Hillsdale State Park, KS, October 2025
If you don’t give a treat, does that mean you end up in a trunk?
John mentioned this in the pumpkin carving post. Hillsdale State Park, Kansas is having their 3rd annual Trunk or Treat. The trunk or treat was originally only in the full hook up loop. The event has been such a success that it has expanded to the electric only loop next to the full hookup loop.
I did a trunk or treat at Pineview Campground in Wisconsin. I didn’t have any campsite decorations, so Mom came to the rescue and let me borrow her outdoor decorations which looked great!! I’ll create a separate post for the Pineview Campground Trunk or Treat with pictures of Ryker as a Spiderman! The picture below is how we decorated our campsite at Pineview thanks to Mom providing the decoration.
Since I can’t easily drive to Moms (532 miles away), John and I went to Hobby Lobby to look at Halloween decorations. The good news is that all the outdoor decorations were 50% off. Yeah! We bought a large 2 pumpkin metal push-in-the-ground decor for $12 and two smaller 3 pump push-in-the-grounds for $3. We decided our 2nd decoration would be carved pumpkins. The treats would be placed on the small black folding table with decorations around it.
The camp host indicated to expect around 100 to 150 kids, but it will really depend on whether kids walk over from the other loop. I went to Walmart and bought 140 Little Hug juice barrels and almost bought the small Walmart out of hugs. The ironic part about giving Hugs to kids is that you are giving an item they become excited to drink, only has 1 gram of sugar, and contains vitamins. Would Little Hug Barrels be considered a trick vs. a treat since they are fairly healthy compared to candy? Even better, Little Hug Barrels are inexpensive compared to candy.
In this case, we had fewer than 140 kids, but November 1st is the Hillsdale State Park Fall Festival. I plan on giving the extra to the park to give out to kids, unless John drinks them all.
John and I moved the bug tent to the front of the campsite, so I had some rain cover. There was slight rain for the first 15 to 30 minutes and then it quit. It was still cold 🙂
We had a total of 131 kids come through. In other words, only 9 Little Hugs left. Yeah!! We bought just about the right amount. If it wasn’t a cold rainy day, I think we would have had more kids and ran out.
Did you know there were land sharks in Kansas? (see blue shark in picture). Even a few dogs joined in the fun. Next year, I plan on giving out dog treats :-).
I did not have a chance to go around and see all the campsite decorations. I will say that I loved the decoration 2 campsites down from us. I might even try to make one in the future.
The kids put their hand up the nose (pick) and there is a treat bowl on the other side. They also had a spider on the side that would jump out and scare the pickers.
John and I are talking about coming back next year and participating in the trunk or treat again. I had a lot of fun handing out candy.