The Periphery of the Mind

Saturday, the Professor and I went to Silver Dollar City. An interesting mixture of amusement park, tourist trap, and frontier recreations. It's like visiting Eureka Springs, only with much higher parking fees, free water rides, and seeing lots of period costumes and Christian groups instead of motorcyclists and homosexuals.

But first I had to get some new sandals. After hitting about... five different places, I finally settled on some Columbia Sun Trax. Spent about $25 more dollars than I wanted to, but these things are comfortable as heck, and should hold up pretty well. I did find it funny that the store we bought them at listed their prices as "$40. Our Price $60." Not sure what they were trying to convey exactly, but they sold them at the cheaper price.

Once we got to Silver Dollar City (and I recovered from the twisting, curving Ozark roads) the lines for the rides weren't bad, despite the park being fairly busy. Parking was a bit overwhelming however; the combined parking lots were about half as big as the town I grew up in.



Once inside I got to watch some woodworking, which was fun. Saw a live monkey that did nothing except keep his period costume on; it's sad when you can tell the monkey is bored. Honestly, the games and goods all seemed overpriced to me, even after you consider inflation. As an example, I looked at some pattern welded knives that were selling for hundreds of dollars. By comparison, I've seen pattern welded swords that sell for only slightly more. Concessions were overpriced as well, but that's always the case. Restaurants were a bit less expensive however; I had a giant fried pork sandwich and sprite and some calico potatoes for about $10.

The rides were pretty fun. "Fire in the Hole" was a mix between a "haunted house" style ride (goofy looking animatronic criminals menace guests) and a roller coaster. "The Lost River of the Ozarks" was a nifty little water raft ride. We went on a couple of other rides, saw some other attractions, and walked, and walked, and walked. The new Columbia sandals I bought really helped, but I still had blisters on my feet. Still, at the end of the day we upgraded our day passes to season passes. It's worth a repeat visit.

Labels: General