So what to say about our day at Kennywood. Our first ride was the Merry-Go-Round, of course, the one not quite a century old. It also would be our last ride of the night. Two rides, in fact; we went out and got a second go-round. That second time I recognized someone, an older (that is, maybe my age) man wearing a t-shirt with a tuxedo printed on it. I'd noticed him around the park all day and kind of been amazed that this thing I'd heard jokes about from the 90s on was actually happening in person. And then here he was.
And --- he was with other people. Dressed similarly. And a woman wearing a t-shirt with a bride's dress on it. Do you get what's going on here? Because it wasn't until I saw them taking some pictures with a sign about having tied the knot that day that I understood someone got married at Kennywood. Didn't even consider that as an option, ourselves.
But we might have. In the afternoon when we'd stopped for some pop at the Parkside Cafe we saw an older woman (like, our parents' age) having a birthday party, cake and decorations and everything. Turns out that Kennywood will let you bring in a reasonable-sized cooler to the park and if that contains a birthday cake or whatever, so be it. They may be a chain park these days, but they haven't become a nasty chain park.
We got to all the wooden roller coasters, the first of them Thunderbolt. Which, if you consider what used to be known as Pippin, is kind of a hundred-year-old roller coaster, the fourth time we've ridden a century coaster, and the first of three that we figured to ride by Labor Day. (I can think offhand of three roller coasters that have reached the century mark since we've ridden them.) More on that anon. (One of those we planned to ride this summer.) Racer I mentioned earlier. Jack-Rabbit we got to towards the evening (as with Racer), when the crowds seemed to be dispersing a little. When we saw the ride sign estimate a 20-minute wait I said we had hit the Jack-Rabbit-Pot, wordplay so transcendently clever that ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger had no idea what I said, and I had to repeat it until all trace of fun was crushed from it. You'll note I'm still sharing it in print here, though, where you have a chance of chuckling.
Also ridden, for the first time in who knows how long? Sky Rocket, the linear synchronized motor-launched coaster that stands atop the tunnel entrance to the park. We had skipped it last year for time; it gets lines. And then 2019 we didn't ride it because it was down that day and possibly that whole summer; it had been a maintenance queen. I don't know if it still has many problems, but there's a new maintenance queen at the park, the Steel Curtain roller coaster that's down all season. It's common for a new roller coaster to have problems its first year or two, but this is --- counting the 2020 season --- its fifth year. It was a wonder that they had it operating, and operating two trains, for KennyKon last year. This year they have the whole area blocked off, so I couldn't get a new picture of bunnyhugger inside the huge football helmet. I understand there are lawsuits at work.
Oh, but back on Sky Rocket. We got to overhear people talking about how they thought it worked and being not wrong enough to rouse our need to be correct about things. And more wondrous is that, while we were waiting, I noticed this suspicious regular rustling in the bushes. I kept waiting and saw ... a young rabbit! Not a baby, but not yet full-grown, darting out and finding a great number of humans watching back, then darting back into the bushes where they could go unperceived. That's the sort of joyful event we hope for whenever we go to the park. Recall that time ... in ... let's say 2018 that I got a couple great pictures of cottontails prancing around the infield of the Thunderbolt roller coaster. I'm sorry that this time, the rabbit was too fast and too shy to get pictures, but we saw them and you will believe me that they were there and quite cute.
Take in, now, some more Christmas at Bronner's Wonderland:
Trees all decorated and ready for you to take home. bunnyhugger kept taking pictures with a shutter speed so fast she'd get only fractions of the lights on.
Me, though, I had the ISO set right that I could get a long enough exposure to see the lights on each tree lit up, and don't get any weird voids. Pity, that.
The sleigh will get its own attention but I love how I hit that star at just the right angle that there's light flooding out one side and almost nothing on the other. It looks like a special effect but it's all practical, done in-camera.
A sleigh ride of light streaks, as promised, just the way you'd see in that over-decorated house over on Vine Street.
A topper we did not buy for our tree but, have to admit, if they had six-armed Stitch eating the tree we'd have given it more consideration.
And here's some fake topiary reindeer, one of them sitting around, I guess because they know Santa's not going to be checking in anytime soon.
Trivia: The Genesee Aquaduct, carrying the Erie Canal over the Genesee River near Rochester, was completed in September 1823, eleven months behind schedule and $83,000 above the initial budget estimate. Source: Wedding of the Waters: THe Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, Peter L Bernstein. Among other things there had been a lot of snow and rain over the year.
Currently Reading: Michigan History, July/August 2024, Editor Sarah Hamilton.
PS: What's Going On In Olive and Popeye? Why are you suddenly excited about Charon's granddaughter? May - August 2024, featuring a wild coincidence in the comic strip history.
