The day in early October when ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger got her Bayol antique carousel rabbit we did something else unprecedented for us: we went to Michigan's Adventure, in October. The park was having its first Halloween event and we had hoped to see it. But the rabbit was delivered at about 1 pm, and by the time everything was settled down it was nearly 2 pm. Rushing out to the park after that would mean we couldn't arrive before 4 pm; would it be worth our time to spend less than three hours at the park, for four hours' total driving? I pushed for it, because how often do we get a chance like this at all? And could we be sure the weather would cooperate at all the next week?
So we would have a short visit, our shortest apart from times we made a side trip going to Fremont pinball tournaments, And it was startling, first because the light rain let up just as we arrived and returned as we were leaving; somehow our record of having great weather at Michigan's Adventure held up. But also: Michigan's Adventure is gorgeous in autumn. The park has a reputation for being a treeless parking lot, but seeing the gold and red and orange emphasizes how much it is not. I'm not sure the park has ever looked better and I don't think it's just novelty.
Many parkgoers were wearing costumes. Most of these were kids, but enough were adults that we started to wonder, what if we wore kigurumis into the park? Of course it was warm that Sunday but who could say what a week further into October would be? (It would be warm also, because the lower peninsula no longer gets autumn weather in October, and Exxon earned a profit making that so.)
Some of the park was closed off. This included the three biggest roller coasters, but that trimming did mean we had enough time, for as short a trip as we would have, to ride the rest. Also the carousel, their Chance fiberglass replica with the not-Bayol rabbit. Also to admire the decoration, which included the cars that used to be on Be-Bop Boulevard, the antique cars ride, in costumes. Like, the black car was converted to a Munster-y hearse; the green one, given imitation Tesla coils to have a Frankenstein look. Also to have miscellaneous equations written on it, including an understandably mis-copied version of xt + 1 = k xt(1 - xt), one of the equations that you learn when you're learning about chaos theory. (They wrote the left side as xt + 1, a natural transcribing error.) Another black car was now a spider; they had a wolf car, and an Audrey II car. These were meant for trick-or-treating. Pardon. Trunk-or-treating, for the kids. We just took pictures but probably could have got fun-size candies if we asked.
Or maybe not! The most interesting thing was the miniature train ride, going out into the marshy treescape that I'd long thought would make a great Halloween ride. They didn't do what I would have expected, have a couple performers doing jump-scares. Instead they had a little story about the gourd family told, on the speaker and on billboards set up along the route, with a pause on the other side of the park, at the train's other station.
In normal times this is an easy way to get to the Thunderhawk roller coaster while sitting. Here, everything was closed off but a small Pumpkin Patch, made by putting pumpkins on top of bales of hay. Kids were told they could take one of the small gourds, your palm-sized little cutie that you get for 50 cents at the farmer's market, back with them. bunnyhugger and I, however, were not permitted. The attendant watching the entrance of the pumpkin patch was apologetic and we nodded, setting our choices back, but bunnyhugger was already composing a hurt review of the experience for when the park e-mailed her a survey. (They don't seem to e-mail me surveys. I don't know why not.)
So maybe we wouldn't have got candies anyway.
We hopped into the line for Mad Mouse maybe fifteen minutes before the close of the park, and yes, the ride did go down while we were waiting for it. I think we were even seated in a car waiting to go out when it stopped. The important thing is we got our ride in, and so got onto all the most important rides even on this whirlwind visit. And then got home to wonder at how we have an antique carousel rabbit in our dining room, like that's a normal thing anyone might have. Astounding!
Here's some more Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, now back in the light!
Back up on the main level, but next to the sunken area --- so one of the rides above the train --- is this Super Round Up. bunnyhugger indulged me in one and it was a wonderful ride.
So I like the scenic background letting kids be King Neptune or the rider of a sea dragon but let's be honest here, don't we all want to be the dragon instead? Yes, thank you.
Next to the photo op space is this flying dragons ride with cars that match the photo op's.
And oh, say now, what's that figure with the strangely large, glossy legs riding sky chair car number 10?
There we are! As a promotional thing when the Cave Train Adventure opened they put caveman figures on two of the sky chairs and they've been there ever since.
Meanwhile here's the front of one of the dark rides, with a nice glowy-eyed gargoyle and lanterns to show the way.
Trivia: After covering the 1933 trial of six Metropolian-Vickers English employees at the Soviet Trades Union Hall, Reuters offered journalist Ian Fleming a post as assistant general manager in the Far East, at £800 pa, rather a step up from the £ 300 pa he was receiving. Fleming left to become a stock broker. Source: The Power of News: The History of Reuters, Donald Read.
Currently Reading: The Tale That Wags The God, James Blish. Editor Cy Chauvin.
PS: Reviewing _Popeye and Son_, Episode 5: Mighty Olive at the Bat, the baseball cartoon.
