011. My daughter and I went to the November 1st 2009 showing. I drove from Santa Cruz and it was worth every second of the 45 minute drive. DC Cemetery is a labor of love by one Brent Scott, with generous support of his family and friends.  2009 was the 19th year of operation and Brent’s childhood love affair with Halloween has grown into a thriving animatronics prop business. Every year he takes over his parents front yard and driveway and erects a giant graveyard and mousoleum full of moving, screaming and howling...

In October 2009, I found this place tucked away off Highway 1, a half a mile down highway 84. If you don’t look closely at the signage around the place, you’d never know it’s actually called Muzzi’s Ranch. My daughter and I got here around 9am by following some signs promising a corn maze, pumpkin patch, and fresh strawberries. The new and improved Corn Maze sign, which now reads “Porn Maze” made this funky place all that more charming in a hillbilly, slightly creepy way. When we arrive there is no one around, so we just climb the straw pyramid, do the corn maze and...