Got home last night from another trip to SDC. Stayed at Homestay Inn, the kids have adopted Paige into the family.
Visited the city on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday arrived in time for the opening ceremony, rode Thunderation (no wait), then Wildfire (no wait), Powderkeg (minimal wait) and the Giant Swing (minimal wait). The city and the weather were beautiful. I loved all the extra craft displays. The only bad thing about the craft festival is that all the extra booths really tend to make the park seem extra crowded. That afternoon we went and saw “Headin' West.” It was well produced and had some cool special effects, but it does seem to be a bit geographically challenged. When we finished watching the show, we were going to ride FITH but the line was all the way out past the Fireman’s Cemetery. The line for the FM was backed up pretty good by that time as well. Stayed that night for GAC show at Echo Hollow. It was very enjoyable two highlights of the show for us were, “Cletus, take the reel” (My oldest son is a big Tim Hawkins fan and he is not really big into Country music, so this number really pacified him for the rest of the evening); and Jae McFerron's introduction of the Gospel music segment by saying “Some people call this Gospel music. We just call it the truth.” The Gospel music segment was pretty good...their rendition of “How Great is our God” was awesome, but the line-dancing to “Standing on the Promises” was a bit much for this Parson!
Sunday when we arrived on the park, the first thing we noticed was they had two fire engines parked by the tram unload area. They had their ladders extended with a giant American flag hanging between the two. We attended the church service on the park (How many theme parks have their own church services?...incredible!). The service was a little different because of the 9/11 anniversary. The service consisted mainly of Scripture readings and special music, including a couple of really beautiful violin duets.
We were not on the square for the 9/11 ceremony, but they broadcast part of it over the loudspeakers throughout the park, this included a moment of silence, the tolling of the church bell, and the singing of the national anthem. No shops were selling or rides running during the moment of silence. The silence was noticeable throughout the park.
Some of the new craft exhibitions were really neat, a chalk artist drew a vibrant rendition of the SDC axe/log logo on the blacktop, and they were sculpting a giant log cabin out of sand in front of the general store. The lumberjack show was spread throughout the park. Pole climbing was by the Gazebo on the Square. Axe throwing was in front of Red Gold Heritage Hall, and the Log rolling was on Lake Silver between the entrance of Lost River and the Dockside Grill. The activity times were staggered so you could see them all if you wanted to walk around and make the circuit.
We discovered a new (for us) menu item at the Ribhouse grill. I can't remember what it was called, but it was brisket, onions, peppers, and cole slaw wrapped up in a corn tortilla. It was really good!
A couple other highlights:
My oldest son LOVES wildfire taffy, we went in to buy the taffy on Saturday and they were out. They said they would be making more on Sunday. So we went back on Sunday and go to watch them make
Wildfire. My son was given a sample right off the roll. They use a little over a half-cup of cinnamon oil in the batch. We left with 3 lbs of fresh Wildfire taffy.
The Sheriff, after giving the kids badges, spent about 5 minutes playing with the kids (they were trying to give him a “high five” and he kept moving his hand)--they had a blast with him. Every time they would see him on park that day and Sunday, he would stop and raise his hand up and they'd spend another five minutes trying to slap his hand.
Hope for Tinker Fans.
I talked to Shorty and he said that they were talking about bringing Tinker back, not this Christmas but in the near future. If there are any Tinker fans out there, keep sending in those letters and e-mails.
Only Disappointment.
Our only disappointment this trip was that we didn't get to see Terry Sanders. No trip to SDC is complete without interacting with one of Terry's characters. We were hoping we would finally get to see him as his Scarecrow character, but he was on vacation this weekend. And hey, everybody deserves a vacation so we don't begrudge him that.
All in all a great trip to the city.
