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Kennywood's oldest roller coaster, and (I think) second-oldest ride, the Jackrabbit, turned a hundred in the cursed year of 2020. Among the things given the ride in coincidental compensation were a new ride logo --- one evocative of its old-fashioned look --- and a gate over the entrance. These are some of the things that changed at the park between our visit in 2019 and our KennyKon 2023 experience.
The new entry gate is an arch. In theme it reminded me of the entrance gate to Lost Kennywood, itself a smaller version of the gate to Pittsburg's Luna Park. But this is a much smaller and simpler one, fitting over the narrow path into the queue. The ride has the new logo on its front; we've lost the detailed but faintly Pixar-movie-ish logo of a rabbit strapping a jet engine on his back. The park has kept the historic plaque talking about the ride's original construction, though, complete with the bit covered over to correct the date of its building to 1920. You know a park is great when the historical markers have history. The lights in the station were LEDs impersonating neon, although I don't remember if that's how it was in 2019 also. Some of the attractions still have neon, but ... sigh ... I understand the logic in switching to LEDs.
The arch also styles the ride's name as Jack-Rabbit.
While we were in line, someone of the ride staff went into the closet of whatever mysteries they have on the Jack-Rabbit platform. I assume some kind of utility shed. Ah, but someone else, not knowing where she was, put down the wooden block that kept the door from opening. So there was a little pause between unloading and dispatching the next train as the staff tried to figure out what the racket was and why it was coming from --- oh.
Also sporting some new looks: the Kangaroo. The Kangaroo is the last publicly operating ``flying coaster'' flat ride in the United States. It's cars on wheels that go in a circle, but the track has a gentle hill that the cars then drop off. It broke Pittsburgh's heart when it, along with the Bayern Kurve, Paratrooper, and some other ride I forget were removed after the 2019 season. After a year of their every social media post being drowned by people arguing the Kangaroo question they returned the ride, with a new queue, fresh paint job, and a ride sign that's got that mid-century vibe to it.
It's handsome and feeds the question of whether renovating the ride was Kennywood's real plan all along. I'm inclined to think no, they wouldn't put themselves to a year of this if they didn't have to. Learning from that little Kennywood book that they took the Kangaroo out once before, for a couple years, so I guess they just figured they'd do the deed and that would be it.
Now, the Turtle, another ride we had to get to, didn't look any different. The ride operator did mention how it was the only of that ride still going --- Conneaut Lake Park's was destroyed with the rest of the park --- to reinforce the historic everything of Kennywood. The ride doesn't look different from how it did in 2019. But it does sound different. In some weird burst of Internet memery creeping into the real world, the ride now has audio clips. Not the operator chanting ``turtle turtle'', an alleged onomatopoeia for the ride's chugging sound. But clips from the Turtle Club scene from Dana Carvey's unseen movie The Master Of Disguise. The end of the ride even comes with the question, ``am I not turtle-y enough?'' It's kind of cute but I'd rather they just went with the ride operator saying ``turtle turtle'' into the PA system now and then.
Enough of how Kennywood changed over the years. Let's look at Gilroy Gardens in one snapshot on one particular day.
Getting away from the car rides here's .... oh, a kiddie car ride! Gil's Driving School. Gil is one of the park's two mascots, a garlic clove. Also you can get a 'Driver's Licence Photo' there and somehow we failed to get such a wonderful throwback sort of souvenir.
Here's the mushroom swing. Don't those mushrooms look like they're swinging?
If Robert Oppenheimer worked at Coney Island. (Too soon?)
I did not know this, or much of anything about Eastern White Pines! Huh.
Anyway, back to the mushroom swing, in the middle of mushroom swinging.
And here is where the park grows its Hollies. Also a couple Natalies and a few Evelyns.
Trivia: In an interview with The New York Times about the April 1937 strike and riot in the chocolate factory Milton Hershey blamed the conflict on ``four or five'' workers who ``misled'' the others, and explained he could see to his employees' welfare better than they could themselves. Source: Hershey: Milton S Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams, Michael D'Antonio.
Currently Reading: Cuba: An American History, Ada Ferrer.
