Småland vacation, day 2: High Chaparral

The reason we chose to come to this area was a theme park called High Chaparral.  Instead of rides, it has skits, shows and activities based on wild west themes in general and a the Belgian comic/TV series Lucky Luke in particular.  Carl was a huge Lucky Luke fan, but we'd never seen it before.  We arrived just in time for the Lucky Luke show which was the headline performance of the day.  As one who grew up with the orderly lines of Disneyland, I was shocked by the lack of crowd control.  A mob gathered in front of the arena's only entrance.  Then the train came and forced its way through the mob.  When they finally opened the door, everyone forced their way in with much pushing and shoving.  There were some bleachers, but not nearly enough, so a lot of people had to stand or sit on the ground.

Lucky Luke is the good guy, and he is always catching the same bumbling bad guys who always escape.  No more explanation of the plot was necessary, which is a good thing because the sound system was so bad that we couldn't understand the dialog anyhow.

After the show, we explored the rest of the park.  It was a bit of a let down for one expecting Disneyland-like excitement, but on the other hand, it was calm, relaxing, and a nice way to spend the day socializing with friends.  We rode the steam boat, the steam train and the stage coach.  We poked around an Indian village and a Mexican village, and we had Mexican food for lunch.  Taco Bell would have been proud--but then again, it was as good as expected for here in Sweden.  The kids tried shooting a bow and arrow, throwing an axe, and panning for gold.  Of course we bought them toy guns too, as every kid there ran around shooting everything that moved.

We also saw genuine Mexican dancers (all the way from Tijuana, Mexico) and Native American dancers (from Canada).  Lina and I really enjoyed the Indian dancers.  We also saw the Wild West (stunt) show which was quite good.

Unfortunately, by this time Carl was getting frustrated with the language.  When we visited Astrid Lindgren's World a couple of years ago, he had no problem understanding what was going on even though all the characters spoke Swedish.  This time, he had a much harder time with it.

To complete the evening, we attended the interactive Lucky Luke dinner show.  Oddly, this started an hour after the park closed, so we passed the time at the pub which had a more modern show.

Lina was really into the interactive program and enjoyed acting.  Carl was, shall we say, done.  We had expected this to be the highlight of his vacation, but instead he mostly sulked and watched shyly from the sidelines while his mom translated.

Vacation in Småland

Well I'm embarrassed. I can't believe I haven't blogged here since August, and hardly at all over the whole summer. Besides working (which you can read about in my photography blog), I did have some fun too.

One of the highlights of the summer was a mini vacation in July where we went to Småland with our Danish friends. Småland is in Sweden about 3-4 hours north of where we live. While that might sound like it's quite close, the landscape is actually quite different. While we live in Skåne, Småland is both topographically and culturally Sweden proper.

Småland is hilly and dotted with lakes. Conifers dominate the forests, and even the architecture is different.


Since we were relatively late confirming our plans, and July is peak season, we had a hard time finding a house or cabin to rent, but as it turned out, the house we found was perfect! It was on a farm with cats, dogs, sheep and horses about 15 minutes away from the tourist areas. The scenery was gorgeous, and the landlord was really nice and helpful.

We didn't arrive at our destination until mid-afternoon, so we took it easy, getting settled in and going grocery shopping. The kids really enjoyed bottle feeding Pyrett the lamb. I think Erik and I were more amused by Frank, her rather grouchy companion.