The adventure of the day was visiting Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO. Branson is a tourist "destination" supporting the entertainment needs of citizens from the central United States. If Disney or Dollywood are beyond your means and you live in Iowa, Minnesota, etc., you head for Branson.
Silver Dollar City is one of the Branson attractions. It is pretty much a theme park. I guess until now I never seriously considered just what being a theme park means. Evidently, it means you have a theme. This makes some sense - Dollywood has Dolly, Disney has Minnie and Mickey, and Universal has various movies. The Silver Dollar City theme is a bit unclear to me, but the owners do profit greatly so maybe silver dollar somehow fits.
It was supposed to be Cowboy Days at the park. Now, when the theme of a theme park changes, it can be difficult to adapt all attractions to the new theme. I guess there were a few folks in cowboy hats and I heard "Home on the Range" (which I happen to know is a real place in North Dakota), but must of the park was probably just the same as when it was time for the Moonshine Festival. From what I can see of Missouri, the Moonshine festival seems more local.
One of the unique characteristics of this park is the various craftsman (and women) creating and selling their crafts. This was one of the more interesting to watch. Some guy dressed in a cowboy costume was operating a lathe while some other bigger and younger guy was turning this giant wheel to power the lathe. I never did get the deal with lathes. The options for products seems kind of limited. You can make table legs, rolling pins, and baseball bats, but what then. If I were a wannabe craftsman, I would look for a craft with more options.
Theme parks cater to all ages and must provide something for everyone. A good part of most parks is taken up by rides of various types. These are not intended for old folks who do not have the stomach for such experiences and have difficulty enough standing up as it is and do not need their equilibrium compromised.
As far as I can tell, the options for the old folks consist of music of the type the park operators think appeal to this group (mostly fiddles and accordions and hillbilly family singing groups) and stuff to eat. Stuff to eat is a big one. There is always fudge and you cannot go wrong with salt water taffy. There were also some unique offerings here and I had the opportunity to eat succotash for the first time. With a little hot sauce, it was pretty good.
I knew succotash was a food and I knew that corn was a main ingredient, but that was about it. I knew that some cartoon character used to yell "suffering succotash", but aside from sounding funny this item of trivia offered little insight. Now I can add eating succotash to my list of life accomplishments.
On to a new destination.
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