Our Monday Night at the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular

So we did the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo this past Monday. Full family.

Here’s the first thing. We went on a Monday on purpose. Weekends get packed and sell out. Mondays are quieter, the pricing is cheaper, and you can actually walk at your own pace and really look at the pumpkins.

More than 5,000 of them. All carved by hand. This year’s theme is called the Great Pun-kin Trail — the whole walk is puns and dad jokes carved into glowing pumpkins. The kids loved it. The adults loved it.

And the food — do yourself a favor and get Dan’s fried dough nuggets. They were amazing.

Now here’s the part I didn’t expect to care about.

The guy behind this whole thing is a 79-year-old man named John Reckner. He’s from Oxford, Massachusetts — about 45 minutes from us. For years he was a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. He carved pumpkins on his days off because he loved it.

In 2001 he did a small pumpkin display for a school fundraiser in Oxford. Just something he did on the side. Over time it grew. The school fundraiser turned into something bigger. He eventually started a business called Passion for Pumpkins. Now he leads a team of 18 carvers. The biggest pumpkin he ever carved weighed 2,200 pounds.

Twenty-four years later, hundreds of thousands of families walk through his pumpkins every October.

That part got me. One guy from a small Massachusetts town, carving on his days off, built something that families drive hours to see.

So. If you haven’t been — go. Buy tickets online in advance. Go on a weeknight. Dress warmer than you think. Bring cash for the fried dough.

I filmed a little of what the walk looks like. It’s on my feed — go check it out.