austin_dern

A half-century ago (this September) Peter Singer published Animal Liberation, creating the modern animal-rights movement by the utilitarian argument that if we are trying to minimize suffering, alleviating the misery of animals which serve humans gives a great return on investment. A decade ago the University of Rennes 2 held a conference to celebrate forty years of the book's publication, and bunnyhugger presented a paper there and she and I got to have a suspiciously large number of close encounters with Singer. That trip was the original use for my 'Animal Liberation 40 Years On Tour' tag.

This year they scheduled a 50th Anniversary conference, close enough to deadline that bunnyhugger would only be able to present a paper by spending all of May grinding away in the word mines. But if she did go, besides the chance to do the fun part of philosophy, and maybe picking up this homework assignment Singer gave her a decade ago, we'd also be able to go to some amusement parks we might otherwise never see.

So besides the crush of finishing the semester and doing preliminary work on her paper bunnyhugger also set to figuring out what parks we might attend. Disneyland Paris or Park Asterix were obvious candidates, but she noticed something weird and alarming about the early-June dates we'd be able to visit. The web sites that estimate what crowd sizes were like predicted that the parks would be crushed, as busy as they ever get. Why?

Blame Easter. That holiday was nearly as late as it ever happens this year, which means that the holidays tied to it --- the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost and the Day After Pentecost (Whit Monday) --- were the Sunday before and the Sunday-and-Monday after the conference. And those are holidays and so French amusement parks ready for the deluge.

So you see the process that led us to looking at other amusement parks, ones that are maybe more remote or smaller and maybe less likely to be overcrowded. This is how bunnyhugger came to know of Nigloland and its curious origins as a sort of homemade copy of a Disney park. And how she came to find another park, this one just over the Belgian border, Plopsaland De Panne. There are several Plopsaland parks, including another in Belgium, but the good part about De Panne --- the city it's in --- is that the place is on the end of an interurban trolley line that runs along the Belgian coast, offering the chance to make a Shore visit of things.

This then is how we got the rough plan for the trip. Academic conference in northwestern France, Nigloland in eastern France, Plopsaland in coastal Belgium. The catch --- one catch --- is the only direct flight from Detroit lands us in Paris and so we're left with a bonkers zig-zagging itinerary. A solution that would at least space things out, though, was to move one of the amusement park visits to before the conference, allowing us to arrive in Paris and finish that day getting to --- well, I told you already, it was Nigloland. Then after that, take the train back to Rennes, and after that the train up to De Panne, and fly from somewhere in Belgium back to the United States. This way we could hit the French park the day after the Ascension holiday, and get to the Belgian park the Saturday before Pentecost, and with luck nothing would be too bad. The only cost of this: bunnyhugger had to finish her paper a couple days earlier still, but the deal sounded great. I asked for and got a luxurious seven days off --- six that would actually be in France or transit plus a day after to recover --- and our plans were set.

That set up, now please enjoy a half-dozen Jackson County Fair 2024 pictures.

Part of the curious layout of the exhibition building is some fake storefronts such as this, Ye Old Bakery. I think the previous year it had housed some of the baked-good exhibits but this year it just had placeholders.

Here's a bee-themed exhibit long with some ribbon-winning honeys.

And then a couple little setups. I guess one is to be the perfect camping setup. Behind that, on the left, I'm not sure; backyard picnic? It's a strange exhibit.

Genuinely don't know if this is a bunch of exhibits or if the entire General Store layout is a single exhibition.

Some prize-winning vegetables along with the memento mori that they're all to be tossed in the green dumpster outside.

This little water wheel is at the head of the creek that runs through the center of the building, and the flowers all around that.

Trivia: Hamburg had been the original intended target for the first thousand-bomber air raid, which would have happened on the centennial of the Great Fire of 1842, but the forecast for thunderstorms changed the target to Cologne. Source: The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorous, John Emsley. Wikipedia also notes Cologne, unlike Hamburg, was entirely within range of the Royal Air Force's GEE navigation system at the time.

Currently Reading: Archaeology, January/February 2025, Editor Jarrett A Lobell.

It was the end of an extremely long day, one that started with a midafternoon flight, a red-eye to France, and this after missing by inches rear-ending someone on the Interstate. As if stumbling out of Charles de Gaulle airport at 8 am clock time, 2 am body time, weren't enough, we then struggled with figuring out how to get on the metro, and from there to Gare de l'Est, for a nightmarish encounter trying to rent a locker to store our luggage for a couple hours. Then, since we had nearly six hours to go before our next train was ready, we figured out the metro lines and connections to get to a small private museum with wonders we could not have fully anticipated. And after that we had reversed the trip to get back to the train station, there to take several hours' worth of train ride out to the eastern region of France and a train stop that was desolate and all but abandoned. After the frustrating process of finding where there was a list of taxi services, and then figuring out how to use bunnyhugger's phone to call a taxi service --- thanks, phone, for warning that it looks like I'm trying to place a local call while roaming in France, so please press the + key on the numerical keypad that has no + symbol on it followed by the country code for France, whatever the heck that might be --- and try to make my voice, never clear in the best of times, clear enough trying to express what I could piece together from 45-year-old middle-school language classes, to get a taxi that arrived just past bunnyhugger's declaration that there would never be a taxi and we were stranded there. Then on for a ten-minute ride that somehow cost €70 to a boutique hotel, arriving fearsomely near nightfall, after something like thirty hours of our being awake and travelling.

But. We had managed, fatigued but game, to find our way walking from the hotel in the incredibly tiny town of Dolancourt, Aube, to the attraction. Nigloland, one of the most popular amusement parks in France. Patrice and Philippe Gélis, brothers, were inspired by a visit to Walt Disney World in the early 80s and decided to open their own pay-one-price park. And so they created their own, a sort of folk reconstruction of Disneyland as a couple enthusiasts jumping into the deep end of the amusement park business might envision. It's got a half-dozen roller coasters. It's got a galloping horse ride. It's got a walk-through dinosaur park ride. It's got the Rivière des Fées boat ride, and a show about the hedgehogs (mascot of the park, and through the Romani word for hedgehog, namesake as well) of the magical forest. It's got an attached hotel, the Hôtel des Pirates, which we would have stayed at except it wasn't taking bookings for Monday-night-to-Tuesday-morning, and Monday would be the day we hoped to visit. It's got a (modern) salon carousel, a particularly ornate kind of carousel that's all but extinct worldwide.

We had known that we would arrive after the park's closure Sunday. But we made the walk to the gate because we wanted, first, to be sure that our estimates based on looking at maps of the area were correct. And that we could find the entrance to the park. We could indeed; really, it'd be hard to miss, given the town is so small and the park has a 100-meter-tall drop tower you can't possibly miss.

I told bunnyhugger to pose for the Walley World disappointment picture, and took a good-looking one with my new-to-me camera. She got a matching one of me. And we walked the short way back to our hotel to load my first pictures of this park onto my computer, to sleep off so much travel (including a side museum trip), and to savor the day to come. And so that is the teaser. After tomorrow's humor-blog recap post I hope to share with you the full story --- the motives, the pretexts, the development --- of our European vacation.

You get the + symbol on her phone by holding down the 0 long enough.

With that sufficiently teased, now, let's take in some Jackson County Fair pictures from not quite a year ago now:

Some more small pet information. That poster about guinea pig care may seem like it doesn't have a lot of information but it's more than we knew about raising guinea pigs in the 80s.

And now on to the photography exhibits! bunnyhugger had something like a dozen pictures in and I was to see how they looked, whether any won ribbons, and what the competition was like. It was like this.

So here's the Buildings and Architecture, Black-and-White category. bunnyhugger's picture in the upper right took home nothing, even though it's a photo of the same house that won a best-of-class ribbon at Calhoun County's the year before.

A bit more view of the competition here plus some [ Wayne's World voice ] extreme close-ups! (She didn't enter that category.)

She did enter portraits and the picture of me with a Christmas tree, again, didn't place.

Capturing The Moment is another of those categories that seem really hard to explain just what you're looking for. bunnyhugger hadn't entered any of these, I think, but there are some nice moments here.

Trivia: Audubon Society membership rose from 120,000 to 400,000 in the decade after the first Earth Day; Sierra Club membership grew 46 percent in the same ten years. Source: Down To Earth: Nature's Role in American History, Ted Steinberg.

Currently Reading: BBC History Magazine, Vol 24 No 4, Editor Rob Attar.

Another day of Jackson County Fair pictures before ... probably another day of Jackson County Fair pictures! We'll just see what happens.

Here's a medium-size rabbit enjoying some privacy behind the bag of hay.

And here's a very small rabbit enjoying some privacy by looking directly at me.

Sprawled-out Californian gathering some solar power.

Here's a fine-looking rabbit taking on a pose to match the rectangle of the cage surrounding them.

Pretty sure this is the face of a rabbit.

Couple shorthaired black rabbits just sitting up together, telling secrets.

Hotot wishes you to know they ANGY cotton ball. But Hotots always look like ANGY cotton balls.

Rabbit who looks a bit like Colombo chatting with a rabbit who looks a bit like Roger.

This is a rabbit proud to have accomplished this much in life.

Meanwhile, outside the rabbit barn, there's stuff going on, like golf carts and horses. And say ...

I knew they had horseshoes, but horse boots is new on me.

And also horse ankle braces too, it looks like.

Trivia: In directing the city design for Philadelphia, William Penn --- a Quaker --- rejected as immodest naming city streets after himself or other people. Instead the streets would be numbered, with the cross streets named after ``things that Spontaneously Grow in the country'', such as Cherry, Chestnut, and Mulberry Street. Source: The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power, Dierdre Mask.

Currently Reading: Archaeology, May/June 2025, Editor Jarrett A Lobell. The articles are all interesting and the advertisements are all kind of creepy weird, like, ``status'' watches and stones on the ``brink of extinction'' and meteorite-ore rings.

Next thing was the Jackson County Fair, which I went to on my own because bunnyhugger was visiting her brother.

The fairgrounds you access through this building, which as a community recreation center I suppose was saved in the 80s.

Among the first things I saw and did not understand: Dan Dan The Farmer Man driving around. I never saw what his deal was.

Here's the carousel. They switched to tickets being pretty cheap but rides taking a gobsmacking number of tickets in trade.

The teacups ride for kids is a mere nine tickets, though.

Pharoah's Fury is a twelve-ticket ride. I like this kind of swinging ship ride; bunnyhugger is less fond of them .

Redemption games offered a couple models of space alien to win, either inflatable or plush as you like.

A Dragon Wagon kiddie coaster, which I could probably have ridden if I wanted to bang my knees up enough.

Another Ring of Fire, 12 tickets. Note that you're not able to bring a hat on the ride, which does leave you suspended upside-down for a while.

You may think, well, all the adult rides are 12 tickets, right? Nope! The Ferris Wheel is a big 15 tickets.

And the Himalaya is also 15 tickets, which I find interesting pricing because I'd rate the Ring of Fire a more intense and exciting ride than the Himalaya.

Can't tell you how many tickets the Starship 3000 (a Gravitron ride) was. But here's a photo along some midway.

And now into the horse barn. The entrants create their own heraldic symbols for their horses that are neat to see.

Trivia: English banks and private investors put something like £150 million in loans and £200 million in stock subscriptions to Latin American companies and projects in 1823 and 1824. Source: A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters, Scott Reynolds Nelson. The crash came in 1825.

Currently Reading: Michigan History, March/April 2025, Editor Sarah Hamilton. Also some tiny insight into why Kalamazoo used to be called the ``celery city''; apparently it's where the crop first got planted in the United States and pitched as a food rather than a medicinal plant.

This week I'm trying something I haven't done in ages on my humor blog: letting Robert Benchley write it. I like this. He's got a pretty solid comic voice. Here's what you might have missed if you weren't reading it day-by-day:

• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 42
• There Are Limits to What I Can Say About Notable Soups
• Statistics Saturday: Some Unsuccessful Soups
• Robert Benchley: The Lost Locomotive
• Robert Benchley: ``Take The Witness!''
• What's Going On In Mark Trail? Why is Kelly Welly pitching AI garbage? March - May 2025
• Robert Benchley: The New Strokes
• MiSTed: The 72 Hours Saga, Part 43

With that having got you moderately amused now please enjoy the end of our stop-in at Cedar Point last July, as photographed:

This is not the Space Age ride mentioned as a rotation point. This is a ride in Planet Snoopy, a completely separate kids area on the other side of the Coliseum from the Kiddie Kingdom.

And this is a small performance area in Planet Snoopy that I think we've never been around when it was in use.

Walking over to something or other (Iron Dragon) we saw a pack of musicians performing in front of the Coasters Diner. Also someone who bought a seagull backpack, that's nice.

Also you can see a mother who does not have the time for people in poodle skirts dancing.

And here's Iron Dragon, always a favorite, although in its last season before the indignity of a fast-pass line-cutting lane was installed.

Meanwhile the griffin, now gold, stands proudly there and refuses to explain why it vanished for a few years and why it's in front of Iron Dragon instead of the griffin-themed GateKeeper.

Now here is the turnstile outside the Cedar Downs racing carousel. I photograph this just because I'd never paid any attention to the manufacturer of the turnstile before, so here we go.

The afternoon light flatters the horses here.

The lights inside not being on improves the composition here. I should have centered the center area, though. If I ever get the chance I'll have to re-photograph this right.

Tilting the camera this severely emphasizes how the horses are racing, moving back and forth in those slots, so that some look like they're leaping ahead of the pack.

Cedar Downs is next to the Cadillac Cars, last remaining tracked car ride.

And that's our drop-in done. Here's a look to the front of the park from Cedar Downs on the right and in the concrete you see how much has been done to dry up the rain already.

Trivia: On the fourth flight day of Gemini 4, the astronauts found themselves unable to turn off the computer (to conserve spacecraft power). Even after switching the unit to off the computer light stayed on, with no malfunction light. Source: Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps Into The Void, David J Shayler.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 63: The Abdominal Snowman, Ralph Stein, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle. There's a lot of energy going into this story, especially after the four thousandth college football story by Sims and Zaboly.

You know what we did after that Kennywood visit and that Pinball event? If you guessed ``went to an amusement park, probably Cedar Point'' good news, you get to see pictures of exactly that event now:

Traditional establishing shot, proving that both my car and Cedar Point were in view at the same time.

The entrance, looking not as grand as it did during the eclipse but still, nice. Note the electronic sign warns that Top Thrill 2 will not open today; it could have said, all season.

Boardwalk Nights! The Cedar Point 150 sign turns out to be a good spot to put signs for all kinds of temporary events.

Blue Streak, standing firm despite the threatening clouds.

And here's Raptor, again with clouds that look like they don't want any fun going on.

Of course even a short visit to Cedar Point will see carousels, such as the Kiddy Kingdom one here.

We spent a little time looking around the Kiddie Kingdom rides, mostly out of a sense that someday they're going to renovate them otu of existence and we'll feel bad about that.

Though a lot of the Kiddie Kingdom rides are like this, a toy vehicle going in a circle with a buzzer the kid can press to make noise.

There's the carousel. The armored horse on the left is a fiberglass replica; the original is, last anyone confirmed, gathering dust in the art department for some reason.

Back to rides, like the spinning tubs one here that was closed lest the rain you see there make it unsafe to operate.

Here's two of the rabbits on the Kiddie Kingdom carousel. At the end of the season an operator claimed they had names, although we're not sure we believed the claim and I'm not sure I remember them. They were straightforward ones like you might make if you weren't trying very hard, like, Snowball and Caramel or something like that.

Kiddie Kingdom Carousel, some flat kiddie ride or other, and one of the domes of the Coliseum.

Trivia: On the second day of its flight Gemini 4 astronauts surpassed the total duration record of all eight previous United States astronauts combined, as well as the duration record for a multi-crew spacecraft set by Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2 three months earlier. Source: Gemini 4: An Astronaut Steps Into The Void, David J Shayler.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 62: WEE vs I.O.U., Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle. Yep, that sure was another college football tale, although this one at least introduces the element that Olive Oyl eats a lot of olives, thereby justifying one element of this one Gene Deitch-made 60s Popeye cartoon.

(PS: there is no significance to the subject line, a lyric from Sparks's ``Tips for Teens''. I couldn't think of a good song to use and this was playing. Pay it no mind.)

I don't have the time to really write anything up right now, so please enjoy pictures of the Revived Women's International Pinball Tournament, 2024 edition.

bunnyhugger discovering how much of Total Nuclear Annihilation she's lost touch with.

A look across the lower level of the movie theater. It was before noon so that's why the lower level isn't busy enough to be dead. Later, the smell of movie popcorn would dominate things.

And here's the trophies for the top four finishers! bunnyhugger would not be among them, but she didn't do badly.

Waiting area and lounge set up for players in the middle of the floor, along with a projection screen that would show whatever they thought deserved it. On the side you can see a Genesis, conceivably the one of my long-departed glory days at Pinburgh.

People gather together to hear opening announcements and play the Pinball National Anthem (the high-score theme from Space Station).

And gathering for the group photo, with both real cameras and cell phones!

bunnyhugger joins in the Pledge of Pinball Allegiance (liberty and just a wee bit more margin on the ball save timer for all).

Round one! Tragically, bunnyhugger's tournament would begin with Paragon. The format was the same as the WIPT of 2019, at least.

And here she faces up to, ugh, Paragon.

Sometime later she writes down scores (probably) for one of the other games that bank. Feels like Aladdin's Castle to me, but no way to know for sure. Or she's just setting the pen down.

Meanwhile with nothing else to do I got some time in on blob-themed game Quicksilver, in the free-play area.

Not sure I'd ever seen the airbrushed side panel art on a Quicksilver before. Turns out this melty blobby game manages to find room for silhouetted nipples.

Trivia: Albrecht Dürer, after receiving one of Martin Luther's works as a gift from Duke Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony in 1520, wrote (Duke Frederick's secretary and court chaplain) that he would draw Luther's portrait and engrave it in copper, ``if God helps me to come to'' him. Dürer would never meet, nor draw, Luther. Source: Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance, Lisa Jardine.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 61: King Bee and Queen Bee, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle. And after an intriguing start the characters just decide to leave. It's a choice that kind of makes sense but it should have been used as a stronger punch line.

When last I reported about my lost camera and Motor City Furry Con we'd had established two important things. First, they had my camera! Second, it was in storage so who knows when they'd find the chance to recover it?

Well. I could manage going to Pinball At The Zoo without a camera and even the handful of things we got to in May without. Mostly local pinball stuff, although this might be the first time I don't have a proper ``what we compete for'' picture of the plaques at pinball night. But we are coming up on things I must have a camera for, and while yes, my iPhone is probably adequate for most purposes I want a camera that's a proper camera.

So I went looking and found a used Panasonic Lumix camera, one very close to the camera I had before my misplaced camera. And I finally have all the pieces I need for it together --- camera, memory card, battery and spare battery, charger, and the data/power cable that connects it to a computer or USB power supply! I even found that my old camera bag, the one used for the previous camera, fits this new one just fine. It lacks a strap --- I'd transferred that to my Samsung camera so that's in the Motor City Furry Con Lost And Found Storage Locker right now --- but the important thing is I can take good pictures and plenty of them. And the zoom on this doesn't --- yet --- get jammed up partway through, putting it ahead of my Samsung.

Now, of course, I just have to explain what I need to take pictures of that made me spend money on this.

We close the month now with something I bet you'd never thought you would see: the end of Kennywood pictures from our trip last year! And what comes up to follow this? Hm. There's so many possibilities ...

Oh yeah, we rented a locker for the second time ever and had to get stuff out of it. Do you see our locker number? Well, it was easy to remember since it was 1054 and I need hardly remind you what an important year that was.

Super Kaleidoscope, the charming circular-shaped building up front with the candy shop inside. It just looks good. You can make out the Old Mill's frontage in the background.

The Goodnight heart, last thing you see before entering the tunnel to leave Kennywood.

They've painted the tunnel with all kinds of Kennywood memorabilia and items, including a replica ticket from nearly a century ago and the reminder to gentlemen after using the washroom.

Looking back at the park from the parking lot.

And here's a panoramic view at the end of the night, to match the one had at the start of the day.

Trivia: The pancreas's name reflects its label as ``pan'' (all) and ``kreas'' (flesh), an organ of all flesh. The name may reflect early lack of knowledge of what it did and was simply there. Source: The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human, Siddhartha Mukherjee.

Currently Reading: The Harvey Comics Companion, Mark Arnold.

bunnyhugger, stirred up by my post last night about the tree and the risk it might present, spent too much time worrying about what to do and turned to doing something about it this afternoon. And by remarkable stroke, found something very effective: a couple guys who could come out to the house today to give an estimate, and who're scheduled to come out tomorrow afternoon to cut the fallen branch down and chop it up into useful wood. So now we're set to be even more well-stocked for when we get the fireplace converted into something not dangerously unsafe to operate.

Also we got back the clock. As promised they had it ready Wednesday; I ventured in after work, but before going to the card store to get my father a birthday card. (This spun out into also getting father's day cards, saving me a trip sometime in two weeks.) As bunnyhugger texted to ask if I was stopping for something after work I was on my way to the art glass shop. This was all but the work of a minute. I came in and both the woman and the guy who'd been in the car on Saturday telling me she'd gone back in were there. I started to explain what my deal was when the woman pointed to the counter. I was delighted, and said so, by how lovely the new glass looks. bunnyhugger observed maybe the real difference was just that it was completely new and clean. But it does look great. And now it's on the wall and everything's in good shape in this part of this room of the house! We're making progress.

And now we return to Kennywood and to the flying saucer gift shop!

And here's the 90s t-shirt. Steel Phantom was rebuilt into Phantom's Revenge; Wipeout and Pitt Fall are gone (Wipeout to Lake Compounce). I can't find any information about Fort Kennywood and wonder if it might have been a show or event or something that wouldn't make lists of former attractions.

bunnyhugger admiring the Grand Carousel by night.

The carousel all white-lit and brilliant by night.

The inside has plenty of mirrors so you get to see the insides of the horses in this picture.

Looking out from atop a horse. bunnyhugger grabs a picture of me here.

bunnyhugger goes for a ride on the tiger this time.

Trivia: E-470, the beltway toll highway around Denver, is an incomplete loop, with the northwestern corner never built owing to plutonium-239 contamination of the soil of the former Rocky Flats Plant, which operated from 1952 to 1992. Source: Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World, Simon Winchester. In 1989 the FBI raided the plant, owned by the federal Department of Energy, over Rockwell International's shoddy management.

Currently Reading: The Harvey Comics Companion, Mark Arnold.

When I got home yesterday from getting some stuff from the pet store and the hardware store I had news for bunny_hugger. She'd wondered when the Joann Fabrics in our local mall would close. The answer: 55 minutes. We dithered a small bit about whether to go; would it be just depressing, or might we get something useful like really cheap Easter egg dye kits or bolts of fleece or stuff?

We got there to learn that they didn't have any fleece left. Or Easter egg kits. Or almost anything, really; they did well at keeping the store open until they ran out of stuff. All the remaining merchandise was on two small shelving units up front, and most of that was decoration letters. If you need a box of Z's, we could set you up, except that Joann's is now closed for good and all. Someone working the tiny remaining stock was urging people to buy boxes of toothpicks with lobster or shrimp cutouts atop them. We're not sure why anyone would get these at all, even if, as she observed, they won't spoil. I had the feeling this had turned into some minor silly retail obsession, waiting to see if anyone would ever take any of this.

We also wandered around the shelving and fixtures, where another employee was doing her best to find some piece of hardware we would take home with us. Apparently some of the thread spools are also a good configuration for storing Hot Wheels cars, in case you have a hundred-plus Hot Wheel cars that need storing. But we don't, nor anything close to that. Some of the pegbord-with-bin shelving seemed like it might be useful in our basement, if it weren't too big to fit in our basement.

And yet as we were leaving I noticed they had boxes full of pegboard racks, like, the metal or plastic rods that stick out and you can hang stuff on. So we got a box of that, for five bucks, and have the promise of organizing more things in our basement and garage if we ever get to that. I also, maybe foolishly, bought a couple boxes of some silicone sheets that are meant to be pressed around mugs or other ceramic things. I don't know what to do with them but have the feeling there's probably something decorative we can do. bunny_hugger sees in them mostly a thing we'll have to get rid of at some point. I suppose either will do fine.

And that was our last Joann's visit.

Now to what I hope was merely the most recent Kennywood visit, drawing as you can see nearer its close.

Almost at The Phantom's Revenge's station and this gives a view of the exit queue. (Also the entrance for people with mobility needs, like the guy in a wheelchair coming up the other way.)

Lanes to get your seat for the ride. Note there isn't that automatic gate that keeps you away until the operator decides you may approach.

That gift shop again, now seen by night. Also showing off the Small Fry's, that place where you can get the same fries as at The Potato Patch but with less of a wait. And yes, per Kennywood: Behind The Screams, it is based on the entrance to Wonderland at Revere Beach, Massachusetts. (Yes, if you looked at that link, you saw an 'Infant Incubators' building inside Wonderland. Early 20th century was weird.)

Sitting at the top of the reflecting pool in Lost Kennywood, looking out over a beautifully clear sky and the Black Widow swing ride.

Over that way's the swing ride. Oops, accidentally got a tiny bit of a view of bunny_hugger in there. Sorry, won't do that again.

And here's how the pool looks by early night.

Trivia: Charles Babbage invented a mechanical time clock in 1844. Source: Time's Pendulum: The Quest to Capture Time --- From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, Jo Ellen Barnett.

Currently Reading: The Harvey Comics Companion, Mark Arnold.