There are skeptics as to whether the American Heartland Theme Park will truly become a reality, but they are outnumbered by hopeful followers of the news.  What if it does get built?  What if it is an anchor destination for the region?  What if it's a huge success?

The Mansion Entertainment Group hasn't compared the project to nearby Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, and they don't dare invoke the name of Frontier City, that little local park in Oklahoma City.  They don't compare their project to Six Flags in St. Louis or Worlds of Wonder in Kansas City.  They do mention Disney, though.  And that's a hefty comparison.  Even though Silver Dollar City has a similar footprint size to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, SDC is only recognized as a regional park.  SDC only inventories one dark ride, and its shows are often contracted productions and local musicians, while Disney takes immersive theming to a different level.  Dark rides and shows at Disney World are full-on productions, created, staffed, and choreographed in-house.

That's what American Heartland is taking on.  They want their park to be a destination park for people who can't make it to the East or the West Coast...and they want those people to travel to Oklahoma for a switch.  The theme of the proposed park is fully immersive in six lands.  Food, rides, shops, merchandise, shows, costumed employees, ambient music - everything should fit the theme of its own land.  Dark rides?  I welcome them.  A slot floating river ride?  Yes, please.  Fully-produced shows with attention to special effects, dialogue, and costumed characters?  Definitely.  One-of-a-kind rides that you can't find anywhere else?  Surely.

But to really be compared to Disney, they'll need more than one resort and more than one theme park.  Disney has four theme parks in Orlando.  Universal is soon to add a third park of their own, Sea World adds another, and many, many other properties pick up the slack to spread out the crowd.  Unless American Heartland can partner with Silver Dollar City to let people outside of the region know that there is more than one park in the area, someone will need to build a second or third park nearby.

I've been thinking about what those themes could be.  I've had a couple of ideas of my own for more than a few years.

That ant, by the way, is also succeeding in carrying a large load.  Scripture informs us that Faith can move mountains.  Jesus says that even the smallest amount of faith (as dinky a mustard seed) can achieve big things in our lives.

I  look for a lesson in the ant carrying a giant wing, but an ant can carry 10-50 times his own weight.  No human could do the same, but with faith in God - and God's assistance - we will be able to bear tremendous burdens, too.

Elsewhere, the giant tomato can made its debut, this year, as did a collection of rocking chairs (which continued the new color scheme of the pennants).  Even the rainmaker showed off the new pallet.

With the classic dark rollercoaster, Fire in the Hole, running its final season in '23 (Sad, as it is my favorite ride in the park.), there is a game to play on your phone.  You find clues throughout the park in search of Red Flanders' pants (which were apparently stolen by the Bald Knobbers in the ride).  Once you have scanned all of the QR codes for the game (and you find the pants, first picture above), you can present the evidence to collect a special sticker that says you found 'em.

I've been watching the new Fire in the Hole being erected across the park for a couple of years now.  Though it was kept a secret for all of this time, there was an announcement for the ride a couple of weeks ago, along with other items that promise to grow the area even more.  I am so happy that the Fire in the Hole ride is collecting the homage that it so richly deserves, this year, but I still have fingers crossed that the Bald Knobber history is also retained in the 2.0 version, and it doesn't just become an indoor rollercoaster with fire on the sides.  More will come about this, soon.

As far as the media for the show, it could be a little of everything.  About all that is not pictured in the concept art is a drone presentation.  Given the winds that sweep through the Oklahoma plains, a drone show may not be an option for many nights.  Otherwise, however, in the same art, one will spot fireworks and lasers.  In the foreground there are projections on curtains of water and mist, while in the background projections contour onto the rocks and the lighthouse itself.  I'm going to also assume that some or all of those projections will be animated, and all should be timed to the music.  (Of course, the play button will not be suspended in the middle of things.)

Unlike the Magic Kingdom, whose evening show is just beyond the entrance and down Main Street USA, when this show is over, guests in this area of the park will have a slow walk to the front gate of the park.  This may spread people out more and keep crowds from bunching up too much.  Some guests in the hotel look to be able to spot this show from their rooms, the large balcony, or a centralized plaza area.  They also won't have to fight the massive exodus that comes at the end of a fully-packed day.

I would argue that Silver Dollar City needs more of this:  people demonstrating crafts, people entertaining the crowds in the streets, and store operators that embody the theme of the park - but maybe not more like the fellow in the t-shirt advertising a biker bar named Poopy's.  Characters and storytelling need to come back to Silver Dollar City menu.

There has to be a way to regulate what they say and how they say it without scripting them so much.  They need to love what they do, and that needs to come out in their demeanor and presentation.

When I saw that the rainmaker was making a return, I was excited.  I remember him pulling into Main Street in his horse-drawn wagon, filled with all sorts of weather gadgets.  I remember his hilarious spiel, reminiscent of a snake oil salesman, telling crowds how he was capable of making it rain on a perfectly sunny day.  And then I remember it raining - a refreshing sprinkle just like he promised.  When I was a kid, I had no inkling that the rain was falling out of sprinklers hidden in the trees.

But this new rainmaker?  His wagon is parked in a flower bed in the Riverfront area of the park:  clearly, he didn't just pull into town.  His script is too cheesy and he just has to work too hard to sell jokes that just aren't funny.  And when it rains...it pours.  There's no reason to soak the crowd like that.  If he reduced it to a sprinkle, there wouldn't need to be a splash zone marked on the pavement.  Also, the sprinklers are so obvious that they reveal him as a charlatan.  Firehoses winding up the trees are obvious and completely unmagical.

The funniest thing about this show was when the rainmaker interacted with the crowd and a little boy handed him a Vienna sausage.  Rainmaker held the moist little wiener in his hand for the longest time, not wanting to offend the boy by tossing it to the side, but also distracted by the thing as he tried to deliver his lines.  Finally, to the dismay of everyone else in the crowd besides the little boy - believe it or not - Rainmaker plopped the sausage into his mouth, quickly chewed, and swallowed it.

​Now that was worth the price of admission.

My wife's classroom at Neosho Christian School looks a little different than it did last year.  This classroom was two classrooms half the size, last year.  With the wall between them being removed over the summer, the spacious room now hosts students for math classes like Geometry and Algebra.  The decorations on the walls is intended to give students resources that can be used in solving problems in these areas.  She is just waiting eagerly for her projector to be mounted on the ceiling.

Three Ponies RV Park and Campground, announced to open during 2025, preceding the opening of the American Heartland Theme Park, promises to be the largest of its kind in the region.  Boasting 750 RV spots and 300 cabins, this piece of property will be huge.

The amenities promised will also be huge, with food service delivered to your door, housekeeping and kitchens in the cabins, not to mention the standards of restrooms, showers, trash receptacles, laundry, and vending machines nearby.  Additionally, there will be at least four public buildings on site (shown below).

There are, of course, other campgrounds in the area.  They are a little further off the beaten path and around Grand Lake O' the Cherokees, but this more modern facility will eclipse them and offer different activities.  We'll wait to see what it will cost for a stay.

I wasn't interested in riding the same rides I've experienced many times.  I wasn't interested in rollercoasters or water rides.  More than anything, I enjoy being in the space and taking in the theme.  So many of these things have been staples of Silver Dollar City since my childhood.

It is the overall 1880s in the Ozarks theme that has always caught my attention.  Silver Dollar City has always done a great job of maintaining the illusion of leaving the 21st Century.  The nostalgia is leaving, though.  I see the decision makers for the park struggling to creatively develop new attractions.  They don't hide cardboard boxes anymore.  They cart things through the "city" in fiberglass wagons.  Employees don't always wear time-appropriate costumes, and they often refer to current events.

I have to thing of Silver Dollar City in different terms these days.  No longer it is an authentic 1880s town:  now, it is more like a what has happened when some people found an 1880s park and developed something on the property.  It doesn't take me out of the present like it used to.

I blame it all on their newest coaster - Time Traveler.  Now that they can travel outside of the 1880s, they can bring anything back to the 1880s.

Confluence.  Where rivers meet.  I've stood and watched the blending water from the Missouri River empty into the Mississippi, but this was the first time I had seen the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers merge.  Standing in this location, we were in between the two rivers.  One could also identify three states from this location - Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri.

There was, of course, a good deal of drift wood and debris washed up onto the shore, and a good wafty smell of dead fish lingered in the air as we watched the slow process of a tug boat as it pushed massive barges downstream.  Bridges spanning each river were also visible on the horizons.

An important part of the American Heartland Theme Park is the proposed resort that sits adjacent to the Stony Point Harbor section of the park.  Accompanying the resort is a water park and a boardwalk.

In one of the last display rooms at Alcatraz East in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee gives some odds and ends of law enforcement.  Earlier, I had found a letter signed by J. Edgar Hoover (left), but this area also had a prop gun carried in the Untouchables move, as well as a robot and a flack suit for defusing explosives.

The training before the school year began was received well by the teachers at Neosho Christian School.  I shared the wisdom of a seasoned school teacher regarding Positive Classroom Discipline and Instruction, how to engage students, develop good greeting habits and respectful interactions, and resilience training for "victims" of mean behavior.  This was a total of almost four hours of presentation.

The statistics for the new attraction, by the way, are strangely similar to the original coaster, with the exception of the onboard audio:

A little side note:  isn't it interesting that they used the word Heartland several times in the announcement presentation, as well as on the park's webpage?  They know about the proposed American Heartland Theme Park in Vinita, Oklahoma, and it seems they are already firing the opening salvos of competition.  Additionally, they touted their thousand acres of undeveloped property adjacent to the present park.  Hmm.

As concept art goes, it is beautiful as usual.  These companies know very well how to depict upcoming attractions in single images.  Hopefully, some of the original art from the old ride's queue will be preserved for more generations to see.  After all, the concept art on their website displays all of the current Fire in the Hole scenes.

What we don't see is any mention of animatronic figures.  Will this $30 million dollar investment still utilize simple mannequins in the scenes, or will they spring for some tech to really bring things to life?  They do say that the fire chief has a plan to put out the fire.  There is mention of using fiber optics to show the lighting of the fuse on explosives, and they did say that they are going to "blow the tower", meaning the water tower.  Perhaps this is a new scene for the final drop - "Fire in the Hole!"

The following trial and acquittal of O.J. Simpson were a circus, aired live on television, but that chase is still what everyone watching remembers.  Now, here it is:  the symbol of the entire event, looking pretty spotless as it sits on the floor beside other infamous cars in the museum.