| There is a place in the Midwest called Silver Dollar City. It is a 40-50-year-old theme park in the southern part of Missouri. Leading up to Christmas, it is a top destination for lights and delights to get people into the spirit of the season, but in September and October, the City has developed a new festival centered around handmade crafts and the pumpkin harvest.   |  While we have seen some of the decorations before the actual festival begins, this was our first time to attend during the season. The new Foggy Hollow was a unique attempt at a cool feature, but it should have been better. I say this only because it leads to the Pumpkin Plaza, which is a place I never want to see again. It is an area in the normally-backstage of the park, and it has been set up to sell food and cheap glowing souvenir junk. Worst of all is that it takes guests completely out of the theme of a park that has always been based on the 1880s. |
DJs and 80s cover bands (That's 1980s, not 1880s.) have no place in this beautiful park, and coming upon them and their so-called street dance party in the Pumpkin Plaza is a harsh awakening that I am no longer in the romanticized 1880s Ozarkian village. This single area - the the playing of Ghost Busters music as we entered the park - are enough to put me in a bad mood about visiting Silver Dollar City. It is a slippery slope into becoming merely another amusement park rather than the well-thought theme park that is should be. I guess I have to limit my radius when visiting during this time of the year and avoid that entire side of the park.
Give me, instead, the quiet flickering of the hundreds of jack-o-lanterns that adorn the rest of the place. Carved from foam pumpkins, these offer a neat and peaceful stroll through a place that removes us from the realities of real life in the 21st Century.
Give me, instead, the quiet flickering of the hundreds of jack-o-lanterns that adorn the rest of the place. Carved from foam pumpkins, these offer a neat and peaceful stroll through a place that removes us from the realities of real life in the 21st Century.
Or let us ponder the glow of real pumpkins, relief carved by masters who turn the craft into something normally not seen. Let us appreciate the homespun items in the Frisco Barn. We can be friendly without gyrating to Journey or dancing with AC/DC. There is a place for that kind of volume and that style of music, but Silver Dollar City is not that place.
After all has been said and done, I enjoyed the time that I spent with my wife. We don't often get moments to spend without children, and when we do, we cherish them.
After all has been said and done, I enjoyed the time that I spent with my wife. We don't often get moments to spend without children, and when we do, we cherish them.
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