One more essential ride at California's Great America, and the one besides the roller coasters and carousel we want to know Cedar Fair's plans for. This is Berserker, one of the park's original rides. It's a Bayern Kurve, one of the few still operating. It's the only one currently operating in the United States; Kennywood's was removed at the end of 2020. Knoebels is, of course, building one, but it's not there yet. The ride is tucked near the back of the park, near The Grizzly and another roller coaster, The Demon. We came around to riding it surprisingly late in the day, but that's really just to say it wasn't one of the first three things we did in the park.
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bunnyhugger and I were lucky to just miss the previous ride cycle --- there was a decent line for this --- and so be in place to have our pick of seats on the next ride. We marched fairly quickly to the front of the park, bunnyhugger moving faster as she heard the unstoppable footfalls of squealing children behind her. She sat down in a car that, turns out, had a small bag of not-finished Takis (or something as good), that she had to explain to the ride operator doing the safety check wasn't hers and she just wanted it not in the way for the ride.
Really would be nice if Cedar Fair moved it to a park near us, whenever Great America does close. More important that they keep the ride at all, though.
A lot of what we like about park-going is exploring the place, though. That and seeing the history of a place, when it has one. Your modern well-manicured, well-themed park fights against this, of course; even when they change things, they try to fit the new together so it all looks deliberate. You can find traces, though. For example, the skyride at Great America is called the Delta Flyer. (On one end. The other end is Eagle's Flight.) This must be a relic of the years the park spent as Paramount's Great America, and I suppose Cedar Fair's confidence that while they didn't keep the Star Trek: Voyager license, Paramount wouldn't have a trademark case against them. (Making me go ``huh'' is that Cedar Fair got a ten-year license to use the Paramount names and properties, but dropped them after a year. Cedar Fair has now that ten-year lease on the Great America land, the first year of which is about to end.)
There are other traces of the Paramount history. One of the roller coasters is named Flight Deck, which --- like Flight Deck at King's Island and at Canada's Wonderland --- used to be named Top Gun, and now has a Generic Naval Pilot theme. I was half-expecting to find a Backlot Stunt Coaster, but no, the third of those is at Kings Dominion.
There are subtler ways that parks show their histories, though. I mentioned how the entrance to the park reminded me of King's Island and Canada's Wonderland, parks which only became sister parks to Great America in 1985. Much of the look and the feel of the park reminded me of King's Island, particularly in the swooping curves of the midways and the floral decorations. Also that the park has got hills, which, like, Cedar Point and Michigan's Adventure just do not. On reflection, I wonder if that's why the park did remind me so of King's Island.
In another aspect Great America reminded us of Michigan's Adventure, a sister park since only 2007: the food. Again, we didn't know what to expect, beyond that there would be pizza or cheese fries, but we could hope for more. If there was, we didn't find it. We also didn't find an open Auntie Anne's, or at least we thought we could do better, though the pretzel stand hsa become one of our Michigan's Adventure go-tos.
We chose to eat at the Food Festival, which is pretty much a food court, located near the newly-renovated North California Fair area. It's got stalls for several genres of food. Also a central ordering touch-screen menu that we did not like but were willing to put up with, and we ordered ... something or other from the Mexican stand, I think it was. Then, after we had paid, we discovered the Mexican stand was closed for the day, a thing we might have known had we gone up to it and ordered from the stand like civilized people.
Instead, then, we had to go to the customer service counter and get refunds, a process that apparently the clerk we finally got to pay attention to us had never attempted before. He disappeared in back for three, maybe four hours and came back promising a manager would be there soon. In geologic terms, she was, only to disappear again for an unexplained gap, before coming back again and reversing the charges. We ended up getting, I think it was, some okay veggie burgers and fries. And, after that, some soft-serve ice cream.
So while we found something to eat at the park, it wasn't all that interesting, or anything particularly distinctive or unique to the Bay Area locale. I assessed the park as being King's Island in the streets, Michigan's Adventure in the kitchen. They also didn't have Freestyle Coke machines, a gap Michigan's Adventure had until this year, when they got one.
But enough of Great America for a moment. How about we look at the sad fact that Anthrohio has to end, and did?
By now the headless lounge had closed, but they set up a couple fans and water bottles in the wings off-stage behind the dance. This is how I was in place to get this shot of the dance DJ, working.
It's over? Already? ... Yes, the Dead Dog has danced and we at least now have time to actually say hi to Pakrat before leaving.
bunnyhugger holds court about Kant or something since the dance is over.
Later still, she went out as Velveteen and we got to hang out with some people outside the hotel.
Gasp! Deer who's delighted by whatever was under discussion here.
Even the board game room was emptied out, although I don't know that they were closed by the time I took this photo. Just nothing going on, though.
Trivia: On the 15th of August, 1973, the mobile launcher for the Skylab 4/3 booster sustained several lightning strikes. Several components on the Command/Service Module, mostly guidance system units, were replaced. Source: Skylab: A Chronology, Roland W Newkirk, Ivan D Ertel, Courtney G Brooks. NASA SP-4011. Yes, this happend to Skylab 3/2's booster too.
Currently Reading: The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery Of The World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine, Benjamin Wallace.
PS: What's Going On In The Phantom (Sundays)? Was there a point to that whole Sunday Phantom story? May - August 2023 with the last (for now) of the furries, so if that's something you want to see, check it out now.
