A week ago Sunday we took our first trip of the season to an amusement park that wasn't Cedar Point. In this case, to Michigan's Adventure, where it turned out I still remember the path pretty well. We wondered what might be new at the park this season, and whether it would be anything as great as the park map signboards and the one Freestyle soda pop machine. There wasn't, except that they did turn out to have actual physical park maps and I got one printed out on paper as we left for the day.
Something was missing, though: the petting zoo --- just a couple years old --- was gone! The infrastructure was there, but no animals. The ground was being used to stage many, many floral planters. I hear you protesting we're jumping to conclusions; maybe they figured this early in the season, before the water park is open and when the park is only open weekends, it's not worth getting the petting zoo going. And sure, but then, look at the maps, either on the signboards or the physical one in my hand. The petting zoo's location is an empty field of green. We're not going to see any more working bunnies at the park!
Which is not to say we wouldn't see any bunnies. While looking at the empty space we saw a bunch of chipmunks in what had been the goat pen, including several chasing one another around. And then I saw a small Eastern cottontail sitting in the shrubs, observing the outside world intently. So intently, in fact, that they didn't move when one pursued chipmunk crashed into the rabbit's side! And I tell you, there's a certain kind of offended you only see in a rabbit who's failed to notice an imminent squirrel collision.
As mentioned in a draft of the above paragraph that I fixed when I remembered it didn't happen in line for the Mad Mouse, we did get on the Mad Mouse. The wild mouse coaster, maintaining its tradition of having the slowest queue of the park, was running pretty well, with no service interruptions we saw. By the end of the day the line was short enough we could get in three rides, comparing favorably to the times when we can't get on it at all. Second time around we even got to explain to the people sharing out seat things like how the car was going to stop three times on the loading platform before starting up the lift hill. (This is why the queue is so slow, but we didn't go into that.) And hey, we got off the ride in just enough time to get one last ride in, taking the penultimate passenger ride of the day.
We got around to all the other coasters as well. Wolverine Wildcat's had more of its track re-tracked with that metal support instead of wood, making more of it ride smooth as glass. There's still rough patches, and they're likely not to let it run as fast and gloriously as its inspiration, Knoebels's Phoenix coaster, does. (Wolverine Wildcat is nearly a twin of Phoenix, but braked more.)
Shivering Timbers, the biggest coaster, has also had a bit more retracking done, so that its first hill is wonderfully smooth. After this it gets a bit rougher, which a lot of the return trip dedicated to shaking you silly. It's improved from last year, though, so maybe next year will be better yet.
After the park closed we took a tip from JTK, who always goes to this ice cream parlor in Muskegon. It turned out to be a slight annoyance to drive to, because the last bit requires turning around on a divided highway, but we'll be fine with it next time. The ice cream place, next to a miniature golf course, is a pretty substantial one. It's got its own playground and a bunch of Adirondack chairs with backs shaped like the lower peninsula. (We both mistook them for badly worn chairs at first.) Also the place believes in serving you lots of ice cream. I reflexively ordered a medium cone and was warned that was a tower of ice cream five large scoops tall. A small was more what I was thinking of and that was still three scoops large enough that by the time I finished eating it my hand was basically a large goopy puddle dripping off my arm. So the place could maybe use a water fountain but otherwise is great. Next time I'll probably get a cup rather than a cone.
And now let's wrap up my walk around the neighborhood. Coming in a couple months: the walk I did just a couple weeks ago seeing all the things here that aren't here anymore.
Far side of the neighborhood center that the Hong Kong restaurant moved into. This is the side that's promised to have a pharmacy arriving for like five years now.
Piece of public art in the nearby park that everyone in the neighborhood except ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger loves. She finds it rather trite.
Same Earth-mother-tree figure but at an awkward angle so you can see how the leaves reflect light.
Here's the statue from behind, where you can see the upper branch that holds on to a small cloud.
And then over here's a former church (it stopped having services earlier than 2010) that was abandoned for, like, forever. And then got badly damaged before the huge windstorm that smashed our neighborhood in July. It's looking a bit rough and yet, to our surprise, the past couple weeks they've been working on it and put up vinyl siding and stuff so it looks like a building someone might prefer to have not fall apart now.
And then in downtown East Lansing we see from the shelves that someone's been unloading a bunch of Cathy books! Also Pogo, although a lot of these are duplicates-in-content to books I already have.
Trivia: News of the American and French victory at the Battle of Yorktown was carried northward by Tench Tilghman, aide to General Washington, who rode for four days, bringing news to Philadelphia at 2:30 am the 24th of October, 1781. Source: The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution, Barbara W Tuchman.
Currently Reading: The Best Of The Spirit, Will Eisner.
PS: What's Going On In Dick Tracy? Why is newspaper guy using a Linotype? March - June 2024 --- featuring, in comments, the author of the current story answering my subject-line question! Please enjoy the behind-the-scenes information.
