After wringing out a couple gallons of water we went off in search of lunch. Here we'd end up getting poutine, which oddly we had not had on our 2019 visit. But one of the stands now promised vegetarian poutine, which we hadn't noticed before, and we went for that. The food stand had somehow a slower line than the roller coaster did, with particularly a weirdly long wait before people who had already ordered could pick up anything, including pop. Also the soda machine was running out of water so everything tasted a little off. This would not be the only disappointing pop we'd get at Canada's Wonderland that day, somehow.
After this, though, we went to Wilde Beast, another of the park's wooden coasters dating back to the park's opening. It's had the same name, but several different spellings, over the years, fitting its position in the Medieval Faire area. It's a sweet ride, although what caught my eye was that under the operating station they had two Crew of the Year plaques, one for 2009 and one for 2011. Both were for the Drop Tower, an adjacent ride that is not Wild[e] Beast[e]. I have no explanation for this phenomenon.
Our real hope checking this area was to see whether Leviathan, the 306-foot-tall hyper coaster, had a tolerably short line. No luck. We rode Dragon Fyre/Fire instead, a little corkscrew coaster that's again from the park's opening in 1981, and that now nestles deep in Leviathan's shadow. It gave us a good view of one of the two big coasters we hoped to ride, though.
Another ride in the area we went for, though? And not a roller coaster? Spinovator, the teacups ride, which she has fond memories of riding as a child. She also has memories of it under a name that would make sense, but lacks any mention from anyone but her and her brother's memories, Friar Tuck's TubsBuckets. The ride cars look like barrels, and it's in the Medieval Faire section of the park, so the name makes way more sense than even Spinovator does, but as far as she can find it's never had that name. It would make sense if she were remembering a similar ride at Canada's Wonderland's sister park of Kings Island, but that teacup ride was called Winnie Witch's Cauldrons, back then.
While waiting, though, we could see part of the diving show. This was a bunch of acrobatic stunts, over a fountain in the Medieval Faire section, including a couple of high-wire-walking tricks that got me worried. I can't imagine how bad this all looked to ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger, who has a more pronounced fear of heights.
We got into other park stuff, too, although a lot of it may seem like criss-crossing the park. Part of this is we wanted to try getting on rides with shorter queues and would find, for example, that The Fly --- the wild mouse coaster --- had a line maybe four weeks long. We also discovered more roller coasters closed. One was The Bat, a boomerang coaster that we probably wouldn't have ridden anyway. It's a duplicate of a ride we've been on many times, and we had ridden this particular one in 2019. Another was Wonder Mountain's Guardian, a combination roller coaster/interactive dark ride that goes through the interior of Wonder Mountain. That had a sign that the ride is ``temporarily closed due to technical difficulties'' out front. This suggested possibly something lasting for hours, maybe the day. We would learn it was more seriously closed than that, though. When we later rode Vortex, a suspended coaster that goes over top of Wonder Mountain, we could see that the entrances to the mountain for Guardian were closed off, covered with vinyl sheets. I imagine those are easy to put up and take down, but it suggests a bigger maintenance project than something just eating up a couple hours.
I mentioned yesterday how good it was that this was our second visit, and that we felt no need to do everything in the one day. We did have a good time, overall. We are fortunate that it had to do nothing more than be a day when we saw and did some fun things, though. It kept us from worrying about whether we would find Silver Streak (a roller coaster we never did set eyes on this time) or if this might be our only chance to ride the Krachenwagen (the bumper cars). It was enough for the time to be. It was already doing so much to relieve my depression. I had taken my first pill sixteen hours before; it could not be doing that much work in putting me right.
Now, though, some more of Indiana Beach, a different but just wonderful little park.
So ... no chance it'll be running later in the day, then? The Merry-go-Round --- now renamed Rocky's Round Up'' --- is completely gone, with the promise that it'll be there later in the season. To my surprise I don't have a good picture of Rocky on the sign, there, in his Park Ranger outfit. I have no explanation for this failure.
Walking down the main ``boardwalk'' of Indiana Beach. That's the Hoosier Hurricane in the background and it would, sadly, not run during the day.
Date pressed into the sidewalk. There's no (identifiable to me) mark representing who the contractor was or why they poured concrete at this date rather than sooner or later, but I imagine without knowing that it's probably when they decided they were tired of replacing wooden boards.
More of the 'boardwalk' midway. On the right is some track of the very intense Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain, which is also built over the path for the Antique Autos ride; you can see two Antique Autos cars going in opposite directions on that track.
The Water Swings merely goes out over the water, when the ride's at full speed. This is terrifying enough, though; when we rode it (in 2016) I kept having visions of my car keys launching out of my pocket and into the river below. It's not a thing that happened, though. The park also used to have a Scrambler with cars that went out over the water, which is quite the way to increase the intensity of any given ride.
And here's a look back along the park from pretty near its south end.
Trivia: In 2009 the Cartographic Journal devoted an entire issue to the use of maps and globes in movies. One essay, by Sébastien Caquard (University of Montreal), argued that a large proportion of modern digital map user interfaces and uses were presented first by movies. Source: On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks, Simon Garfield.
Currently Reading: King Con: The Bizarre Adventures of the Jazz Age's Greatest Impostor, Paul Willetts.
PS: What's Going On In Prince Valiant? Where is King Arthur that Arn and Maeve are regents? May - August 2022 in review.
