Most trick-or-treating happens on sidewalks, under porch lights, in the familiar grid of a town. On the evening of Saturday, October 3, 2026, Story County Conservation is offering a different kind of route: a walk through a lakeside campground where the decorated houses are travel trailers, fifth wheels, and tents, and the candy comes from people who, for one night, have turned a public park into a temporary neighborhood.
Trick or Treat Night at Breezy Bay Campground runs from 5 to 7 p.m. at Hickory Grove Park, at 67464 250th Street southwest of Colo. It is free, and the county is explicit that you do not need to be camping to take part. Campers are encouraged to decorate their sites, and prizes will be awarded for the spookiest one. The event is listed among Story County Conservation's public programs, alongside paddling trips and nature talks, rather than as a private campers-only affair.
The setting is what makes it unusual. Hickory Grove Park is the largest and most popular of the Story County Conservation Board's parks, a 445-acre multiple-use recreation area built around a 98-acre lake. The lake is stocked with largemouth bass, bluegill, crappie, channel catfish, and walleye, and gas motors are restricted, so the water stays calm enough for canoes, kayaks, and small fishing boats. The park sits within central Iowa's so-called Golden Triangle, about a 45-minute drive from Des Moines and 15 minutes from Ames and Iowa State University.
Breezy Bay is the modern campground at Hickory Grove, on the north side of the lake. It has 43 sites with electricity, a mix of reservable and first-come, first-served, plus a shower house with flush toilets and hot water. That shower building was rebuilt in 2017 and, according to campground listings, doubles as a tornado shelter. The campground operates from April 1 through October 31 at $17 a night, which puts the trick-or-treat event near the very end of the season, when the trees have turned and the lake is quiet.
The event is not new. Ames Tribune Halloween roundups have listed a Hickory Grove Park trick-or-treat at Breezy Bay Campground in past years, describing it as an evening event at the campground. The format has shifted over time: the 2026 version is a two-hour window starting at 5 p.m., an hour earlier than some earlier listings, which makes sense for younger children and for a date that falls nearly four weeks before Halloween itself. The county's own calendar entry and its parks-and-events page both describe the same free, public-welcome evening.
That timing is part of the appeal. By early October, the campground is winding down. The beach is closed for the season, the paddle boat and kayak rentals are done, and the summer crowds have thinned. What remains is the part of camping that has nothing to do with swimming: fires, coolers, folding chairs, and neighbors who, for a weekend, live a few feet apart. Trick or Treat Night asks those campers to lean into it, to string lights and carve pumpkins and hang cobwebs on a picnic shelter, and then invites the surrounding towns to come walk the loops.
It is a small inversion of the usual trunk-or-treat. At a trunk-or-treat, cars line up in a parking lot and children move down a row of open tailgates. Here, the candy-givers are already home. They have grills and fire rings and, in many cases, a weekend's worth of gear arranged around them. The kids walk a road through the campground instead of a parking aisle, and the reward for the campers who decorate is not just visitors but a prize for the best effort.
Colo itself is a town of about 845 people, known as the place where the Lincoln Highway and the Jefferson Highway cross, a spot locals call the Crossroads of the Nation. The park southwest of town has long been the county's biggest outdoor draw, and the conservation board treats it as such, running a full calendar of programs there through the fall. The trick-or-treat night is one of the more informal entries on that calendar, and one of the few that asks nothing of visitors but a costume and a bag.
For families in Story County, the practical details are simple. The event is free. It runs 5 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 3, 2026, at Breezy Bay Campground in Hickory Grove Park, 67464 250th Street, Colo. Campers who want to compete for the spookiest-site prize should plan to decorate before the gates open to the public. Everyone else just needs to show up, walk the loops, and see what a campground looks like when it decides, for one evening, to be a neighborhood.