Following Halloween we got to the traditional start of the extended Christmas season, and look, I got there before the end of the traditional ordinary Christmas season! That event is, of course, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger's birthday and for the first time since 2019 we went to Bronner's Christmas Wonderland for the event. This would be a Sunday; while we'd rather go anywhere when it's less busy --- and the start of November is the start of their peak season --- the Sunday was both her birthday and a day I had off from work. There's much to commend my current employers, but not being able to just skip out without, like, asking is a drawback.
Bronner's was busy enough; not quite packed to immobility, but still, bustling. I don't think they were playing the Lions game on the TV outside so dads could do something while the family shopped. Place still looked great, though, overwhelming in the good ways. And! --- bunnyhugger brought her camera. I mean her film camera, acquired recently at an estate sale from someone who kept every scrap of paper it came with. She's gotten into film photography and knew, just knew, that a place that is acres of Christmas ornaments would have plenty of things worth shooting a whole roll of film at. And I believe the film is even back from the developer's by now!
This was also our chance to get an ornament commemorating our new rabbit. The line for the quicker pen-customized ornament was long enough they had a staffer with a big lollipop sign marking where the end of the line started. The brush, that takes longer, though? That was a walk-on experience. We found the I Heart My Rabbit, and brought it up, and a couple hours later we came back to see they had inscribed ... 'Roger I Heart My Rabbit'. There's a large blank space underneath 'My Rabbit' where the name goes for all our past rabbits, including ones with longer names like 'Sunshine'. So we can't explain this impulse to make the ornament let Roger in on the secret. I did see the same curious placement was done for someone else's customized ornament so ... I don't understand it. But as someone with boundless patience for things going weird I'm unable to complain. It will be something we talk about every time we see the ornament.
And in one of those serendipitous events, bunnyhugger hoped to get a new tree skirt. She found one she liked almost right away, and we continued around the store to pick up other, more, ornaments than we can hang. I can't remember why we didn't take it then and there except, I guess, the confidence that it was going to be there when we came back around. That I mention this tells you what happened when we came back around. While looking for a second skirt with the pattern we'd failed to get, though, she found one with a pattern she liked better, and that's what we have under our downstairs tree. So this worked out well.
Also as hoped, bunnyhugger got to take both film and digital photographs of some nice sights. Among them, the big wall of yard decorations they have; this sort of light turns amazing in film in a way that digital doesn't quite get. Also the many pre-lit trees that Bronner's sells, although there the digital camera with its greater sensitivity also created problems. LEDs only look like they're continuously lit. They flicker with the alternating current, and if your camera exposure is under, say, 1/30 second? You'll get segments of the tree or even the whole of the tree blacked out. Score one for film, which makes them into starry dots inside halos at the sort of film speed you can get from a non-specialty shop.
Quite happy visit, as you might expect, and capped with a trip to Cheese Haus to find they didn't have samples (not sure if they'd put them away for the night or if they never resumed after the pandemic began), but did have a lot of spready cheeses that we brought home and haven't finished eating yet. We should go there more than once in four years, or more than once in a year.
Let's enjoy a bit more time at Santa Cruz, the Friday that was our last full day in California back in July:
The big drop for the Logger's Revenge log flume ride.
And oh hey, what's this part then?
Looking up close at the splash as the log goes past, and showing that actually, yeah, water does look like that weird artificial foam stuff you see in Rankin/Bass specials or the occasional model railroad set.
Giant Dipper retrain returning, not to the station, but to a loop back over top of the station. In front is, I want to say, a swinging claw ride.
One of the gift shops has this cute Giant Dipper-themed prop in the middle. It's a little inaccurate about the ride what with having outdated model cars and all.
See what I mean? Their train cars don't promise ``Millions of Memories''.
Trivia: The last British wooden warship to be built was the three-decker, 121-gun Howe, launched 1860. It had both a full complement of sails and a steam engine with screw. Source: Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, Simon Winchester.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 9: 1947, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
PS: What's Going On In Prince Valiant? Is Aleta trying to shoo Valiant away? October - December 2023, a quick and easy recap for a change. Magic ominous feline appearances!
