Students on the climbing wall.
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills: That #Scary Feeling

Are you feeling a bit scared as we approach Halloween in a few days? Are you a fan of the season and afraid you might run out of candy for the trick-or-treaters?

Frightful Halloween Lawn Inflatables


Or are you more annoyed with the hoopla surrounding Halloween’s entrapments? Whatever you feel this time of year, let me entertain you with some images and thoughts that might be scary to you…or not.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” ― H.P. Lovecraft

Some Scary Fun

“You ever feel prickly things on the back of your neck?”— Cole Sear, “The Sixth Sense”

Around our back patio lurk various arachnids. You know, spiders. Almost hidden up in the corner of our gazebo is this!

cat-faced spider

This is a harmless cat-faced spider. She looks more like a smiling jack o’ lantern from this angle. Note that she is about the size of a quarter. And they live about one year.

“Fascination lies in the delicate balance between admiration and fear.” – Marina Abramović

Nearby may be one of her babies. You can see the resemblance to a cat in these images. BOO! 🎃

cat-faced spider
spider

“Each spider web is a reminder: beauty can arise from a fearful encounter.” – Harold Bloom

Just down the highway…there is a homeowner whose property borders the street. One year, he posed a life-sized skeleton upon a tractor.

halloween tractor
Need a ride? Jack Skellington at your service.

Now he leaves it up all year ‘round and dresses it up to fit the season or holiday. I finally managed to grab these shots this year.

skeleton dog
figure on tractor

Sharing for Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday

How Do You Feel About Heights?

And other scary ideas… like university budget cuts…

“Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

University students climb the Challenge Ropes Course
University students climb high elements of the Challenge Ropes Course

Many of you know that I was a university lecturer for 10 years, after retiring from a long career in public parks and recreation management. I taught several courses to undergrads in the Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism at Sacramento State University. Some course curricula included leisure motivation and utilized experiential education to help students understand why people participate in recreational activities.

Each semester, I accompanied students to the university’s Peak Adventures Challenge Center’s high ropes course on campus. There were team-building activities on the ground and high elements to participate in. Students could choose whether or not to participate in the high elements. After participating, students wrote a reaction paper on leisure motivation and their feelings about the experience.

Peak Adventures

In the image below, you see two students climbing portions of the course. The Dive and the Catwalk are situated 50 feet above the ground. Students are carefully instructed by the course staff on how to wear the harnesses and how to access each high element. (I have taken part myself in both of these.)

Challenge course
Challenge Ropes Elements: The Dive and Catwalk

The above image is shared for Dawn’s Festival of Leaves.

“I don’t have a fear of heights. I do, however, have a fear of falling from heights.” ~ George Carlin

Once you arrive on the platform, you unhook your harness from the climbing rope and attach it to the other line where a staff member is belaying you. To me, that was scary… Then, hooked safely in, you jump to the trapeze dangling a mere 10 feet from the platform.

Pink-clad student at Ropes Course
Student takes the leap!
woman hanging in harness
Yep, this is ME! Didn’t make the catch, down I came.

Let’s take a look at the students as they experience a variety of emotions.

student climbing tree
Intensity or fear?
student high ropes course
Anxiety or Determination?

I discovered this series of images of a young woman as she navigated the challenge course. Her range of emotions was clearly evident. A staff member explains the element in the first image. She successfully crossed the Multi-Line, then climbed the Catwalk. Again, all students are wearing harnesses.

“I’m not afraid of heights. I rock climb. I can repel off the side of a building.” ~ Kate Hudson

instructor and student
student climbing
Crossing the Multi-line
student challenge course
This is FUN!

I enjoyed every moment of teaching at the university from 2011 to 2020. I recently learned that Sacramento State University closed the stand-alone Department of Recreation, Parks, and Tourism in August 2025. The university has had a long-standing history of students graduating from majors in Outdoor Recreation, Park and Recreation Management, and Hospitality and Tourism since the mid-1950s. I was proud to graduate from this program in 1983, and again with my master’s degree obtained in 2010. As a dedicated recreational and parks professional, I enjoyed a long and satisfying career from 1980 to 2015.

woman teaching

Budget cuts at all levels in collegiate education have hampered many departments. The three major concentrations were relocated to other departments in the university. I fear for the future of young people’s continued interest in recreation and parks management. There was a sense of unity within the department. Sad to see it go.

Ropes Course Group
Me, bottom right, with one of my classes.

“Fear of the unknown is the greatest fear of all.” ~ Yvon Chouinard

rust brushstroke

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post. Please use your own original images, whether new or from your archives.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently from mine.
  • Please create a new post for the theme or link to a recent one.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

If you are participating in the photo challenge, I look forward to seeing how you interpret this week’s theme! Creativity is encouraged, so please share your own photographs (old or new), poems, original short stories, and music inspired by the theme. Join me next week as we begin the month of November with the theme Hooves and Claws.

The November themes are ready to view on my Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Page. This page is updated monthly.

student on challenge course

” ‘Will you walk into my parlour?’ said a spider to a fly.” ~ Mary Howitt

Halloween Signature

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70 comments

  1. Terri,

    This post was a lot of fun to read. I would have loved to take one of your classes–you were a cute prof. I have bungee jumped once and jumped from a parachute tower three times when I was in the Army. Both of those experiences convinced me I was better off as a desk soldier. We’re ready for Trick-or Treaters, but don’t expect any. In one of our earlier neighborhoods, kids were bussed in–Big Fun! Enjoy your weekend. Joe

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    • Thank you, Joe! I was so glad to teach near the end of my career. Better memories at the U! Wow, parachuting! See, that’s technically falling… ugh! We now have three families with kids on our street. I have candy just in case. Have a great weekend as well!

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  2. Fantastic Halloween pics Terri. As far as rock climbing or bungee jumping goes – just no for me. 😂 I can’t help but wonder how North American kids will do this year with bag fulls of treats. Given the cost of groceries and how many struggle to feed their own families, and the cost of the treats, I can’t see many partaking as in the golden days. x

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  6. I love Halloween, Terri, but we live so far out in the woods that we don’t get any trick-or-treaters. We have to impose on someone for the evening in order to see all the kids’ costumes. And I would have loved to do the high ropes challenge in my younger years (pre-vertigo). I love the leaping photos! What fun.

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    • Somehow that tracks with you, Diana, wanting to leap off the high ropes elements! Most of those days were in my 50s when my knees could handle it. 😆 I doubt we’ll get any trick or treaters here but more families moved onto the street. Thanks for reading!

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  9. It is scary to see what is happening to higher education. I’m glad that I enjoyed university many years ago and didn’t have to experience the high costs and unknowns of today.

    Our neighborhood is getting all decked out for Halloween. My husband and I see more and more skeletons, spiders, and ghouls every day on our walk. I love how so many people get into the fun of the holiday.

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    • Indeed, Janis! Many young people are also not entering colleges, choosing to explore trades that ultimately pay better. Glad to read your neighborhood is getting ready for Halloween! The Trunk and Treat events have been popular this year here.

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  10. What a fun and engaging post, Terri, and I love all things, Halloween. When I was a child, I climbed the highest trees, and now I get nervous when I am four stories high. 💕

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  11. As I have got older, I’ve become more scared of heights, Terri. But the same goes for watching horror movies, which I don’t watch anymore. Sci-fi I can cope with, but slasher movies, no more.

    But I do enjoy Halloween, although it’s become more commercialised since I was a child. Back then, we used to play ducking apples, where apples floated on top of a bowl or bucket of cold water and, without using your hands, you had to try to take a bite of the apples. Apples were also hung up, and we had to do the same thing, bite them without using our hands to grab them. Trick-or-treating didn’t arrive until the 80s, by which time I was more into dressing up as a zombie and going to Halloween parties.

    That’s a cool spider. Never seen or heard of it before. Does it glow in the dark, because it looks like it should?

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    • I’m glad you liked that spider, Hugh. It might glow in the dark, I’ll have to check 😉
      I’m with you on watching horror movies. When I was 13, I saw The Exorcist at the movies. Mostly through my hands covering my eyes. That wrecked my interest in the genre. Sci-Fi is OK though. Our street is too dark and rural for tricky or treaters, but there are three families here with kids, so I’ll get some candy just in case. Thanks for reading and commenting, nice to have you back!

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  17. I salute you, Terri. Your profession was admirable. I like that jump. Looks like you feel comfy and unafraid. And I want to ride with the skeleton driver.🤭 I like his barking dog, too.🤩

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  18. What a fun post! Let’s see…I adore Halloween and all things spooky, all spiders are my friends (except Black Widows), and I’m not afraid of heights! Public speaking, though, no thank you. I can do it but I do not like it at all. That will take me straight out of my comfort zone and sit me right on the line between my learning and panic zones. Nope :-/ Thanks for the spooky post!

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  19. You are very brave to do these daredevil stunts Terri, much braver than I would be. The spiders with the cat faces are unique looking and yes, a little scary. I am no fan of creepy crawlies, but I admit that when they are sequestered in a corner and seemingly not close enough to harm me, I might sneak a peek at them but through the camera lens only. 🙂 My post tonight is about merry and scary things and also is for Dawn’s Walktober theme.

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      • Well, it still took guts. Yes, younger knees are good. I fell about a month ago and hurt my left knee as I landed hard on it – yikes! I didn’t realize how tender it still was until I switched to sweatpants about a week ago. Sigh. I follow a blogger who does macro photography and he loves photographing spiders, especially jumping spiders, which even I, a person who is very afraid of spiders, has to admit it is kind of cute up close. 🙂

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  23. I’m not sure I could do that climbing, etc., now at my age. I would be “scared” for sure.
    Glad the students were courageous.
    I had never been afraid of spiders until a brown recluse bit me. A month of antibiotics and my flesh being eaten by its venom has made me freak out over spiders.
    I enjoy Halloween! I am hoping we have enough candy!
    🎃🍬👻

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    • I bet Halloween is big in your area, Nancy, have fun. Our rural street had zero street lights, I doubt there will be anyone knocking. Wow, you were bitten by a brown recluse? Oww! Now that’s scary! I’m ok with most spiders, but I stay away from Black Widows! 🕷

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    • Thank you, Graham! This was the first time we saw the cat-faced spider, after almost 5 years here. The challenge course was amazing to experience (I’m not afraid of heights), but leaping off a platform to catch a trapeze or walking along a pole 40 feet off the ground was faith-building 😀 We were told the harnesses could safely pick up and hold a 2000 Volkswagen Bug, no problem, But still…

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  30. What a delightful and engaging post! 🎃

    I love how you balance the thrill of Halloween with a touch of humor and curiosity. Your descriptions of the cat-faced spider and its tiny offspring are both fascinating and endearing—it’s a perfect mix of awe and playful spookiness. I also appreciate how you weave in quotes from Lovecraft and Abramović, adding depth and reflection to the seasonal fun. Your writing makes the Halloween experience feel both thrilling and thoughtful! 👏🕷️🍬

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    • Right, Anne? I had to google-lens it. That angle didn’t look like a cat face, and her web is so sticky, I didn’t want to get my phone any closer! I was glad to find the baby. I saw a Facebook post about the demise of the RPTA department at Sac State. Times change.

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