Spooktacular Weekend in Castle Rock!
It’s October! And that means the kick-off of all things Halloween—including outdoor spooky family movies! It’s also time to start decorating your house and getting on the neighborhood Halloween house decorating map! There are pumpkin patches and corn mazes galore, and this weekend you can also be a part of the first-ever Burger Week in Castle Rock, an epic journey to find the best burger in town!
TODAY/TONIGHT, October 1
WINE TASTING AND PASTA
This week, the HRCA Virtual Happy Hour adds dinner to the mix with an online cooking class! Award-winning chef Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson will show you how to create one of his delicious pasta dishes, Tagliolini al Portonat, straight out of his new cook book! He’ll also guide you through pairing the perfect wine for this delicious meal. Make sure you do your shopping in advance so you’ll be able to follow along with the cooking and tasting in real time!
HRCA on Zoom
6:00 p.m.
Tickets: FREE
Phone: 303-471-8898
Thursday-Sunday, October 1-4
IT’S BURGER WEEK!
Have a burger a day this weekend! To celebrate America’s favorite meal, Castle Rock restaurants are coming up with their own themed versions of the burger, and you can enjoy these culinary creations for a special $10 price! More than a dozen restaurants have come up with one-of-a-kind specialty burgers including the Mexi-Burger, Catfish Burger, Oktoberfest Burger, Cheeseburger Pizza, and many more!
Print out a 2020 Downtown Castle Rock Burger Week Passport to see the full list of restaurants and their creations. If you collect 4 Burger Week stickers from 4 different restaurants, you’ll be entered into a raffle for $100 gift cards to your Downtown Castle Rock Business of choice!
Various Castle Rock restaurants
Through 10 p.m. Sun. night
Information: Passport is FREE; Burgers are $10 each
OCTOBER ON THE FARM
Now that the leaves are a vibrant gold and orange, bring the kids out to a real farm to get in the spirit of October! You can pick out the perfect pumpkins for carving from the huge pumpkin patch, enjoy a corn maze, and make friends with all the farm animals.
There are plenty of activities geared for kids ages 10 and younger, including a petting zoo, duck races, a hay-bale maze with an obstacle course, bounce houses, a tractor-pulled hay ride, and more!
Flat Acres Farm, 11321 Dransfeldt Rd., Parker
10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Tickets: FREE to $15
Phone: 303-805-1038
Friday, October 2
OUTDOOR MOVIE – HOCUS POCUS
This live-action Disney movie about witches is much sillier than it is scary, and with the talents of Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler, and Kathy Najimy as the witches, adults will enjoy this movie as much as the kids.
Backcountry Base Camp is the setting for family movie night on a giant outdoor movie screen! Bring your picnic dinner, favorite movie snacks, blankets or camp chairs, and hot cocoa. Groups will remain distanced during the film.
Backcountry Wilderness Area Base Camp, 6005 Ron King Trail, Highlands Ranch
6:00 – 9:30 p.m.
Registration: $8
Phone: 303-471-7076
SPOOKY VIRTUAL QUIZ SHOW
Douglas County Libraries popular Quiz Show is back—in a virtual format that makes it safe and socially-distanced! Gather the family around for a bunch of Halloween-themed questions based on classic spooky tales, fun fall traditions, and more! When you register, a Zoom link will be sent to you via email.
Douglas County Libraries On Zoom
7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Registration: FREE
Phone: 303-791-7323
BEETLEJUICE AT THE DRIVE-IN
Tim Burton’s classic ghost story starring a teenaged Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Geena Davis, and Alec Baldwin will get the whole family in the Halloween spirit! In case it’s been a while since you’ve seen this 80s film, Beetlejuice is the tale of a house haunted by a demented goblin and some very nice ghosts who befriend the Goth girl (Ryder) who moves into the house with her unbearable family.
Park Meadows, 8401 Park Meadows Center Dr., Lone Tree
8:00 p.m.
Tickets: $25 per car
Friday-Sunday, October 2-4
CORN MAZE AT CHATFIELD FARMS
Regarded as the gold-standard of corn mazes in the Denver area, Denver Botanic Gardens’ Chatfield Farms invites you to wind your way through seven acres of corn! Take in a stunning view of the maze from one of the 15-foot illuminated bridges!
There’s also a mini-maze for kids under 10, and a great pumpkin patch where you can pick and purchase a pumpkin. Tickets must be purchased in advance with a specific date and time. Social distancing and mask-wearing are required.
Chatfield Farms, 8500 W. Deer Creek Canyon Rd., Littleton
9:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. (Last entry 5:30 p.m.)
Tickets: $8 – $12
Phone: 720-865-3500
Saturday, October 3
RUN AND HAVE FUN
Castle Rock’s epic trail event is back with an adventure for the entire family! The Trails Festival offers plenty of options to challenge yourself on the vast Ridgeline trail system.
Trail run options range from the liveBIG 5K to the Ultra Marathon 50K. Race beginning times are staggered throughout the morning, with courses winding through the single and double-track trails at Philip S. Miller Park and Ridgeline Open Space. Enjoy the impressive views of the surrounding buttes and the scenic views of Castle Rock as the trail twists over the flowing race course!
Philip S. Miller Park, 1375 W. Plum Creek Pkwy., Castle Rock
6:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Registration: $25 – $95
Phone: 303-814-7455
WOMEN IN THE WILDERNESS
A special survival skills workshop series just for women! Geared toward adults and mature teens, this hands-on course will include backpack essentials, fire-starting, knot-tying, camp setup, plant ID and more.
Each session will be based on a different theme, so you can take more than one workshop and come away with new skills!
Backcountry Wilderness Area Base Camp, 6005 Ron King Trail, Highlands Ranch
10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Registration: $18-$22
Phone: 303-471-7076
POP-UP VIRTUAL BALLET
Enjoy the energy and beauty of Classical Ballet performed through a livestream right into your home! The International Youth Ballet is a community favorite, and this year you can see their performance LIVE for FREE!
Just register in advance, and a Zoom link will be sent to you, or you may watch on Facebook Live. Remember that the performance will not be available to watch once finished, so make sure that you can tune in when it starts!
HRCA online
5:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Register: FREE
Phone: 303-471-8898
CORPSE BRIDE AT THE DRIVE-IN
Another Tim Burton Halloween-themed movie, Corpse Bride brings the iconic director’s unique vision to the world of animation and features many of his favorite actors voicing the characters: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, and Tracey Ullman.
Park Meadows, 8401 Park Meadows Center Dr., Lone Tree
8:00 p.m.
Tickets: $25 per car
Saturday-Sunday, October 3-4
SHOP FOR A CAUSE
A shopping event you can feel good about, the Annual Shopping Extravaganza at the Outlets at Castle Rock has been extended to two days this year to allow for maximum physical distancing.
Buy a ticket to the event and choose a charity, and 100% of your ticket proceeds go to that charity! In return, you get access to all event activities plus a complimentary prize drawing scratch-off ticket for the chance at over $60,000 in gift cards and prizes from Outlets at Castle Rock’s top brand-name stores. Your ticket will also unlock exclusive deals on top of Outlets at Castle Rock’s daily savings of 30-70% off retail prices. Participating non-profit organizations include Special Olympics Colorado, Crisis Center, Susan G. Komen Colorado, Humane Society of the South Platte Valley, and more.
Outlets at Castle Rock, 5050 Factory Blvd., Castle Rock
10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Register: $20
Phone: 303-688-4495
Sunday, October 4
DRIVE-THROUGH PANCAKES
What could be more delicious and safe than a drive-through pancake breakfast? The Parker Senior Center serves up a hearty breakfast—three pancakes, three sausages, butter, syrup, orange juice, napkins and utensils! And proceeds benefit the Center, so it doesn’t get any better than this!
Parker Senior Center, 10675 Longs Way, Parker
8:00 – 10:00 a.m.
Tickets: $7
Phone: 303-841-5370
BIKE RIDE AND MEAD TASTING
For a unique way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon, bring your bike and helmet and join a leisurely tour through downtown Castle Rock to take in some local history and culture. Afterward, discover what mead, or honey wine, tastes like! Mead is the oldest fermented beverage known to humanity.
This event is for adults 21+ only. Ticket price includes the bike tour, snacks, and the mead tasting at Honnibrook Craft Meadery. Since there is no bike trail access to Honnibrook, once the downtown bike tour is over, participants will drive in their personal vehicles to the Meadery.
Downtown Castle Rock
3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Registration: $30
Phone: 720-733-3569
Miles of Trails in Crystal Valley!
If all you feel like doing this weekend is biking or “walking on sunshine”, there are miles of trails throughout the master-planned community of Crystal Valley with access to plenty of things to do in Castle Rock and beyond. If you’re in the area, stop by the amazing model homes from Century Communities, Kauffman Homes, Richmond American Homes, and D.R. Horton, and find out why our community is among the top five fastest-growing in the state with new homes priced from the $300s.
