The week after the Jackson County Fair was the Calhoun County Fair. This was a mildly inconvenient bit of timing. ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunny_hugger had some photos she hoped to enter in both, and since she had to bring her entries to Calhoun on Saturday, and couldn't pick up the Jackson photos until Sunday, she had to make and mount duplicates of several pictures. Thus did the goal of recouping the production costs by the winnings fall farther out of reach.
And in another mild disappointment, her parents didn't want to come. This is the closest county fair to their home and they'd gone most years through to about 2017 or so. We miss their presence for many reasons, not least that we don't like how they don't get out of the house to do things anymore. I understand their reasons for not doing as much but ... you know, a day out of the house especially after the last couple years is so healing. We would bring them elephant ears, getting the last bunch of the day over to them fast enough that they were still tolerably warm and enjoyable, at least.
So the important things. bunny_hugger's photos. When we got to the hall with the photos --- a section threatening to overwhelm the display barn, with crafts like knitting and such unable to keep up --- the first of bunny_hugger's pictures I saw had no award on it. And worse, the second one didn't either. I had fears of how inconsolable she would be.
But that was the last unsuccessful photo. The rest of her entries were accepted with delight by the judges. I do not remember the exact breakdown of what ribbons she received --- bunny_hugger can tell you better --- but she kept on finishing in the top three. Even better: she won two ``best in class'' pictures, one for an all-but-sepia photograph of a winsome house in the wintertime, and another for ... well, a portrait of me at Crossroads Village. What can I say, cameras like the way I smile. These are the ribbons, that both of us kept inadvertently upgrading to ``best in show'', with the huge rosettes of ribbon behind, just like they came to life from a can of Pabst. As you can imagine, this set us for a quite happy remainder of the day.
And something worth mentioning about the rides. Other than the lack of roller coasters. They had the usual ones of interest to us there --- the 5 rpm carousel, the Ferris wheel, this small version of a Himalaya/Musik Express here called the Silver Streak, and so on. Also a Zipper, that's a really interesting ride that neither of us really wants much to ride, but that we probably will have to someday as they're becoming rarer. But what I had not appreciated until we got onto their Not A Scrambler But The Same Idea From Another Company was that the fairgrounds had apparently upgraded their park electrical from 120 to 240 volts. Because these rides were fast and intense.
Like, the Silver Streak was a lot but we expect that to be a lot in a non-chain-amusement-park setting. But the Not-A-Scrambler was intense enough we both felt the ride was almost at the point of going too long. At that I was glad to spend a few minutes not moving fast after that. And then, with our last ride tickets ...
Well, I wanted to ride the Gravitron, which is the closest I can get anymore to beloved childhood ride the Rotor. It's a centrifugal device, spinning around while you lay against a slanted wall. When it gets fast enough, your section of the wall slides out, and up, a foot or two. I've always liked this sort of thing. But, plugged in to the 360,000 Volt power supply, and run for the long ride cycle duration of your carnival --- and with an operator who didn't just ask if we wanted to go faster near the start of the ride, but who at the end of the ride asked if we wanted to go again ...
People cried out ``No!'' at that threat. I didn't, but I understood them and thought I --- I --- had had enough of this. But we slowed to a stop, and staggered off as fast as we could in case the ride resumed. And I thanked bunny_hugger for riding a Gravitron for the last time in her life with me. I hope to go on them again, yes, but I know she's reached her lifetime limit.
It was wonderful to be on something so excessive, but, that was enough of that excess, thank you.
And now my photo roll brings us to Santa Cruz, and the beach boardwalk. we're starting out in daytime so don't worry, no vampires. Yet.
Establishing shot. The parking lot. It was Wednesday, midweek, and sure enough it wasn't busy even though it was the day after the 4th of July and you'd think people would be on vacation yet.
And here we approach the entrance, or at least one of the entrances, along with the ticket booth. We had tickets already ordered but that's where the Will Call counter is too.
The trolley tracks here are, in fact, working tracks. A trolley comes around and I don't know where it leads, but it's there.
Waiting our turn at the ticket booth. You can buy rides a la carte or you can get an all-day wristband and you know what we got here. Also, not sure who lost the colorful sock on the lower right there but I hope they found it. The footprint markings I assume are from some earlier era when were considering not living in an eternal pandemic.
And onto the boardwalk proper! Along with your cardinal directions in case you're finding your letterboxes and need the reference.
Now, who doesn't like a couple seahorse dragons? If you don't, let me remind you that they exhale smoke on a schedule I never knew well enough to photograph. Also they guard a walk-through haunted house so I knew we were going there sooner or later.
Trivia: Cadbury's first attempt at milk chocolate, made with milk powder, launched in 1897 but struggled in stores. The milk chocolate remained coarse and dry on the shelves, and sold poorly. Source: Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between The World's Greatest Chocolate Makers, Deborah Cadbury.
Currently Reading: Space Craze: America's Enduring Fascination With Real and Imagined Spaceflight, Margaret A Weitekamp. OK, so, they flew a Cabbage Patch Kid Astronaut on the real actual space shuttle, and presented it to President Reagan, and his library didn't categorize it as a presidential gift and so gave it to a charity toy drive. So some kind around 1985-86 got a Cabbage Patch Kid that had been in space and orbited the planet 112 times along with the still-record-holding-largest crew on a single spacecraft and never could have known.
