There's a couple things we always want to do come the end of the year, which does result in a packed week between Christmas and New Year's. One of the things we always get to is Crossroads Village. It's an historic village set up just outside Flint, with a small town's worth of buildings salvaged from the Genesee County area. From Thanksgiving to New Year's they give all historic authenticity a pass and smother the place in lights. We wouldn't miss it.
Also this year I remembered, earlier than usual, that my new camera is pretty good at low-light pictures. I'd realized this near the end of the train ride the previous year. This year I was able to take more pictures of the show and I'm even happy with some of them. At least until the windows fogged over and couldn't be wiped clean. There was a lot of fogging up of the windows; people were scraping their windows with credit cards. We have to remember to bring a washcloth next time.
Besides this we did walk around the village, with the focuses of getting some kettle corn and getting to the carousel. I think that the Ferris wheel wasn't running, possibly due to the cold; we had a chillier December than the last couple of years, and snow on the ground for the first time in three or four years. The carousel was still in good form, though, the horses dressed with red and green blankets for the holiday. And also still running fast, the six rotations per minute that made ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunny_hugger's mother swear off riding. The rummage sale beside the carousel has been good in the past for trophies for the top of pinball tournaments, but this time didn't turn out to have anything usable.
We did choose to go to the last showing of their Christmas Melodrama this year. It had the same actors as we'd seen a couple times before. The play was different, albeit still on the theme of ``nasty 19th century boss is figuring to smother the little town of Crossroads Village until the plucky young couple save the day''. This time they save the day by being around when a woman from a bigger banking firm comes in with information about The Will. The plays aren't ever deep, nor would they be, but it's always fun to watch, not least because they've got a really great heavy for the shows. I do wonder if they put on plays the rest of the year and, if so, what part he plays in those.
The train ride takes about an hour, if you count the time lining up and boarding and all that. The play is closer to twenty minutes. These facts always combine to make me think that the Village --- which has to wait for twilight at least to be a good show --- should be open later than it is. But, no, it closes at 9:00, and that always makes the night seem like it ended too soon. I've still got some kettle corn kernels in my car, in the spots hard to vacuum clean.
Trivia: In 1881 the Central Branch of New York City's YWCA started teaching eight women to typewrite. Source: The Wonderful Writing Machine, Bruce Bliven Jr.
Currently Reading: Vitamania: Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection, Catherine Price.
PS: Saturday for Pinball At The Zoo, 2017.
Instructions! AJH giving direction to the people lucky enough to make it into finals. If you look close at the display you can see how barely I squeaked in to the B Division.
Fixing a glitch on Viking. Note the ball being held on the right flipper while the machine's opened up and the glass slid off.
I told you this is where I can get a Moxie around here, didn't I?
