We got up early Saturday for Kennykon. Not as early as we'd need to be there at the official starting hour of 8 am; ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger, reading the schedule carefully, determined that there was a good hour or so set aside just for getting people registered and in, and we should be okay coming in the later quarter of that. I showered and remembered to not rest the arm not blow-drying my hair on the towel rack when I felt it give. bunnyhugger found that housekeeping had left four packets of coffee, all decaf. I hid the decaf coffee in the back of one of the drawers, hoping this would inspire housekeeping to restock with actual coffee. Housekeeping never came, it turned out, but we left the coffee hidden in hopes that some future guest will benefit.
bunnyhugger's phone gave us directions this time, the first time we'd made the Red Roof-to-Kennywood drive without my satellite navigator doing the hard work. Turns out that I remembered the path more or less okay, which is freaky for a drive we've never made more than once a year and haven't made at all since 2016 or 2017. We pulled up to the all-but-empty parking lot and I had to restrain myself from parking in the very first spot I saw, in this little corner of pavement, that's often a good spot when you've arrived and found the parking lot full. No, we could go, still within the free parking zones, to something as close as possible to the park's entrance, alongside the other roller coaster enthusiasts.
We noticed something odd at the parking lot: an escalator, leading to the even-higher-up parking lots farther up the hillside. We didn't remember an escalator being there. The necessity was obvious, though. The Kennywood parking lot is already uphill from the entire park, but the remote parking lot is, like, a roller coaster's height above even that.
Something was missing that we didn't register until leaving for the day, too. This was the ski lift, the alternative method for getting from the remotest parking lot down to the gate. (And, therefore, the only Kennywood ride you could go on without ever entering the park.) It turns out the ski lift was removed between our last visit in 2019 and this year, its function more than replaced by the escalator. The ski lift only ever operated on the busiest of days, ones it's not clear the park ever experienced. The last time we're aware of it running was later in the week of our visit in 2013. I'm not sure anyone even knows the last time it operated.
So, in that light, something that doesn't require staffing, and can run all the time --- the escalator was even going then, first thing in the morning, at a time when the parking lot was 99% empty. Also that isn't a terrifying way to get up and down a hill. I'm sorry never to have ridden the ski lift. bunnyhugger I suspect is a little regretful but she would not have ridden it anyway.
And now in my photo roll: Gilroy Gardens! This was a heck of a beautiful place so get ready for a couple hundred thousand pictures of trees. These are from our first trip, the 4th of July.
Our second rental car, the one that took forever to get, but that had working air conditioning. In the background, that rolling hill background we don't get at amusement parks in driving range.
And the trees lining the edge of the park. Somewhere behind there is a roller coaster; can you see supports for it?
Following the edge of the trees to the park entrance. This, too, is a tree height we just don't get at, say, Michigan's Adventure.
The entrance, a cozy little one for a low-key park.
Here, at the entrance, I took pictures of some of the topiary, completely failing to notice the circus trees nearby that are actually wild and not just a $10 1x1 scenery item in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3.
The pond underneath is something you walk on a bridge over, getting from the entrance to the main body of the park. Note the water fall on the right, and that there's a building underneath, and (on the left, distant) walkway to some attractions down there, including (if I've got the location right) the smaller kiddie carousel.
Trivia: Most of the homes on the French territory of St Pierre (off the coast of Newfoundland) built during the United States's Prohibition era were made with empty whiskey cases. Source: Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America, Peter Andreas.
Currently Reading: Cuba: An American History, Ada Ferrer.
