I don’t
advertise this a lot, but I have bad knees.
Generally I will just tough through an uncomfortable day, but since I
took a couple of spills this last winter one knee in particular gives me a lot
of trouble when I am very active.
My darling
husband was concerned about the walking at Silver Dollar City for two full days
and what it might do to my knees.
For those of
you who have never been to Silver Dollar City to say there are a few hills
there would be an understatement.
Everything in that park is uphill both ways and we aren’t talking a
slight grade we are talking 7% or more grades.
In my younger years the park gave me no trouble at all.
In fact our
very first trip nearly 40 years ago we had a 3 year old in the backpack and a 6
month old in a stroller and we even went into Marvel Cave, which is gorgeous,
carrying both kids and the stroller!
Anyone that has ever been in Marvel Cave will tell you we must have been
insane to consider doing that because it is a very strenuous cave to visit, but
I digress.
We like
Silver Dollar City due to its good clean Christian atmosphere, lively
entertainment, demonstrations, cleanliness, and decent amusement park style
food. We didn’t want that dampened by me
being in pain.
Dh suggested
we take my grandmother’s electric wheel chair out of our storage trailer there
on the property and see if the batteries were still good on it. He did this on Wednesday evening, and due to
some minor mishaps that happened he barely got it on the charger to check it
out before it was bedtime. In fact we
discovered the next morning the charger had not been completely connected. So we decided to take the chair with us
anyway and chance it.
Once we had
parked our rig, see part 1, he hooked the
chair up again to charge over night. We
were delighted the next morning to find that it was fully charged, even though
the gauge on the arm rest suggested differently.
He suggested
I drive it around the campground a bit, because I had never used it, but I only
did so for a very short time because I didn’t want to run the batteries
down.
We headed up
to the shuttle in plenty of time and I boarded it easily with the assistance of
the cheerful bus driver. As we rode over
to the park we noticed we had tracked a little “mud” into the bus with the rear
tires. We apologized to the driver as we exited the bus.
We had
discovered on our way to the campground the day before that dh had left his
annual pass at home, but luckily I had two free 1 day tickets with me, along
with my annual pass, so we used those to enter the gate and start up the hill
toward the entrance when we heard a man behind me going “lady, lady your tires
are falling apart!”
Quick
inspection showed my horse was indeed throwing a shoe! The 15+ year old anti-tip rear tires were
crumbling as I rolled along. Diligently
behind me a Silver Dollar City employee was sweeping up the crumbs as we went,
not saying a word, just sweeping quietly.
I told you it was a clean and friendly park.
Apparently
being stored in the metal trailer in last summer’s heat had caused the solid
rubber tires to disintegrate. We sat
there a moment trying to figure out what to do.
The shuttle had left, we had no transportation back to the campground to
put the scooter into the camper or truck and we had already used our pass for
the day. The employee suggested we go to
guest relations to see if they could help us.
I apologized
for leaving a trail as I went and he just smiled and said, “I’ll follow you.”
Back at the
base of the hill dh thought the disintegration had stopped because it appeared
no more was falling off so he suggested I do a few donuts in the chair to see
if it was going to start again or if perhaps we could go back up the hill and
try it again. After a few loops it was
apparent the self destruction was going to continue. So we went to Guest
Relations back outside the gate telling the gate keeper where we were going and
why. She said she would let us back in,
so that solved that problem.
Somewhere
along the way we lost our sweeper. Perhaps
he was still cutting donuts on the other side of the gate.
While my
husband was in guest relations I set in the chair outside and after a bit I
heard the familiar swish of the street sweeper slowly coming down the
walkway. I again apologized to him and
he laughed and said “I thought I had lost you.”
I replied
“Well I left you a bread crumb trail, I knew you would find me.” Then we both laughed.
Guest
relations allowed us to park our scooter in the safety of their building and
suggested we get a rental, however, no discount was offered on the rental. Dh convinced me to pay the $36 for the one
day rental, calling it my anniversary gift.
We had a
good time in the park, despite 2/3’s of the shops and shows being closed until
after April 5. The weather was perfect,
the three shows we saw were good and the staff was helpful everywhere we
went. Our annual pass discounts for food
were 10% on everything we purchased over $4 and let me say the strawberries and
ice cream were divine for our afternoon treat on that warm spring afternoon.
On our way
out we picked up my lame horse and went to wait for the 6 pm shuttle that
finally arrived at nearly 6:30 pm.
While our
cable connection was good at the campground the wi-fi was horrible and we both
gave up trying to find scooter replacement wheels early on because we could not
stay connected.
Saturday I
chanced my knees and walked the park, very slowly. We were careful with the routes we took, did
some minor window shopping repeated watching one show, Mike…can’t remember his
last name. Who did a variety show that
included unicycle riding, juggling, comedy and magic. We had seen him on America’s Got Talent a few
years ago and knew the show would be a little hokey, but fun. We had seen his show on Friday, but decided
it was worth seeing again on Saturday.
It was the same show, but it changes ever so slightly because he does
audience participation and you never know what a four year old is going to say
or do. Both times watching it was fun.
That day I
had one of their “skillets” for lunch.
Fried taters, both white and sweet, veggies, and smoked sausage, very
good.
A word about
their refillable mugs. They are
definitely worth the price. Our refills
for our 32 ounce mugs we purchased years ago, were $1.93 each, far cheaper than
the cost of a new drink every time. The cups are good indefinitely, we in fact
have glass ones from our first trip in 1975 they will still honor, although we
opted to purchase new lighter weight insulated ones many years ago. We use them once maybe twice each day we are
in the park so they have more than paid for themselves.
We took carry straps in with us and so the
cups were not the least bit inconvenient to tote. Especially the first day when we had the
scooter, which had a basket on it.
Many people
ask about food prices at amusement parks and we find they run close to the same
at various parks across the nation.
However, we found the food at Silver Dollar City this year to be
slightly higher than the food costs we had been shopping for a trip later this
year to Walt Disney World.While we love SDC, we have found that is in actuality more expensive to
go to when all things are considered than Walt Disney World.
I thought I had done how I calculated this cost comparison before for
the blogs, but I can't seem to find it. Thus a subject for another post
in the near future.
The shuttle
back to the campground arrived about 6:05 pm the second day, for which we were thankful,
because the cold front was arriving nearly a full day early.
Back at the
campsite we were glad we had already packed our lame horse in the trailer and
went to get fuel. For those of you going
to the area we have found, over the years, that the cheapest fuel is at West
Branson, our diesel there was $3.79 per gallon, and nearly $4 elsewhere.
A quick bite
at Taco Bell there in West Branson, then back to the camper to get ready to
leave on Sunday morning.
Sunday
morning started with a rather lively discussion with me wanting to stay until
the next day because a steady rain had fallen all night and the temperatures
were plummeting. Remember I am fearful
of sliding off a mountain. Dh wanted to
leave immediately because they were predicting 3-4 inches of snow in the area
by nightfall and he needed to be back to work the next day. Even though it was predicted to be 50 by mid
afternoon on Monday at Branson and he had more vacation time he could have
taken. There was a project he was working on that he needed to complete. He felt that if we left shortly the roads
would be fine due to the two previous days of 70 degrees.
It took us
less than 30 minutes to eat a cold breakfast and pack up.
My poor husband got soaked to the skin as the
wintery mix started to fall as he was dumping the sewer and disconnecting as I
sat in the warmth of the truck.
To say the
next few hours were pleasant would be a lie.
Before we were out of Branson large wet snowflakes were hitting our
windshield and the temperature was down to 31 from the 70 the day before.
The constant
fear of the “low coolant light” nagged at us as well. One quick note here, it turned out to be a
true concern because after we had replaced the water pump and hoses on the
truck that caused pressure to build up and show up problems elsewhere. Unbeknown to us the head gasket had
blown. We are lucky the whole engine did
not lock up on us. I am certainly
thankful we made it home safely.
By the time
we reached the Joplin area we were looking for a campsite because we were
hitting near white out conditions. We
finally decided we would ride it out at the Flying J at exit 11A there in
Joplin because we knew we could camp there free of charge and there was no
guarantee we would find an open campground anywhere nearby. It is after all
just mid March, hardly peak camping season.
We decided
to fuel up before we parked because the pump area was clear at that point. If
you travel with an RV I recommend getting the Pilot/Flying J FREE RV loyalty
card. It gets you discounts on your
fuel, and you accumulate points for free items. You can get one at any Fly J or
Pilot travel plaza. This trip we saved roughly $2 every time we filled up.
While paying for the fuel I asked if anyone
was coming in from the Tulsa area and how the road conditions were.
A kindly
trucker informed me that this was the worst of the storm coming through right
now and that the turnpike to Tulsa was in good shape. I repeated this to my husband and then he
went to change out of his wet clothes while I called our son to see what the
weather was like at home.
Clear, windy
and cold, no snow, no ice was his report.
He said later that right after we got off the phone there had been some light
snow, but nothing serious.
Gary and I
decided that we needed to have lunch and decide what to do next. We went into the Denny’s there at the Flying
J knowing that the service would be slow because they cook your meal after you
order it. We took advantage of this delay to use it to our benefit.
We both
pulled out our cell phones and started checking various weather reports, they
all agreed with what the trucker had told me.
In fact the minute by minute said the snow would cease in 39
minutes.
We ordered
what turned out to be the best meal, in our opinions, we had the entire
weekend. I ordered their senior’s turkey
club sandwich with seasonal fruit and dh had their chicken fried steak with
mashed potatoes, gravy, toast and corn.
We both were
delighted with our meals. My seasonal
fruit turned out to be red grapes, sliced bananas and blueberries (red, white
and blue—just like the current theme at Silver Dollar City). The fruit was the
perfect ripeness and blended well with each other. The sandwich was probably the best turkey
club I had eaten in years.
Dh said
there was no toughness at all in his chicken fried steak and the seasoning on
the corn was extremely good. We would
both recommend the meals we got at this Denny’s.
The service
was great, and we were given a discount on top of my senior meal by our
wonderful server. The only drawback to
the meal was they need a better ventilation system over their smoking area
because you could definitely still smell the cigarette smoke in the non-smoking
section.
We
understand that many truckers smoke and that is why they need a smoking section
there, but they do need to improve that a bit.
Other than that the meal was exactly what we needed I would give this
Denny’s an A+ for the food and service we got there on Sunday. With a slight
downgrade because we do not care for the smell of cigarette smoke.
Relaxed from
our meal we checked all our sources again and decided to chance it on for home
rather than sleep in an unheated camper at 29 degrees or lower over night. I don’t care to be cold either. Did I mention I am spoiled?—See the intro to
my Princess Plan blog if you have any
doubts.
By the time
we left the snow was nearly stopped and the roads were drying quickly. By the time we hit the Oklahoma border the
lack of sleep the night before and stress of the earlier driving combined with
my full tummy and the warmth of the truck soon had me drowsy. Luckily dh was not. I napped most of the rest of the way home.
As soon as
we were parked at home and unpacking was started we realized the three of us
were very hungry so it was out for pizza to finish celebrating our anniversary.
So both our
horses all pulled up lame this trip. The
repair on the dually is going to run close to $5,000 for everything, but
considering the overall good condition of the truck, and the fact we just put
$2,200 in it for other repairs it is
still much cheaper than trying to replace the truck with one of equal accessories
in this day and age. The scooter repair
should be under $100, so our simple little cheap getaway ended up costing us a
bundle, but now we will be all in good shape before our big trip later in the
year to Walt Disney World.
Being the Pollyanna I am, I feel that it was a good thing we
took this trip now rather than making the WDW trip our only trip for the
year. What if we didn’t find out about
any of these problems until we were part way to Florida? Far better now, so we can adjust budget and
work it all out, than to get high centered hundreds of miles from home.
Jan who
enjoyed herself despite it all in OK