A happy Christmas, dear ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger, and I hope the season is happy and comforting to everyone.
While I want to talk about the Wonderland of Lights, what I have time for is to tell you What's Going On In Mary Worth? Why is Wilbur at Stella's wedding?, recapping September - December 2024 in the strip, and then go right to pictures of our day at Kentucky Kingdom back in June:
The second and no-longer-used side of Storm Chaser's launch platform. So you see the spare train there; just not sure how they get it on the appropriate tracks. Also you see the shape of the RMC conversion tracks that turn wooden coasters into steel ones that move more radically but for a shorter distance.
And there's the gentle, pleasant curve of Storm Chaser looking back the other way.
Now here's their Bella Musica carousel which, despite being a modern design, puts the logos of classic carousel makers on the rounding boards. Here's C W Parker up there.
Here's a chariot-type ride, an elephant that's a replica of, I think, a 19th-century European model. I may be wrong.
Stein and Goldstein, bunnyhugger's fave Bayol, and Carl Müller here.
I don't know the Limonaire Frères; it looks like they might have been band organ makers and as little as I know European carousel-makers, European band-organ-makers are an even deeper mystery.
A zebra and a sea horse-or-something. I think the animals are replias of historic figures but am not really the person to know.
I like the bold coloring of the Arthur E Anderson horse here. Note that as an English maker the horse faces the other direction. ``Manufacturer of horses, birds, animals, round boards, centre panel shutters, cars, and all woodwork appertaining to the decorating of a roundabout and show fronts''.
Stein and Goldstein, The Artistic Carousel Company.
Bayol didn't figure they needed to get all braggy about themselves in their logo.
Carl Müller has a logo showing off elephant and bull rides.
A promise that either can't be kept, or is trivially kept: they don't do the brass ring game here. But since it's a pay-one-price park there's no incremental cost to taking another ride, so in a sense they're all free.
Trivia: At the start of 1900, the Bell System had about 800,000 telephones in service, while independent phone companies had about 600,000. Source: Telephone: The First Hundred Years, John Brooks.
Currently Reading: Michigan History, November/December 2024, Editor Sarah Hamilton.
