# Hello from ToT13



## tot13 (Jul 25, 2007)

My name is Johnny and along with my wife, three children, and granddaughter, I live in a small community called Wade in Mississippi. We're located about 20 miles from the coast and about 20 miles west of Mobile, AL. It's a very rural community.

I've been a member of the forum for about two years, but have never posted much, and have become more active this year. I finally have time to start working on some of the great props I've seen on hauntforum, as I no longer spend all my free time coaching soccer.

For the past three years, I've run a fund-raiser haunted trail called the Trail of Terror. It started in 2006 as a one-time thing to raise money for my son's soccer team to go to a national tournament in Colorado. The Trail was a great success and there was much interest in doing it again. However, it really was a one-time thing for our landowner, so we had to find another location. 

In August of 2007, I was contacted by someone wishing to host our ToT. We had looked at a few other locations over the summer, but each lacked something, whether adequate parking, enough acreage, or whatever. This new location was perfect - but we only had 8 weeks to put the Trail together. We changed our approach and managed to be as successful as the first year. We decided that our high school soccer team would benefit from this new Trail. 

We have managed to keep evolving and coming up with new ideas, but some stations have been recycled because of their popularity. For 2008, we built an 800 square foot house for our House of Terror, our grand finale a la TCM, all out of donated materials - well, we did have to spend $100 on additional plywood. We began incorporating more community service into the Trail. We do a canned food drive, adopt needy families for Christmas, contribute to scholarship funds, help sponser our Senior Escape Night, and still buy uniforms and equipment for the soccer team.

2009 will see us become more of a community service fund-raiser. There is too much we can accomplish with the Trail funds, and give back to our community and area in general. Our new Trail has been cut, all of our stations have owners, and we're moving forward at break-neck speed. This has been our most ambitious year yet. Also, we expect to have a web-site up and running this summer. And this will be our third year at the same location.

The Trail is a guided walk through about 5-6 acres of woods (about 1/2 mile) and takes about 30 minutes to complete, ending in a hayride back to the parking area. The Trail is made up of stations and stand-alone's. A stand-alone is usually 1-2 actors in costume who provide "startle" scares between the major stations. A station may have 5-10 actors and is more of a set, usually incorporating a skit. We typically have 10-12 stations on the Trail. In the past we staffed up with about 100 volunteers.

This will be the first year that we will use props like the ones created on hauntforum.com. I'm primarily focusing on automating our cemetary, but there are props being built for some of the other stations as well. We've been wanting to move in this direction for some time, but lacked the time or know-how; without hauntforum we wouldn't be doing this now. We also hope to be able to cut back our staff by using more animated props and reducing the number of major stations. We're focusing on quality, not quantity.

The Trail has become more than just a hobby for me and I work on it in some way year-round. I've learned a lot from the posters on hauntforum, and hope that eventually I'll be able to help others as well. I'm not sure this is what was expected for this thread, but you can see my obsession with the Trail, and now, building props for it.


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## Devils Chariot (May 23, 2007)

well let me be the first to say hi and welcome! Hope your haunt turns out great!


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## Vlad (Aug 2, 2005)

Hi Johnny, Glad to hear the whole story and that it's a success.


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## Spookineer (Aug 20, 2006)

Welcome to the party!


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## Ms. Wicked (Nov 14, 2006)

Welcome!

Your Trail sounds fantastic! I can't wait to see pics! Thanks so much for sharing your story.


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## Frighteners Entertainment (Jan 24, 2006)

agreed and welcome!


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

Greetings and welcome, and yes, pictures of your haunted trail would be great. And it sounds like your crazy enough to fit in here just fine.


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## Hauntiholik (May 17, 2006)

Welcome to the forum Johnny!


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## spideranne (Jul 17, 2006)

Welcome!


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## tot13 (Jul 25, 2007)

Thanks to all of you. I already spend waaay too much time on hauntforum.

Taking pictures of the Trail is something we always overlook on "live" nights, though there are a few at www.myspace.com/trailofterror13, hence tot13. This year we're going to make more of an effort to photograph, and possibly video, the stations and out guests' reactions. We've always had good intentions, but always seem to get too busy. And you can see that I'll talk all day about the Trail, lol.

I intend to sit down one day and write a brief description of our different stations through the years. If nothing else, it may help others come up with ideas. And I always want constructive criticism -


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## Spooky1 (Aug 25, 2008)

Glad to have you here tot13. Sounds like you have lots of "Haunt" fun, and for a good cause too.


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## RoxyBlue (Oct 6, 2008)

Welcome (officially), tot! I think what you're doing for your community is wonderful.


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## IMU (Apr 8, 2009)

Welcome!


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## pyro (Oct 7, 2006)

welcome


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## scareme (Aug 29, 2006)

Hi and welcome to the forum. Sounds like you do things in a big way. Feel free to share with us about ToT all you want. We love to listen.


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## smileyface4u23 (Apr 1, 2008)

Hello and welcome!


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## stick (Jan 21, 2009)

Welcome and I love what you are doing for the area.


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