During a recent visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden, my friend Elizabeth and I noticed they were planning a special Halloween attraction that neither of us wanted to miss out on. Their “Night of a 1,000 Jack O’ Lanterns” promised guests a cornucopia of expertly carved pumpkins they could peruse after hours during one very special weekend. It was their first year doing something like this and Elizabeth was immediately captivated while I (having attended Roger Williams Park Zoo’s amazing Jack O’ Lantern Spectacular) remained cautiously optimistic. After all, New England’s premier Halloween event is unlike anything I’d ever seen in the Midwest (or anywhere else for that matter) before and I’d praised its grandeur on both this site as well as a 2012 issue of Scary Monsters Magazine.  Sadly, my chances of seeing it again and somewhere between slim and none. The other Terror Dave works there and as his responsibilities around that event increased, my October visits came to an end. For the last several years my admiration of JOLS has been relegated to cell phone pictures he’ll send me every once in awhile. Needless to say, the notion that Chicago was now doing something like this seemed too much to hope for.

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