For years I would make sporadic visits to Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri.  First as a child with my grandparents and later as a teen and young adult.  Then once I moved away from the Midwest I went a good twenty years without visiting before going back again in the mid 2000's.  And now, for the past four years, while living nearby, I have made one or more yearly drives to visit the theme park located in the Ozark hills.  There is just something I love about this place that keeps me coming back.  Maybe it is their standard of quality.  Or their attention to authentic detail and immaculate cleanliness.  (And this is coming from a girl raised on Disney - so these are HIGH marks!)  Or maybe it is their fearlessness at upholding patriotism, God, and morality.  All I know is I truly love the place and here are some especially wonderful things about the park that, in my opinion, should NOT be missed!

My TOP EIGHT Silver Dollar City Experiences:

ONE - Arrive EARLY at the park.  The lower part of the park, where the rides are located, opens an hour AFTER the upper portion or "square".  Various shops are open on the square at this hour, as well as numerous shady spots to sip coffee, eat a cinnamon roll or just watch the crowds arrive.  But my FAVORITE part of the square is Molly's Mill Restaurant.  This is the perfect spot to fortify yourself with a hearty buffet breakfast of biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, and more.  It is rather average food, I must admit, but there is just something about sitting in a dining room with gingham curtains and a working water wheel that screams COUNTRY!  And that is what you are about to embark on, a day full of COUNTRY charm!

Visit to Silver Dollar City - October, 2006  (click on picture to enlarge)

TWO - After breakfast, be sure to find a shady spot on the square in front of the General Store for the park's daily opening ceremony and recognition of veterans in the crowd.  They are invited to be a part of a special parade while the crowd sings You're a Grand Old Flag as the veterans carry the flag to the flagpole located in this area.  The flag is raised and everyone recites the Pledge of Allegiance followed by singing the National Anthem.  And the park is then officially OPEN!  Come on, how can you NOT love that?

THREE - I also love the trees and shade and EXTREMELY hilly terrain one must traverse in order to navigate the park.  The pathways are steep, but after all, you are in a "holler".  (A holler is Ozark-speak for a hole or hollowed out part of a mountain.  Or it could be to shout loudly if you are using it as a verb.)  The benefit of all these hills is that they allow you to eat biscuits and gravy, homemade apple turnovers, kettle corn, funnel cakes, twisty taters, and all of the other country goodies the park has to offer and STILL be in a daily calorie deficit when you leave.  Yeehaw to that!

FOUR - And then there are the Sons of the Silver Dollar.  This vocal group that performs at various locations around Silver Dollar City features cowboy songs, bluegrass, comedic medleys, and southern gospel tunes.  I LOVE these guys and if you appreciate impeccable harmonies, you will too!  Be sure to check your daily performance guide when you visit for their locations.  I DARE you to sit through one of their sets without smiling and tapping your feet.   

The Sons of the Silver Dollar - take a listen!

FIVE - And while I LOVE all of the modern roller coasters to be found in the park (those that will surely lure a whole generation of new SDC converts), my favorite ride is Fire in the Hole.  It is a "dark" coaster of sorts and built in 1972, it was the first "thrill" ride in the park.  You will definitely see a few bad reviews for this ride but those are from folks who just don't GET it.  It is quintessential Silver Dollar City and has somewhat of a cult following.  The ride is a trip through an Ozark town that has been set ablaze by Ozark Baldknobbers.  (Baldknobber = a vigilante in the Ozark hills of Missouri during the 1800's.  They got their name from the bald hills found throughout the region.) The ride is full of twists and turns, kooky audio, and country chaos.  It is a bumpy ride with little padding under your rump (think Matterhorn at Disneyland) and rather dated but fun nonetheless - especially if you rode the ride when you were a kid.  The ride culminates with a final drop in the darkness and a splashy ending with everyone "hollerin" FIRE IN THE HOLE!!

This is a baldknobber.  Creepy?  Uh, yes.

SIX - If you visit Silver Dollar City only ONCE in your life, you must take the tour of MARVEL CAVE.  Silver Dollar City exists because of Marvel Cave.  The entrance to the cave is in the Visitor's Center that you must walk through upon entering the park.  The tours are included in your admission price into the park and last about 60 minutes.  The tour is spent ascending and descending approximately 600 stairs, ducking through tunnels, and squeezing through passageways (more calorie burning - Yay!).  It was originally called MARBLE Cave because in the dim lights of the first explorers, the limestone walls appeared to be marble.  Tours started in the late 1800's and news of the magnificent cave spread.  In the 1940's, the Herschend family leased the cave for 99 years and soon after built the 1880's mining town of Silver Dollar City around its entrance, officially opening the theme park in 1960.  You see and experience all of the usual cave peculiarities during your tour.  The cathedral room (Marvel's is as tall as the Statue of Liberty!), stalactites and stalagmites (stalactites hold TIGHTLY to the roof and stalagmites just MIGHT make you trip over them - a handy way to remember which is which - you're welcome), cave bacon, a few bats (if you're lucky!), and the state of total, black darkness when the lights are extinguished, accompanied with running commentary and corny jokes by an informative tour guide.  The whole experience is a great way to add to the lore of a recreated mining town full of moonshine and baldknobbers!

SEVEN - Silver Dollar City is the perfect place to pick up one-of-a-kind gifts made by craftspeople showcasing heritage crafts from a bygone era.  These are REAL DEAL artisans and have been a part of the park's tradition since it opened in the 1960's.  Demonstrations by resident craftspeople such as woodcarving, soap and candle making, blacksmithing, weaving, pottery making, and glass blowing are only naming a few and can be witnessed on every visit.  During the Fall Harvest and Cowboy Festival (one of several festivals held throughout the year) traveling artisans from around the country are added to the park's talented repertoire making it the ideal time to shop for holiday gifts.  Add to this the aroma of roasting corn, succulent meats turning on a spit, and pork rinds popping in a vat and you know Fall has arrived - an excellent time for a visit!

EIGHT - And finally, my very FAVORITE time of year to visit is in December. Christmastime is WONDERFUL at Silver Dollar City!  The Travel Channel and Good Morning America have both recognized the park's annual Christmas festival as one of the best holiday light shows in America.  A five-story Christmas tree complete with special lighting effects set to music, a Christmas parade, and Broadway-style productions such as A Dickens' Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life (these are outstanding productions as good as any you will see in NY or elsewhere!) set the mood for an old-fashioned Christmas.  Shopping, hot chocolate, Christmas carols, while bundled up in coats, mittens, and scarves and surrounded by over five million twinkling lights - truly a Christmas experience!

Visit to Silver Dollar City - December, 2011  (click on picture to enlarge)

Encompassing more than 100 acres, featuring over 40 rides and attractions, a multitude of shows and entertainment, craftsmen, dining, and shopping - the park has SO much more to offer than listed here - but these are my TOP EIGHT. Remember when you visit to appreciate the park for exactly what it is - good, clean fun.  Sure, there's a degree of hokeyness and a definite "cheese factor" at Silver Dollar City - that is intended.  But this park will leave you with a feeling of wholesomeness, patriotism, and a restored feeling of goodness in a crazy, crazy world.  And a healthy dose of THAT is good for everyone!

CREEPY Oklahoma ....

On a recent road trip in Oklahoma I discovered, I would say, the creepiest (and saddest!) place in the state of Oklahoma.  Located on Highway 69 near the Kansas and Missouri border is a literal, modern-day ghost town called Picher, OK. Years ago I remember hearing of the devastation to this one-time prosperous mining town.  First, in the late 2000's were the federal buyouts due to the high levels of toxic waste leftover from its lead and zinc mining heydays.  And then later was the devastating EF4 tornado that decimated the already crippled town by completely destroying roughly 20 square blocks and killing eight.  But to see the town with my own two eyes put the whole story in complete and startling perspective - this is one BIG, FAT mess from our country's industrial era.

The whole town felt like an eerie movie set from Mad Max or Book of Eli.

Before you actually arrive at the heart of downtown Picher, you encounter gigantic mounds of what appear to be gray sand and rock.  Giant sand-dune like mountains completely surrounded by fence and barbed wire.  These mounds are the actual waste from the days of mining called tailings or "chat" - around 175 million tons of "chat" consisting of crushed limestone, dolomite, and rock containing silica, all leftover once the metal ore was separated.  Perspective = that is enough to build a four-lane highway around the Earth - TWICE!

Now you know what a big pile of "chat" looks like.

Unbelievably, generations of families used these giant hills of waste for recreation. Families would picnic on the hills and they were a favorite place for hikers and four-wheeler enthusiasts.  Children would sled on them in the wintertime.  And parents would fill their kids' sandboxes with the sand/waste and use it in the concrete and asphalt for the foundations and driveways in their homes. The Picher High School track team even trained on these hills.

Stay away ... stay FAR away!!!

While the mining ceased in the 1960's, the town continued to thrive until the 1980's at which time it began its decline.  During that time the effects of the contamination was rampant.  Although not yet identified as the culprit of the persistent and higher than normal ailments in the town, the silent poisoning took its toll in high cancer rates, respiratory infections and high infant mortality rates to the tune of 20 - 30% above the national average.  In 1996 a study showed lead poisoning in 34% of the town's children.  It's no wonder schools consistently reported that kids in Picher were sick more often and lagged behind significantly in test scores.

These signs are posted all over town and nearly all streets are blocked with barbed wire.

Not only did the residents use the mounds of toxic waste for extracurricular activities ... there was this issue with the water.  The groundwater was so contaminated in the 1970's that the water in nearby Tar Creek ran red.  Upon testing, the water in the area was found to contain heavy metals such as lead, zinc, arsenic, and iron.  Residents tell stories of swimming as children in the lime-green colored ponds around town and it taking weeks to wash the resulting orange-colored stain from their hair.  Whaaaat???

Empty slabs of concrete and deserted remnants such as these line the highway running through town.

And then there was also the matter of the sinkholes popping up around town. With close to 500 open mine shafts in the area and tunnels and cavities crisscrossing underneath the city, the possibility and probability of a massive cave in was inevitable.  Because of the instability of the earth and tunnels underneath the town, the homes had no septic tanks and no basements or below-ground shelter - this contributing to the deaths in the 2008 tornado.

Stark and jarring remnants of what used to be.

With a population of around 15,000 in the 1920's, today there are only about 10 people left who refuse to leave.  After the EPA called Picher one of the most polluted places in America and it made their list of Top 10 Environmental Disasters, the federal government began offering buyouts to the residences in 2006.  In 2009 the last class of the Picher Gorillas graduated from the local high school - a total of eleven graduates.  And that same year Picher officially ceased to be a town.  By 2013 most residents had accepted money from the government and had vacated the town that they had lived in for generations.

The Picher water tower - surprisingly, with a fresh coat of paint!

As we left Picher to head back to Tulsa we stopped in nearby Miami, OK to use the bathroom.  I headed to the sink to wash my hands and this sign was tacked to the wall above the sink.

I scrubbed clear to my armpits!!

Sources:   WIRED - 8/30/2010, New York Times - April, 2004, Time - 4/19/2004, Mother Nature Network.

I'm Back!

I initially started this blog in late 2010 to share art, photography, scrapbooking, and other stuff related to my life with my friends and other folks who share similar interests.  Shortly after starting, I was out-of-the-blue blessed with a new career as a sales rep for art and paper crafting supplies.  This gig consumed my life for a few VERY SATISFYING years but I'm happy to be at a place once again where I can continue where I left off in 2010.  Sharing art, photography, scrapbooking, and now a lot more travel too (both near and far!).

Yup - we're traveling much more these days. Our "have to's" in life have decreased and our "want to's" in life have increased allowing us to hit the road or grab a flight to some destination of adventure more frequently.  My Jonesy is more than happy to oblige my wacky photographic pursuits with a pose here and there and that certainly make me happy.  Here he is demonstrating his willingness while on one of our many roadtrips that we took during the time that I have been away!

Ever the lover of roadside art and/or kitsch - this statue was a no-brainer stop on our way to South Dakota in September, 2012.  This bronze sculpture located in Oakley, Kansas and created by Charlie and Pat Norton commemorates the legendary Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody) and the popular (and gruesome) buffalo hunts of the 1800's.  While Buffalo Bill certainly killed scads of buffalo, once he realized the detriment to the herds and their dwindling population, he made things right by setting in motion a plan for their preservation. So give the guy a break - while the killing of these magnificent beasts seems barbaric - we often do stupid things in our ignorance.  Heck, people used to smoke in their hospital rooms. Today that makes no sense at all!  We all do better once we know better, right? Nonetheless, many bison today can be linked to the herds that he later raised on his ranch known as Scout's Rest and located in North Platte, Nebraska.  So he was one of the good guys.

The area surrounding the sculpture has picnic tables, a storyboard describing the history of Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and local Native American culture.  Located at the intersection of Highway 83 and 2nd Avenue in Oakley, Kansas, you will also find a pet-friendly travel center with restrooms, Kansas maps, brochures, and a gift shop.

So, here I am five years later and my "journey" continues to be "sentimental" and proves to be even more so as time marches on.  Most everything I do and every place I go still ends up documented in my scrapbooks so I can't help but include some of them here. I'm thrilled to share the illustrating and documenting of the road trip of my life with YOU.  I hope you discover something inspiring, find a place you might like to visit, or at least see something to make you smile.  It's so nice to be back!