Yeah so I didn't get back to yesterday's post to edit it up more. Probably just as well; I want to treat these essays like they have a deadline and shouldn't make more than necessary editing changes after it's passed.
So after setting foot in the Pacific Ocean and wandering around the beach a little, we dried our feet as best we could, and brushed off as much sand as possible, and went to the rides. First up: the carousel. Santa Cruz's carousel, bought from the Loof factory in 1911, and still in its original location according to the National Carousel Association census. Even more notable, it has the ring dispenser still. Brass ring dispensers used to be common on carousels --- grabbing one, as opposed to the more common steel rings, got you a free ride --- but they've mostly disappeared. People like to blame the insurance companies, afraid of having to pay out for injuries caused by leaning way out on a spinning platform to grab a metal ring from a wooden arm. I suspect it's more that with the rise of the pay-one-price park, there's no prize to win, so why bother with the extra staffing and work required?
Santa Cruz avoided these problems a couple ways. One is that the ring arm is automated, and has been from the 50s, reducing that problem. Another is that there are no brass rings; they're all steel. The point is not to win a free ride, but to toss the ring into the mouth of a clown painted on the wall. Hit the target and the nose lights up and sirens go off and everyone on the ride applauds your good aim. When we arrived we saw a disheartening sign on the arm: the ring was not operating. That hurt. The ride was there, of course, and the horses looked as great as ever. There were three, three band organs, taking their turns playing music. And we could ride a rare antique (only about a half-dozen Looff carousels are still operating) but ...
The sign was a lie. Or at least our understanding of it was incomplete. The rings were dispensed when we rode, and we were able to grab them, each time we went around on the outer horses. I'd see the sign warning it wasn't in operation in-between later rides. I'm not sure if they put it down in-between every ride or if the sign --- which naturally falls open to say the rings aren't working, and has to be closed back up --- tends to fall down a lot.
Grabbing the rings turned out not to be hard. Certainly easier than at Knoebels or Gillian's Wonderland Pier, two of the other remaining brass-ring carousels we've been to. Tossing them in the clown mouth, now, that's hard. You have less than a second after grabbing a ring to line up and make your shot, and the clown's mouth isn't large. And, given that you're thinking how you don't have much time, the tendency is to toss early --- when you're worked up you usually move faster than you should --- so you can see all these rings and how they hit to the audience's right of the clown face. Also the rings are surprisingly greasy. Not sure if it's worse if the grease is leaking from the machinery or if it's accumulated human sweat and skin debris. Probably the debris is worse.
Nevertheless, as the carousel was slowing down, I got the last of the rings, and dropped it right in the clown mouth, raising a ruckus and getting a round of applause. Sweet.
Well, now, what's next on the photo roll?
Oh! Oh, we're up to California's Great America, first trip, in the photo reel already. Well, here's where we parked, in the original car without air conditioning, and you can see the park behind and how that sure doesn't look like a packed day, right?
And here's the pavilion entrance that I just assumed was the gate, or had been the front gate at one time, and was not. Note the line wending past it, though.
You see the entrance gates? No? Well, look at that line of people and keep going to the right, over to where the flags are. The entrance is behind those structures, which are metal detectors used for identifying teenagers.
I walked back to the car with the report about where the entrance was, and already the line had grown this much longer behind us. Football stadium in the background there, which would host a soccer match later in the day that forced the park to close at only 7 pm.
And here's what the line looked like. Would you give up on this? Note ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger sending a short text to JTK. (She has to send short texts as her phone isn't big enough for long texts.)
Getting closer! The line was in fact moving well, and as many people as this looks like? It's nowhere near the maximum number of people the park can hold. It's just everyone getting there at the start of the day we were dealing with here.
Trivia: T Boone Pickens made about $500 million in his 1982-84 attempt at buying Gulf Oil, without successfully taking over Gulf Oil. Source: The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. (Chevron, Standard Oil of California, took over Gulf instead.)
Currently Reading: The World In A Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, Vince Reiser.
