This place is so odd. We went somewhere similar in Vegas over spring break, and Wild West City is a little cleaner and better taken care of. But, it’s one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-on-paper kind of places. An old west town! For kids! With pony rides and a replica of Dodge City! And a little train! My cowgirl-, horse-, train-loving daughter would be in heaven.

Yay, rides!

This is amazing!

Then you get there, and after about 20 minutes of fun riding a pony and all of the quarter slot pony rides, some actors come out and stage a bank robbery. Complete with shooting someone dead right there in the middle of the kid-centered Dodge City replica.

See that guy? He’s about to play dead.

And your tender-hearted three-year-old, who cries whenever someone is mean on TV, bursts into terrified tears right there in the middle of cowboy town. While other kids who have more experience with live shows and violent TV step over the actor playing dead like it’s a normal Friday.

She rallied. But we didn’t stay for too long. We hit up the gift shops for some cowgirl gear to take home (and sidenote: where are all the cowgirls in this town? I only saw women running the gift shops, not dressed up doing cowboy stuff). There was a cute train ride around the park, and we did that.

Look, this is nice. A train ride! Oh, wait.

But we were the only people on the train, at one point it stops so a bandit can come and ask you for your gold and silver. He tried to banter with H, but she was in no mood. When we pulled away she looked at me and said, “Home?”

So we went.

PS: On the way out of the parking lot, a black bear cub ran out into the road in front of me. Black bear cubs are ENORMOUS, I think I spontaneously grew ten new gray hairs.