Candle Shoppes of the Pocono's including GHOST monkey's Mini PA vacation part III

After our amazing time at the Crayola Experience we started back home.

Unfortunately we went east when we should have gone west. We ended up only about two miles out of our way and right in front of a Dairy Queen.

We don't have Dairy Queen in our area, and I remembered biking (on the back seat...remember the days when we would slap our kids in a seat hooked to the back of your bike? I had one for my older two. Seems incredibly DANGEROUS now.)   to the local Dairy Queen with my parents when I was a little kid in Indiana.

Of course we had to stop and get some ice cream and I had to check out the map anyways.

Yum!!
Also in our getting lost we found a sign for The Haunted Candle Shoppe. I had seen this episode of the Haunted on the Animal Planet and we had made it a silly game about seeing the Ghost Monkey's. Since we were so close to the place, we set out simply to find the Ghost Monkey Candle shop....the thing is, there are like 5 candle shops in the Pocono area were were in. We started towards Candle shop #1.

Pretty neat old fashioned car.

This was NOT the Ghost Monkey candle shop! but we did have a potty break and some animals we got to see.

The ponies and a very noisy rooster.
also a few goats..

Plus there were some very exotic birds.

I had never seen these type of birds before, but their colors were amazing.
After a few looks at the animals we were back in the van and heading towards Candle Shop #2. I didn't take any pictures but this place was HUGE!! and guess what...IT WAS NOT THE GHOST MONKEY candle shop.
We were told it was in the opposite direction, so we were off again. I don't think there is a single candle shop in my local area (except for the mall's Yankee Candles). What is up with the candle shops in the Pocono's?
This time we FOUND it!!!

 The Haunted Candle Shoppe.

and the GHOST MONKEY's!!
So how do I begin to describe this place? Best if I just give you the brochure.

I tried to find the episode of this on youtube with no success. I did find these....
I will try to load it here.

And here is all about Dr. Fisher.

After some debate on if we should take the tour or not, and the boys basically begging us to go in, we gave in and forked over the $13- adult admission and $10- kid price. I think if we had not pumped the place up in our search for it, I might have thought differently about the tour price and actually going in. It was a nice transition from a haunted house that Gavin has been scared to death to enter, and just enough spook to creep you out for the two boys to consider doing a real haunted house next Halloween. They let Mindy bring Maddy in for free and she was really a trooper.

Screaming Monkeys started out the tour (our tour guild quickly turned the noise off as it FREAKED Maddy out).
It was an odd mix of animated haunted creatures and actual Dr. Fisher history.
Our tour guide Drew was considerate of our party and allowed the boys to ask multiple questions and was conscious not to get them to scared.

Here are a few fun things we saw.

  Drew had us all look in the mirror of luck and try to touch our tongue to our nose.

The boys were convinced that there was going to be something scary that jumped out, but it was a video recorded mirror that showed patrons in the shop how silly we all looked.
More fun lured around every corner, we continued on.

There were some more scares, but also some early 1900's equipment that was found on the property.

Many of the cells and prop area where actual monkey holding cells and we were shown the area where the animals were beheaded.

Apparently when it was heard that Dr. Fisher had been coming up with a cure for Small Pox and Yellow fever, the military took over and vaccinated military men.  Dr. Fisher was never credited with his role in finding a vaccination for either ailments. He died an old man of a heart attack in the upstairs bedroom. Drew took us to the room and the boys got a picture with him. Gavin swears he heard someone laughing.

 Picture from outside of the bedroom.

I don't think I caught anything out of the ordinary. Drew said one time one of the creatures in the basement moved it's head all by itself and that one of the zombies fell over hitting the glass, but didn't have any  other experiences to tell. I'm not totally sure I would go on the tour again. It is just one of those things you can say you did and only need to do once if ever. If your one of those people (like me) who think the whole idea of being in a "haunted" place is pretty cool I would recommend it, but if your not....well its your call. The boys LOVED it in fact both Luke and Gavin thought this was the best part of the whole mini vacation, the Ghost Monkey's beat out the Crayola Factory for them..but they are 11 and 12 year old boys, what do you expect. Mindy and I thought that we would have enjoyed it more and that it may have been even more creepy if they lost the Zombies and other scary stuff and kept it more shadows and history. Dark corners, shadows and noises would have done the trick for me. I'm sure the place is packed during Halloween. The whole idea of monkey ghosts was scary in its own right. I found the antiques found on the property were cool too. Check out this door knocker and this elaborate decorative item.

Definitely a bizarre little roadside attraction. That wraps up our Mini PA vacation. We made one final stop for dinner in NY and got home just about 7:30pm. Great FUN!!!