So. An hour after getting to Canada's Wonderland we were finally through the gates. I was not happy, at that point, and was maybe needlessly dismissive of the park guy offering to take our photograph in front of the main midway and reflecting pool and Wonder Mountain, the (artificial) centerpiece of the park's front. I explained to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger as best I understood the problem and its resolution and we agreed they could have fixed the whole thing if they'd just told us at guest relations to chill out for ten minutes.
Thinking for what to do, I suggested looking for the Mighty Canadian Minebuster. It's one of their original roller coasters, a wooden one and based for some reason on the Shooting Star that used to be at the Coney Island in the Queen City. I have no explanation for why this wasn't built at Kings Island, which supplanted Coney Island and would have an audience that would recognize or appreciate what it was going for, but such are the ways of the 70s regionalization of the amusement park industry.
But we stopped on the way for the carousel. That's an antique and, something I keep forgetting to tell my father about, the carousel which used to be at Palisades Park in New Jersey. My father has certainly ridden it and there's a chance my mother had. It was running pretty well, at I think it was four rotations per minute --- not fast enough, but at least respectable --- and the horses were in good shape. It's also one of the handful of carousels where the horses in front of the chariot are yolked, so that they carry the illusion of pulling the chariot forward.
The day was hot and sunny, but the weather forecast warned of scattered storms. The hourly forecast, for example, promised a high chance of rain at about noon. We weren't deterred by this. For one, we had already been to Canada's Wonderland so even if we didn't ride everything --- and we didn't; we didn't even come close --- it was all right; we didn't have to. Revisiting a park takes a lot of the pressure off to experience the full thing. But for another, a good storm at the right time of day could thin the crowd out. We were thinking once again of that time at Great Adventure that an hourlong storm in the early afternoon left the park almost deserted the rest of the day. If you have a season pass, after all, and live in the area, why not come back on a better day?
So while we were in the long line for Minebuster we watched clouds rolling in and I mostly hoped that they'd hold off until after our ride. When I felt the first drops of rain I thought, oh, we're doomed; they'll shut everything down until well after the storm is passed. But, no: they did not. They dispatched a couple more trains and even as the weather got worse, they showed no indication they were planning to shut things down. Not unless lightning struck, I guess, which was not in the forecast. Finally it was our turn.
And the rain was getting serious, like, downpour serious. One woman ahead of us in the train waved for the operators, getting off rather than go out into that mess. I was ready to hear that they were stopping operations altogether, because this was now the sort of heavy rain that limits visibility. bunnyhugger and I both thought about getting off --- I think we asked each other if we should and talked one another out of it --- but then, yeah, they dispatched the train, which gets up to 55 miles per hour, into the rain. ``This is gonna hurt,'' bunnyhugger prophesied, correctly.
The rain kept coming harder as we ratcheted up the lift hill, and then, we reached the peak and it was then beyond anyone's power to do anything. We were riding and it was fast and I can't tell you much of what happened because my eyes closed rather than keep being stung by the raindrops. Every time I tried to peel them open I couldn't, between the rain and the fear that sunscreen was being washed into them. The brief segment in a tunnel was a welcome chance to wipe this mass of sweat and rain and sunscreen off my face and then we were back in the drink. It was fast, it was wild, it felt more out-of-control than we had any reason to expect. When we got to the braking station the train applauded, laughing.
The storm passed, as promised by the hourly updates spending just a couple minutes over Toronto. Even the train after us had a much lesser rain to ride through. bunnyhugger compared it to one time at Kennywood that she rode the Jackrabbit in the rain, with a similar dangerous-feeling ride and stung eyes and applause at the return on a singular trip.
We came out soaked and bedraggled and it would be a couple hours in the sun before we fully dried out. We looked absurd and silly and I wondered if we'd lost all the sunscreen we had carefully applied an hour before. (Based on how we tanned over the weekend, no, we were basically okay.) And in the singular weather event, goodness but did all the irritation at how the day started wash away, not to be seen again.
Let's see what's new at Indiana Beach because we were very excited by that.
A new thing at Indiana Beach was this historical center, decorated with a great many vintage signs and such.
More of the historical center, although note that the signs pointing to Fascination and Skee Ball were legitimate and correct. Indiana Beach is one of the holdout parks that still has the rolling-ball game.
Indiana Beach ephemera such as, apparently, some special issue of Coca-Cola that must be from about 2006 (based on the ``come celebrate 80 years''). Note mascot I.B.Crow there with the park slogan, ``There's more than corn in Indiana!''
And here's the path into the main park. Indiana Beach is very landlocked so right there you see (in front) the miniature railroad tracks, which are underneath the joint supports for the Hoosier Hurricane and the Cornball Express roller coasters, which are above some of the flat rides such as, to the right, an Eli 6 Ferris wheel.
Oh and there's something new. A section of park around the picnic paviliions and some of the children's rides was marked as ``Rocky's Toy Box''. Rocky's the new(?) mascot for their campground area but he's got some presence in the main park too.
Here's the Eli 6 Ferris wheel. That'd be from the Eli Bridge Company, which also makes Scramblers.
Trivia: One of his bankers in Cuba (W S Lambie), claimed that Milton Hershey would --- around 1930 --- draw as much as $50,000 per month to play at the casinos. Source: Hershey: Milton S Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams, Michael D'Antonio. (This was all Hershey's personal funds; the chocolate company was in the hands of the school trustees.)
Currently Reading: King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor, Paul Willetts. Another book I just picked up while wandering around the library, although oddly the university rather than the main public library. Doesn't that title sound like something you'd see on display at the city library, though?
