After the county fairs we got an invitation to something we hadn't been thinking about. That was a day trip to Indiana Beach, from JTV. JTV and his wife and kids had gone down several times this summer, the repeated visits coming from the desire to get to all their roller coasters. Particularly the Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain, which ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger and I have ridden many times but JTV has not, finding the coaster down every day he's visited. I think it spent much of the season waiting for repairs, sad to say.
JTV lives out in Grand Rapids, so our first leg was the hour drive out there. And then we had the mild surprise that JTV's wife would not be joining us. After four? five? trips this season she'd given up on LoCoSuMo and would stay home instead. For a moment it looked like JTV's son would be excluded too, after one of those childhood fights where all the grownups were looking away and then someone was made to cry. JTV relented in what I'm supposing was one of those parenting things, and the five of us rode off.
Coming from western Michigan we took a completely different route to Indiana Beach, one that wasn't any longer in time but did use more major roads, which was a surprise. It also brought us to mid-trip convenience stores bunnyhugger and I had never seen before. And we ended up getting to Indiana Beach in a free parking lot we'd never seen before. At least that I don't think we'd seen before. It seemed familiar, but I guess one grass lot looks a lot like any other. And it did take us to what turns out to be the main entrance of the park. We had always approached from the other side, never knowing that we were at the ``back'' of the park, and that what we took to be the long skinny bridge was, to the park's eyes, the main entrance.
Maybe. I'm not sure; after all, the other side where we'd always approach was also where they used to have the $5 paid parking lots and that seems like something you'd have right by the front gates. And the 'rear' gates are right up by the buildings with the main souvenir shops and the sit-down restaurant and all that. So maybe the 'front' of the park is a matter of your preferences. On the other paw, given JTV's near-obsessive interest in how amusement parks work, he might know of internal documents stating what they consider to be the front and back of the park.
This was the first time bunnyhugger and I have been to Indiana Beach on a day that wasn't our anniversary. Also our first time there on a Saturday with the crowds that implies; JTV hadn't expected it to be this busy, on the basis of what turned out to be trips the other, less-busy days of the week. It's also the first time we didn't get around to the Dr Frankenstein's walk-through haunted house, although we got some nice pictures of the outside. We also never touched the pinball machines, despite JTV being another of our old pinball friends. Just too busy.
This was the biggest group of people that bunnyhugger and I had gone to an amusement park with, and it included two kids. This has advantages, in that it breaks us out of our routine and forces us to do things we hadn't considered, or in orders we don't think to. Even something we've been to as few times as Indiana Beach can take on routines. Also, it's fun watching JTV's enthusiastic geeking out about parks.
And we did get some time off to ourselves. Part of this was to eat the fried vegetable platters we were looking forward to while JTV's kids ate ... whatever it is kids eat these days. Also, bunnyhugger wanted to take her daily walk and I wanted to ride the sky chair, something I'd never done and she would never do. This seemed like something that we could do separately and should take about the same time, if I rode all the way down and then back again.
So you would think. In fact, the line for the sky chair was absurdly long, and slow-moving. Slow-moving enough I started to get annoyed but what could I do except wait? Finally I got up to the front, and got my seat, and was just leaving the station when I saw bunnyhugger down on the boardwalk, yelling up at me, demanding to know why I was going on the ride again. I yelled back I only just got on. The wait had been a half-hour, maybe more, abundant time for her to take her full walk and I hadn't seen anything but the slow rising ramps to the launch station.
Well, I got my ride above the concrete boardwalk of Indiana Beach. And bunnyhugger, pacing the chair, got a number of photographs of me silhouetted against the sun, or hovering above Indiana Beach's attractions. I did not take the ride back.
Yes, we got to play some Fascination, although not a whole lot. The park closed at a mere 9 pm --- we barely saw the place illuminated --- so after our last ride, on the carousel (which had been gone for repairs when we visited in 2022), and some slow walking back over the bridge, we were heading back home and agreeing wow, Indiana Beach is a more reasonable day trip than we think, really.
In photos, meanwhile, I'm still in Santa Cruz. Let's watch.
And before we really explore the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, we explored the Santa Cruz Beach! My first view of the Pacific Ocean since the days I lived in Singapore.
Quick glance back at what we'd just emerged from. bunnyhugger is in the bottom right there, regretting she didn't bring the extra-strength sunglasses.
And here I am, stepping out into the ocean.
Just enjoying the water rushing over and around my feet and shining all the more brightly away from me. Don't you love that feeling of wet sand flowing away from your feet?
Oh yes, that's right: I attempted a panoramic shot, getting more of the building in view than the rides; good luck spotting the Giant Dipper roller coaster from here.
Back to normal pictures. Getting back towards the boardwalk, and here you can see two of the roller coasters. Giant Dipper is in the lower right, a red thing with white supports. Promise.
Trivia: In November 1969, at the end of the Apollo 11 astronauts' world public-relations tour, the three and their wives met with the President again and spent the day at the White House. Also, Buzz Aldrin took the chance to have the president's dentist replace a filling that had come loose on the tour. Source: Operation Moonglow: A Political History of Project Apollo, Teasel Muir-Harmony.
Currently Reading: Various comic books, not all of them sent by a friend.
