There is more to say about Gilroy Gardens, but you know what? The decision we made to come back on Thursday and see the park again held firm, and we would have another day in the oddly peaceful amusement park. So I'll be sharing some of my thoughts and descriptions of the place when we get to that.
Gilroy Gardens closed at about 6 pm, and it was an hour or so drive back to the vicinity of our hotel. We didn't go there, though. We wanted to go back to California's Great America. It was the 4th of July, and it was the only day the park was going to be open past sunset during our visit. And they were shooting off fireworks from ... we didn't really know where. It turned out to be from the vicinity of the Flight Deck roller coaster. We would have to decide where we wanted to see the fireworks from.
Our hope was to see it from inside the park. This was a tougher project than we imagined. Given the ample parking space of the football stadium and amusement park, and how easy it was to park when we arrived at --- and left --- on Sunday we figured there'd be somewhere for us. There was, but it took an extremely long time to find it as it turns out we were not the only people who knew there would be fireworks there that day. We spent a lot of time wandering back and forth along rows that were all filled up, occasionally seeing other cars that might be people leaving or giving up, and were not. I'm not sure that we spent a whole hour between the highway turnoff for the amusement park and actually stopping the car, but it was closer than it should have been. Also it was slow walking into the park as there was a lot of traffic, even more people trying to find a parking space that I'm not sure was there.
We finally got into the park about 8 pm, by my camera's clock, enough time to spend about two hours there. Or, an hour 45 minutes, until the fireworks started. We rode the carousel, first and most importantly, and wondered what else we might be able to ride before the fireworks started. The answer would be, apparently, not much: the park was crowded. Like, the dense crowd and long lines we expected we'd see on Sunday? We saw them Tuesday. This was largely all right; we really wanted to see the park by night, and how it looked under its own illumination. Being there was the thrill, although yes, we'd have been more thrilled to have been able to ride all the roller coasters again.
Still, we did get to some. We rode Demon, one of the park's original coasters. And we got to Berserker, the Bayern Kurve, riding that by night and, it turned out, just as the fireworks got started; we were able to see them, tree-obscured, by the end of the ride. From here we decided we'd want to go over by the carousel, which we figured would be the best cross of visibility and interesting things to silhouette the ride.
Maybe there were better places to watch the fireworks from, besides right underneath the roller coaster where they were. No telling. We were quite happy with our choice, though. Some fireworks were lost behind trees, but between the carousel, the swings, the Patriot roller coaster, and the other bits of the midway? It was good-looking.
And when the fireworks ended? It was 10 pm, the nominal end of the park's day. But, you know, they hadn't closed the queue to Gold Striker. So we ran to it and enjoyed a nicely short line for a coaster that was already one of our favorites, and here was a great wooden coaster ride at night. That's always great and we had the lights of the park and the stadium and the rivers of traffic trying to get out of the parking lot as decoration. And then ... you know what? They still hadn't closed the queue. We hopped back on.
We would do this several times, as people streamed out of the park but the rides weren't yet closed. One of the times, we got on a ride with a pack of young guys, which we didn't think much about. But at some point on the lift hill, past I guess where the ride operators pay close attention to the cameras? They all whipped off their shirts, a thing we noticed because in the tunnel over the first drop hill --- an excitement-boosting gimmick that also makes the ride quieter enough that neighbors to the amusement park stopped complaining --- when it smelled like, you know, young guy.
So they rode the coaster half-naked, putting their shirts back on before pulling back into the station. I don't know what the thinking was, or why, but as goofy stuff packs of kids will do at amusement parks goes? A little semi-nudity is just fine and harmless enough. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger and I did talk afterward about, like, did that really happen? Like, for real? Yes. At least, we both agree we saw it.
Eventually we saw them closing the Gold Striker gift shop, a clear signal that the park was starting to chase people out. And as fun as a great wooden coaster in the dark is, there is a point where we don't need quite so many re-rides in a row. We went over to the carousel, getting rides on both levels --- and having the instance where, one time, they didn't brake the coaster quite fast enough and had to reverse it to line up the gate for the upper level.
But, eventually, yeah, they started closing even these rides near the front of the park. Around 11 pm by my camera's clock the park was closed for real and good, and we took a couple last pictures and walked out of a wonderful park that we might never get to visit again.
This past week they finally finished opening the last attraction of their new NorCal County Fair area.
And now we come to the end of the Fairy Tale Festival and the visit to the Turner-Dodge House. Go ahead, guess which pinball tournament is next on the photo reel!
Scraps of Craft Project on the dining rom's carpet. Hope they have a good historically appropriate vacuum cleaner.
And this? Why, this is just an office that the Turner-Dodge House uses. Like, it's got fax machines and stuff there. Sometimes they leave the door open so you can see it's got your mix of stuff.
And this room ... uh ... I forget where it is. The floor looks kind of bathroom-y except that is not a chair I would ever put in a bathroom and I believe the bathroom has black-and-white diamond tiling instead. Sorry. I'll try and remember to check when we're back for December.
Outside again, and met back up with bunnyhugger. You can see our shadows taking simultaneous pictures of the rose trellis, roped off for some hazard.
Peering up at the balcony to see the inflatable dragon happy with their lands.
And a last look at the setting. Fewer vendors were packing up and getting ready to move out than we expected, but the day was pretty well over.
Trivia: In the winter of 1903-04 the Boston YMCA established a driving school, the first known YMCA driving school. It positioned itself for ``owners, chauffeurs, and prospective owners'' of automobiles. By mid-1905 there were more than two thousand people enrolled in YMCA driving schools. Source: Wondrous Contrivances: Technology at the Threshold, Merritt Ierley.
Currently Reading: The Total Package: The Evolution and Secret Meaning of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Tubes, Thomas Hine.
