72 MEGALOPOLITAN LIFE “Gingerassic Park.” Look closer and you’ll spy tinier treasures dotting their yard. There’s Arizona’s smallest Christmas tree, viewable only through a microscope, and a collection of miniature buildings with intri- cately detailed scenes and figures inside. For years, Carl and Patty’s display has dazzled visitors, including producers of “The Great Christmas Light Fight.” The couple won a 2025 episode of the ABC reality competition show, earning $50,000 and a trophy shaped like a glowing holiday bulb. i i i BEST HALLOWEEN DISPLAY HELLBILLY HOLLER HALLOWEEN HAUNT 14601 N. 40TH WAY 602-509-6966 HELLBILLYHOLLERAZ.COM When the Halloween season looms, spooky displays begin sprouting from homes across the Valley. Most are testaments to how much cash-bored suburbanites can blow at Spirit Halloween or Home Depot. A select few are genuinely scary. But none is as playfully deranged as Hellbilly Holler. The brainchild of artist Michaela Nastasia, her warped sister Laura and niece Athena, the immer- sive walk-through display haunts Nastasia’s north Phoenix yard every October. It’s a straight-up mindfuck with its own demented mythology and a chaser of Southern-fried insanity. Hellbilly Holler resembles a decrepit backwoods homestead gone to hell. Its resident clan of inbred hill- billies lures in visitors to be slain by a wendigo. They get to feast on the bodies; Lucia the Swamp Witch harvests the souls. The gators get whatever’s left. It’s ghastly and brutal, but it’s a system. Handmade corpses, grisly props and insidious creatures crowd a yard drenched in the eerie glow of green and purple lights. The scene plays out like a moonshine-soaked fever dream horribly brought to life. Catch the cannibal- istic carnage while you can, though. After one final Halloween, Nastasia says she’s laying Hellbilly Holler to rest in peace. i i i BEST CEMETERY PIONEER & MILITARY MEMORIAL PARK 1317 W. JEFFERSON ST. AZHISTCEMETERIES.ORG We’re taphophiles over here at Phoenix New Times. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s someone interested in cemeteries for their historical and cultural significance. We get our fix at Pioneer & Military Memorial Park in Downtown Phoenix. The space is composed of seven cemeteries that were in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the residents read like a who’s-who of Arizona history. Among them: Phillip Duppa, who founded New River and named Phoenix and Tempe; Jacob Waltz, the famous so-called “Lost Dutchman”; and William Hancock, who laid out the first town site of Phoenix. The Pioneers’ Ceme- tery Association hosts tours and other events, and it’s well worth your time to learn about the city’s earliest notables. i i i BEST GRAVE WAYLON JENNINGS MESA CEMETERY 1212 N. CENTER ST., MESA 480-644-2335 MESAAZ.GOV/ RESIDENT-RESOURCES/MESA-CEMETERY Be bored, or sad, or curious, or just wanting to commune with one of Arizona’s greatest musicians. Head to Mesa Cemetery and find the final resting place of Waylon Jennings, the country music legend who was buried there in 2002. For maximum effect, do this at sunrise or sunset. Sit for a spell. Crack a beer. Enjoy the peaceful silence of the cemetery, which has been serving Valley residents on that site since 1891. Think about the enduring power of music, about how it feels to lose people too soon, about how to make a difference in the world. Talk about it quietly with a friend, if you brought one. When you’re ready to go, say farewell. Take your empty beer bottle with you. Leave a gift: a flower or an unlit cigarette or a guitar pick. Repeat as often as your soul needs it. i i i BEST FALLEN PRINCE CODY THE COLT Cody, one of the Salt River wild horses, was born on April 20 and instantly captured the hearts of kayakers, paddleboarders and thousands of people in Facebook groups dedicated to the herd. The little brown colt with the white blaze on his head was never too far from his mom, a mare named Venus. Then, in June, almost as quickly as he had arrived, he was gone. Observers noticed Cody wasn’t with his herd. Social media lit up with folks asking river-goers to keep an eye out for him. Then came the news from the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group. Searchers found Cody’s body buried in the sand — cached, they call it; the mark of a mountain lion attack — one day before he would have turned two months old. Tributes and laments poured in on Facebook and Instagram. Cody’s death is a reminder that nature’s brutality is the price of nature’s beauty. Rest well, little guy.
