Looking for the best Halloween Excursion?

Look no farther. NJ.com asked their readers to choose from among several haunted places, both big and small, across the state and guess who they chose: The Stewart family’s Halloween Maze in Ridgewood. They received 32.68% of the votes! It takes at least 15 minutes to get through the maze…even if you studied up first! You can view a virtual maze at virtualmaze.org

Stewart and his family have been putting together this backyard maze for the past 17 years! It is a Ridgewood Halloween tradition! It’s assembled in the backyard using yards and yards of burlap, twine and wood stakes. When I first saw it a few years ago, I thought judging from the size of the space that it would be a cinch. How wrong was I!? There are 18 one-way doors, some with sign that warn “Do Not Enter”–does that mean you should?! During the afternoon, there are creepy characters that are lifelike but in the evenings, creepy characters come to life. The afternoon was about as creepy as my 5 year old could take although there were a lot of laughs too. We could hear our friends saying, “Come this way! We found the right door!” but couldn’t find them several times. If you’re lucky, Mrs. Stewart might be watching over from her porch offering pointers to make your way through “You already tried that door, remember?” she called out as we went in circles. As far as the evening, when it is darker and things really do come to life, we’ll leave the evenings to the big “kids.”