The ghosts and zombies are no longer knocking at your door, so what to do with that spooky Halloween pumpkin?
You can hop in your car on Nov. 7 and drive to The Rock, a small town about an hour south of Atlanta, for National Pumpkin Destruction Day.
There, the whole family can watch thousands of pumpkins get smashed, dropped and hammered into orange mush from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at The Rock Ranch, 5020 Barnesville Highway. You can also help destroy them.
Admission is $15 per person for the Fall Family Fun Day. Ages two and under are free and there is a senior discount. Discount tickets are available at all Georgia Chick-fil-A restaurants.
“We teach people to be good stewards of the land and its resources and this is a way to keep these pumpkins out of the landfills,” said Adam Pugh, director of operations and business development.
He figures most people just toss their used jack-o-lanterns out with the trash. While that’s one way to get rid of them, it may not be so healthy for the environment.
After Halloween, the ranch sends out people to collect unsold pumpkins from retailers, farmers and using their own stock for the event at the 1,500-acre ranch. Some are destroyed, others are turned into compost “rather than sitting up there taking up space,” Pugh said.
Last year, about 6,000 pumpkins were destroyed.
How many ways are there to smash a pumpkin at Rock Ranch? More than you might imagine.
You can hit it with a hammer, shoot it out of a specially-designed cannon, drop it from an airplane (called pumpkin bombers), run over it with a monster truck or use it as a bowling ball.
“It’s neat,” Pugh said. “We started a trend.”
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