Dec 24 2008
Hualapai Winter Wonderland
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called Christmas on Hualapai Mountain, about the winter wonderland that was being created at Hualapai Mountain Park on December 20. I almost didn’t write this follow-up, since I wasn’t able to attend the event. However, based on an article that was in our local paper yesterday, I felt compelled to do so.
I wanted to go to the event, but my husband had to work that day, and we wouldn’t have gotten there until towards the end of the event. Turns out, it’s a good thing we didn’t go. They were so overwhelmed with the turnout that cars were turned away. It’s estimated that around 1500 people showed up for the event, and they were planning on a maximum of 1000. At least, that’s the number of cups of hot chocolate they went through before running out.
Cars waited for at least an hour to get into the park, and many of them were turned away. Some of the cars that were turned away had young kids that were wanting to see Santa. Imagine having to tell your child that they couldn’t see Santa, when they were just that close.
This town is a small town and doesn’t have a mall. Families would have had to go into Laughlin or Bullhead City to see a mall Santa. I don’t recall Santa being at Wal-Mart this year either, so this may have been the only opportunity for a lot of local families and kids to visit Santa.
Being a small town, there’s not a lot of entertainment opportunities either. So, when there’s a local event, the town turns out. The organizers of this event shouldn’t have been surprised at the turnout. And they really shouldn’t have turned away visitors, especially those with kids who wanted to see Santa. I can understand them wanting to close the event as scheduled, but they turned away cars at least 1/2 hour before the event was scheduled to end. They should have at least let the cars that were in line into the event.
Hopefully, if the organizers do this event again in the future, it will be planned better.
