What I've been doing all summer!

I've been working on the Union Harvest festival for the last three years (this is our fourth year!) For the first 2 years I organized the festival and made sure the parade, the pumpkin chunkin and all the other events happened as planned and it was a lot of fun. I watched the premier event of the Halloween season - the Night-Fright Haunted House - from the sidelines.

(Dracula in the wax museum exhibit)

Then, last year I decided I just had to be in the haunt! Now, I'm one of those chickens who hates being scared and I wouldn't go through a haunted house on a bet prior to my conversion to the dark side. However, Scary Jeri put me in a Victorian dress, grey wig, custom fit vampire teeth and some very creepy makeup and I was totally lost to the haunted house craft! I loved it! There is nothing like watching a grown man fall on his backside at the sight of you rising from a chair! The creepy music, the screams of laughter and terror are somehow cathartic after a day of work.

The Last-Chance Saloon

THIS year I just had to help with the building of the haunt to feed my addiction and make this last longer. It's an amazing experience. It's like a sauna up on the third floor to the old Union Hotel, but it hasn't been as difficult as one might think. Jeri is amazing! She has the gift to turn an empty third floor into an amazing haunted house. She stays awake at night figuring out how to make a monster out of stuff you would never think of using to build a monster. She lays out the haunt and writes the background story. It's always a work in progress as she finds the things she needs to put together scares that fit the theme and the haunt. My proudest moment was when she told me that I was beginning to think like a real haunter.

Jeri's haunts are based on a background story. This year, it's all about a mad scientist who took over a small town museum to do his dark experiments on re-animation of the dead. It was the golden age of America - the 1950's. Our little town was booming with 2 lumber mills and a flour mill. People were making good money and living the American dream. In the background there was talk about Dr. Stein - the museum curator- and his wierd experiments, but it was a time when people didn't lock their doors and didn't believe that anything bad could happen. That is, until that night when two high school sweethearts disappeared after a trip to the museum. The police closed the place down for weeks and searched it from top to bottom - but couldn't find the young couple. Oddly, they never found Dr. Stein either..... Sad and discouraged, the town left the museum shut down until 2009. But, the kids don't stay away. They are fascinated by the possibility that there is something dark and unexplained lurking in the decaying walls of the museum and they dare each other to go in there.

Your haunted experience starts with a teenager who has been stranded in the museum overnight on a dare. From there, you move from room to room and from one exhibit to the next -looking for the secret of the museum. We've been setting up rooms and building the route you will take through the haunt. I wanted to share some pictures to give you a preview of what is in store for those who will enjoy the haunt from the other side.