I mentioned the queue for the Garlic Twirl as the most beautiful of Gilroy Gardens's. So it is. But others have their highlights too. The sidewalk path leading to Timber Twister --- a small family coaster not quite the kind you might expect to see at a county fair, but just a step up from that --- has the imprints of Michael Bonfante's dog in the concrete. They also have a sign pointing out this charming feature, and compares it to the sandstone fossils of animals as much as 500 million years old. I suppose they felt the botanical garden becoming an amusement park was easier if the amusement park had some educational mission too. (They always have.) Our first attempt to ride Timber Twister was foiled by the ride going down; we'd come back near the end of the day and though the ride went down again, we stuck it out and got a ride in time for the last hour of the day.
There's a lot of just beautiful scenery at the park. There are something like a half-dozen proper gardens, that you walk through, with nothing but plants and sometimes signs explaining the plants to distract you. Occasionally a circus tree, although those are more often confined to the starts of paths or spots near rides.
And it blends into the rides too. One of the longest waits we had --- and one of the park's signature rides --- is the Rainbow Garden Round Boat Ride. It's small, circular boats, drifting along a lazy river-type path, surrounded by plants and the occasional distant view of rides or crowd noises or such. It's a peaceful, pleasant trip. The only mark against it is that the boats are dispatched two at a time, so you don't quite get the sense of being all alone in the midst of an implausibly scenic river. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger at least tossed a bit of a tease out at the kids in our companion boat, promising them that they wouldn't get very wet in the waterfall, and then had to reassure them there was no waterfall, it's just a river ride.
Sometimes the rides blend into the attractions. They have, for example, a butterfly house, a building so large and airy it felt a little odd to put on a mask going inside. (bunnyhugger loaned me one of her KN95's, a mask that folds into a compact flat piece, and that's very convenient for a park like this. I think it's more comfortable than the disposable N95's I've been getting from Ace Hardware too, although those are surprisingly variable in their fit.)
The monorail, though, an elevated structure whose ride announcements still proclaim the place Bonfante Gardens? It weaves through a neat path --- and above a couple circus trees --- and comes back around through the butterfly garden, above the pedestrian level but close enough to a couple 'magnifying glasses' with cartoony bugs being silly to explain why those props are so far above the ground. Also passing through the butterfly garden is the Bonfante Railroad Train Ride, the narrow-gauge train. It makes for a stacking of rides and spectacles that warms our hearts.
Gilroy Gardens's other roller coaster --- the one whose ride operator we heard offering people a re-ride, early in the day --- is the Quicksilver Express Mine Coaster. Though it has a mining theme, and a queue with a lot of photographs and posters about quicksilver mines that maybe even actually existed, it's not a mine train coaster. It does hug the terrain, giving it a thrill beyond its modest height and speed, and it has a couple nice tunnels. And as it returns to the station you get a view of something hidden behind the ride sign --- an animatronic of several raccoons making mischief with barrels of black powder. They do some giggling, which baffled bunnyhugger when she first heard them without seeing the raccoons, who are placed where you don't see them, you discover them.
And that's the park experience, in a sentence. It's full of things you discover. It makes for a soothing experience, if it makes sense for an amusement park to be a place that makes you feel more calm and at peace. It's not a dull park, and it is a fun place. But it's a sort of fun that feels more energy-providing than draining, like you could just keep going. Maybe I was just in good spirits, with the annoyance of the car swap receding into history. But it felt like a place I really wanted to be. And, more ...
Before we had gotten back around to the Timber Twister, I was worried we wouldn't get to riding all two coasters. Or even to all the attractions that were most interesting. I suggested that we plan to come back, for the Thursday that we still hadn't accounted for. bunnyhugger was up for this. Even after we got to Timber Twister, and the train ride, I felt: I wanted to come back to this. It would close off our getting out to Sacramento --- where a family entertainment center had gotten the Wild Mouse which was bunnyhugger's and my first roller coaster together, back in 2008. (Seaside Heights sold it off, after dismantling it for inspection in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.) But, wow, this felt like a place worth it.
Prowling around inside the Turner-Dodge House a little more, here.
The fireplace --- with coal scute --- for the main bedroom. You can also get a glimpse of me in the mirror.
Some of the many various crocks of things left beside the bed. Around here is where I completely lost contact with bunnyhugger and also where a guy came in and was stunned when he noticed me breathing because ``I thought you were a statue!''. To this I said ``thank you,'' the weirdest possible way of answering. I panicked. I followed up by saying it meant my ankles were still good, making it a little less of a statement from Outer Mars.
The old-fashioned telephone hanging in the hallway. Bet kids don't even know how to take a ``selfie'' on this!
Oh, and this was a statue, out in the hallway, which makes it a little more sensible that the guy mistook me for a statue in the next room.
And what's happening downstairs, in the dining room? Crafts! Lots of crafts!
Pretty sure my parents have that rug, so it's maybe not vintage for the house. Also, that girl on the far right is extremely determined to get this craft project done thank you so she can go back to doing other stuff.
Trivia: By 2020 there were more than 2,700 Trans-Neptunian Objects known to be in the solar system. Two thousand of them had not yet received numbers, owing to the lack of sufficient data to determine their orbits. Source: Asteroids, Clifford J Cunningham.
Currently Reading: The Total Package: The Evolution and Secret Meaning of Boxes, Bottles, Cans, and Tubes, Thomas Hine. Have to credit Hine here: I hadn't made the connection that part of the role of packaging is replacing the connection between customer and storekeeper with one between customer and industrial concern, and it's startling to read of, like, early Uneeda Biscuits advertising pointing out how the old barrel of crackers got all gross even when the poor store clerk was doing his best while their package-wrapped stuff was clean clean.
