And now we're up to September, and our Labor Day trip to Michigan's Adventure. Yes, it does seem like we get there Labor Day weekend a lot but understand, that's usually when the park is open late enough to get a little taste of dark as the park closes. Not this time; since the pandemic began Michigan's Adventure has closed way before sunset.
But we did get to see the park putting together its setup for a new thing to it. This was its Tricks And Treats setup, weekends the 16th of September through 15th of October, and the first time the park's done anything for Halloween. This --- so far --- was mostly hay bales set up and a couple of monster statues set up, but it's something.
And in the wonders of nature, we again saw an unexpected wild animal. I did, at least; the thing appeared while ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger was in the bathroom. This time, it was a mouse, living somewhere near the main bathrooms. I spotted the mouse poking their nose out from behind a trash bin and they disappeared back behind there. They made a couple tentative pokes out to hide away from view again. I found an angle where I could get a poorly-focused picture of the mouse, and was starting to feel like I'd really got the hang of it when the mouse ran into the women's bathroom and disappeared. Cartoons had led me to expect more high-pitched shrieks than actually followed. bunnyhugger didn't see the mouse at all.
We rode the log fume, a rarity for us. It was that sort of pleasantly warm day with not quite too long a line for that. The log flum we would later learn was one of the bold, ambitious purchases by the guy who made Michigan's Adventure into an amusement park rather than a petting zoo. Apparently he went to the convention for amusement park ride manufacturers and told the Arrow representative, he wanted a log flume. No, not the chintzy one that goes along the ground and then climbs a hill for one drop. He wanted one that climbed up and wandered around in the midst of nothing particular before dropping, and that's what he bought, and that's what's there today. I've got more respect for the ride now than I did at the time, knowing it has a quirky story behind it.
The most satisfying part of the day, though, was that the Mad Mouse roller coaster was up and basically running, most of the day. And the lines were not bad, so we were able to get a season's worth of riding in. Yes, the wild mouse I happened to see was at the bathrooms next to this wild mouse coaster. That's probably coincidence but you'll note I'm making you aware of it anyway.
This ended up being one of our longer visits to Michigan's Adventure, about five hours. For the most part we took longer trips to this small park this season and appreciated it. Even if there's not so very much to do, it's nice to have nothing remotely like a rush to do it.
Fresh pictures, now. This time: the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk! Don't look so surprised.
Approaching the other centerpiece of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for us. Yes, it's the cotton candy place.
So here's the entrance to the Giant Dipper; you can see it's a whole eight-point ride and that they've got a bunch of plaques for people to read when the queue is long enough.
The biggest and most visually interesting is this plaque put up for the Boardwalk's centennial (we infer). Note that the Dipper Facts list this as the sixth oldest coaster in the United States.
And here are the other plaques, denoting the ride as a National Historic Landmark and as an American Coaster Enthusiasts Coaster Landmark.
The queue inside the building is lined with these balloons, some of them word balloons and some just dots proclaiming things.
According to the information bubble farthest down the queue here, Giant Dipper is the fifth oldest coaster in the United States. I can't explain this, although perhaps it reflects one sign being put up while Leap The Dips was in operation and another when it was not. But ... well, Leap the Dips was standing but not operating 1986 to 1998, and 2017 to 2020. If the plaque outside was put up in 2007 (Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk's centennial) then Leap The Dips was operating. Clementon Park's Jack Rabbit was older than Giant Dipper, but it closed in 2002. I suppose someone with a detailed timeline of old coasters could pin down something that opened before 1924 and closed between 2007 and today but I haven't got the rcdb search magic.
Trivia: Ridership on Amtrak grew at about 15 percent per year its first couple years in operation, and then surged past that, beyond what the cash-strapped railroad could support. A marketing campaign similar to Amtrak's had doubled the ridership on the Canadian National Railway, beyond what it could manage. Source: The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry, Rush Loving Jr.
Currently Reading: Comic books.
PS: Reviewing _Popeye and Son_, Episode 4: The Lost Treasure of Pirate's Cove, with a cartoon that teases us with the existence of Cole and Nana Oyl but does not deliver.
