Today we went to this crazy insane place up the way called Roadside America, where a man and his family created a 1600 square foot 'miniature village' with all kinds of madness going on. A major highlight is a ritual where the room is darkened to 'night' every half hour to show a slide show of Jesus while patriotic music plays.
The brainchild of Laurence Gieringer, he worked on it for 50+ years, and shows a sort of sanitized scatological history of America. Areas get more and more modern until Mr. Gieringer died in the 60's. So 196? is modern day in the large room. It was awesome. Insane insane awesome. I wouldn't travel 2 hours to see it, but 40 minutes is cool. It wrecked areas of my brain while clean and sober, going there on drugs should be a right of passage or something. To make matters worse, I can get into detailed creation projects. I could be sucked into a downward spiral of miniaturized world building. My wife looked at me sideways with a 'don't even think about it' expression more than once. I too could build my own safe happy place where nobody can impose dirty dirty reality on my addled mind, then my descendants can charge folks to enter my world long after I'm dead.
It's worth those 6 bucks, all the way. The sign out front says 'Be prepared to see more than you expect', which is of course impossible - but a fun mental exercise none the less.
While there is a lot to sort of poke fun at from a jaded modern perspective - there is a lot more to truly marvel at and enjoy. It was a labor of love, and is a testament to a form of entertainment that is going extinct. It has brought joy to generations of people.
That said, oh to have been accompanied by a dwarf in a Godzilla costume!
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