After our pinball tournament wrapped up we went looking for food. The easy spot was Hospitality, which had promised to have some hot food over the weekend. What they had were a handful of hors d'oeuvres, served at about 8 pm or so, and eaten within seconds. We wouldn't see that Friday, but Saturday we hung around to get something and were disappointed to learn we were to take one (1) samosa and one (1) egg roll and one (1) mini chicken apple salad and one (1) I forget what the other was because it wasn't at all vegetarian each. It's actually an amount of food worse than serving nothing at all. They had evidence of bags of snacks but whenever we were around all that were left were unpleasant mini hard pretzels. They didn't even have the popcorn machine that'd been a staple in years past. I trust this is all the hotel being weird at them and that as they get to know the con they'll loosen up, if there's a Motor City Furry Con in the Renaissance Center again.
There was a snack stand in the hotel lobby that promised hot food, but we were well past the time they offered that and the cold sandwiches didn't get any better (or more vegetarian) than peanut butter and jelly Uncrustables. We peeked at the hotel restaurant --- called Fuell, with the second L smaller and tucked onto the 'seat' of the first L --- and decided to go for that. We thought we might do okay if we got a plate of truffle fries and some quesadillas and yes, this was a good amount of food and we were really happy with how it all tasted. Also how much there was of it. The one drawback is by some misunderstanding we didn't get serving plates for the two appetizers so a lot of topping ended up falling on the table. Well, we tried to be good.
And I may as well wrap up the rest of eating here. Saturday morning we roused ourselves from despair about the hat and found that the snack stand was open and serving hot food. This included Beyond Meat burgers, which were not on sale at the hot-food stand set up for the con despite being part of the con's menu. Instead we ordered at the register, paid, and waited for them to make it, all the while trying to find any spot anywhere in there that people wouldn't take to be us waiting in line. At this we failed. The burgers finally came, along with a condiments package that included mustard, catsup, and little glass bottles of mayonnaise, a choice adorable and baffling. Also served with bamboo-wood silverware, including straws, that we're supposing is probably better than plastic because of how fast bamboo grows? I don't know, lifecycle accounting is hard. I guess at least this once-used stuff won't exist for thousands of years. What we did not get was relish or onions or anything and we realized afterward that those were at the hot-dish stand where people getting normal burgers, or chicken-and-mac-and-cheese, or the like were getting stuff. Yes, that table also had the mayo bottles.
Leaving aside Saturday dinner --- I have my narrative reasons --- Sunday lunch we went back to the place and instead of getting burgers again, found that they had broken off selling the chicken from the mac-and-cheese. I got a plate of that for myself and it was pretty good baked macaroni and cheese. ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger got an Uncrustable, a comfort food. I never got into them myself so don't have any associations with them besides ``people who don't eat the crusts are serious?''. Sunday evening we were in time to get a samosa and a small vegetable roll from hospitaly; Sunday night, Taco Bell on the disappointed drive home.
So now you know we didn't go hungry, despite the food court at the base of the Renaissance Center having lost its last tenant --- a Burger King --- back in November.
Let's get back on The Wild One, or at least into its vicinity, now.
Historical plaque on The Wild One exploring a bit of its history and mentioning one of the big changes that could make you ask whether this is truly a century-old roller coaster.
And another plaque explaining more reasons that you might ask whether it's the same roller coaster. Retracking is normal enough, of course, although speeding the ride up by ten percent is starting to make the sort of dramatic change that makes people question the continuity of identity.
bunnyhugger waiting for a front seat ride. ... Yeah, we never really had to wait for anything which I guess makes the choice to close the park make more sense. On the other hand it was extremely hot and muggy and midweek so I can understand people figuring they could go into the water park and never be seen again instead.
View of the dispatch end of the station, after our ride. As you see it's another gangbusters crowd getting into the car.
The exit hopes that we enjoyed the ride. Yes, we did.
Looking close-up at a train rolling past, and at the wooden track underneath that makes this a wooden coaster.
Trivia: In 1985 the United States Olympic Committee announced it was invoking ownership of the Olympic Rings as a United States trademark, as permitted by the 1978 Amateur Sports Act, claiming compensation from the 1988 Olympics broadcasters from advertising sales to companies that planned to use the Olympic logo in their commercials. The USOC argued that its own domestic sponsorship program was compromised by networks sublicensing the use of the Olympic rings to commercial advertisers. Source: Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement, Editors John E Findling, Kimberly D Pelle. So the appendix about Olympics-inspired movies lists that, but not Animalympics. Fursecution is real!
Currently Reading: The Red Planet: A Natural History of Mars, Simon Morden.
