One of our favorite Fall camping destinations in the past from when the kids were little has been Lake Rudolph Campground in Santa Claus, Indiana right next door to Holiday World and Splash’n Safari. We got a lakeside campsite across from Holiday World. The Raven rollercoaster runs down by the lake.
Of course, we have frequented this campground in the Summer when visiting the Holiday World theme park, but the best time to visit the campground itself is in the Fall. The campground hosts Halloweekends mid-September through October where you can get in some early Halloween fun.
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Halloween in Christmas Town?
Okay so Halloween in a town named Santa Claus sounds a lot like Jack Skellington invading Christmastown in Nightmare Before Christmas and well it is exactly that.
Santa Claus, Indiana has plenty of Christmas shops to enjoy and Holiday World theme park is often still open on at least one of the September Halloweekends.
The Halloweekends are a spooky and ghoulish good time for all. Everyone decorates their campers and cabins with all sorts of Halloween fun. Golf carts also get some of the most spooktacular decorations too.
Decorations Ghoulore!
There are all kinds of decorations from simple to motorized displays. We went on the first weekend this year and judging from the past it seems that the decorations get more elaborate the closer you get to Halloween.
The campground is large so hop on a golf cart and take the kids trick or treating. Better have a big bag for all that candy. Trick or treating starts early before it is dark so the younger kids can have a great time without getting too scared. Some of the decorations are definitely creepy especially after dark.
The campground also creates a carnival type area where kids can decorate pumpkins and other activities. They also show movies at the pavilion at night.
How Did We Decorate?
We brought along some of our Halloween decorations and fixed up our campsite as well. We created a graveyard and decorated our canopy with Fall themed decorations and pumpkin lights. Eeew! Watch out for those massive spiders!
I even tried to have a little fun with the projector we bring along camping to watch movies.
We placed a thin sheet over the end of the canvas on one of our pullout beds in our popup. Inside I hooked up my laptop to the projector and displayed dancing skeletons videos on the canvas. This is a cool effect that is fun and reminds me of effects at Haunted Mansion in Disney World. I will be posting an article soon on how I use this effect to project a skeleton band on the window at home for Halloween. A great company called Atmos has all kinds of videos and effects kits to setup this effect and others.
Book It Now for Next Year!
So consider giving Lake Rudolph in Santa Claus, Indiana a visit. I actually snapped a pick of the dates for Halloweekends in 2020. If you are interested better call or email now. They fill up fast especially in October.
Blessings, Rich and Donna
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