austin_dern

Walking downhill --- very downhill --- to the pyramid allowed me to act like the old hand, even though I was pointing out stuff I had seen once. But by now the Mi Gusto Es restaurant (just opening, I think it was), and the extremely large modern church, and then this cute little public park were familiar to me and I could say what I knew about them. Which wasn't much. I could just confirm that yes, that's where they were. But like I say, we passed this little public park that was a bit of a concrete monster --- the center had this tall pillar and some stairs around the center that didn't lead to anything particular --- but that looked like a good spot to pause if you needed to walk along the highway.

We also stopped to admire a strange structure. By one off-ramp was a spot that looked like a garden area, with local plants. In the midst was this white-painted, blocky structure that looked like a very abstract bird, with red and green vertical stripes along the sides. There was a small metal walkway leading to it. But this was all closed off, locked away from the public. Something for utility workers? A bit of public green space that people can't actually go in? No idea.

So we went in to the Cuicuilco Pyramid area. It was Monday, so there were fewer people just hanging around or picnicking and nobody was shooting bow and arrow this time around. bunny_hugger was no less enchanted by ``cacomixtle'' than I was. And she was much better at reading the Spanish-language signs. This would make the biggest difference inside the small museum, where there were monolingual signs and where my translation app had stumbled repeatedly. I had to promise her that yes, ``tejon'' does too mean ``coati'' in Mexican Spanish. (But in fairness, there isn't any reason that badgers wouldn't be in the Mexico City area so there is an unavoidable ambiguity in describing the animals of the area.)

Walking around the nature trail with bunny_hugger's eyes was great as where I saw ``plants'' she saw actual things, specific things. ... Also we noticed graffiti, names carved into the leaves of aloe plants, something I hadn't noticed on Saturday and that still seems bizarre. Some of the leaves were as full of names as an old school desk might be. We walked the long way around the whole nature trail, deep enough into the park it seemed hard to believe there was so much city around us. I could point to where Six Flags Mexico was --- still visible, but I think closed for the day, and with Christmas in the Park closed --- and try to share the weird feeling that inspired in me. Also I spotted some of the cats from Saturday, hiding in the taller plants, one grooming.

We figured to walk back the way I had Saturday, stopping first at that shopping mall for a snack and maybe something cool to drink. bunny_hugger poked, curious, into the Sanborns store that I thought was just a boring little clothing shop. Turns out it was a substantial department store, your classic style where there's a restaurant and toys and candy and clothes and electronics and greeting cards and telescopes and so on. She'd end up getting some candy, and looking long and hard at some of the tchotchkes. There were some great dragons and birds and such that were pricey, yes, but which ... if we were just confident we could get them back home intact we might have gone for after all.

But that was our last stop there. We nosed into the bookstore, for example, with bunny_hugger having a chance at actually reading anything and wondering at the great number of vinyl records the shop had. The store had a fair Philosophy section and it got us wondering whether there were any Great Philosophers, ones of historic import, who'd written natively in Spanish. Between us we could only think of maybe Spinoza, who apparently didn't write anything noteworthy in the vernacular. Aw well.

We did get around to the food court, where the restaurant that had all the kids and the clown tying balloon animals was nearly deserted. We just got sodas from the McDonald's, and bunny_hugger was tempted by but didn't get the apple pie, fried the way it was in our childhood, there. (I don't have the nostalgic attraction to fried McDonald's apple pies. We didn't get them much, if at all, when we were kids, probably because there were four of us kids and prices add up, the story of all our childhood activities.) We also saw that Coco was still playing, several times a day, pretty good considering the movie came out much closer to the Day of the Dead in Mexico.

We got some ice cream, and walked slowly back uphill. It took longer than you might expect. It's hard work walking steadily uphill, and the air was thinner than we maybe realized. Afterwards we recuperated in the hotel room, at least until dinner time. For this we realized we probably would have been better off eating at the mall, but we weren't hungry then. So we went back to the smaller mall, the one with the Best Buy. Rather than the IHOP we went back to the Crepes Corner, where bunny_hugger tried something new and I tried the same four-cheese crepe we'd had the other day. As I say, a day of retrenchment, of settling in to what was familiar, but not a mistake for doing that.

Trivia: By the early 1930s the Stern Brothers department store in New York City had the nickname of ``the show business store'', as around a hundred celebrities made appearances at its fashion shows and special events each year. Source: The Grand Emporiums: The Illustrated History of America's Great Department Stores, Robert Hendrickson.

Currently Reading: The League of Regrettable Superheroes, Jon Morris. I kinda know where this is all going but I'm curious how long it will take to get to The Whizzer.

PS: Reading the Comics, April 14, 2018: Friday the 13th Edition? Some comic strip talk.

PPS: And now to close out our trip to the Columbus Zoo where we actually stopped to observe like three animals.

Bad news! We hoped to get one last ride on Sea Dragon and what did we find?

Ah, but we just needed to be a bit patient. Here a test train's sent out; the ride would soon be open again and we could get a backseat ride.

And the Sea Dragon launch station, with the release lever on the left side, and a ride operator with the measuring-stick for kids to be allowed on off on the right.

Back to La Feria, which we'd just left. With the park closed we had the question how to get home. Well, find an Authorized Taxi stand, naturally. I asked at the information booth near the front of La Feria and the person apologized and went back into the office to consult with, I trust, someone. She came back and said that there were taxis out on the street. ... All right, but we had gotten a lot of warnings against picking up street taxis. Well, if we could get to a pay phone we could call the hotel and they would arrange a taxi, at least.

Someone else overheard me asking about taxis, and ran up to volunteer that we just needed to get an Uber ride. I thanked him for the advice, trusting that there was no point explaining that we couldn't use it (no smart phones, and even if we had smart phones, no Mexico-network smart phones) or that even if we could we wouldn't (as Uber is an evil company which exists to inflict misery on the public). bunny_hugger heard only part of this, and mistook it for advice from the park employee, and that didn't really make things better.

Anyway. Last stop in the park: the gift shop, which we had poked into earlier in the afternoon. They had some fairly nice t-shirts. I picked up one that's actually got a collar, making it look that little bit extra classier. No ride shirts, unfortunately, but at least they had stuff with the name of the park, which puts the merchandise a fair bit ahead of Six Flags Mexico's.

And then ... out, into the night. Some taxis outside the park entrance, waiting for pickups. We were wary of them. No pay phones, to my surprise. But I had a thought. The amusement park is in the midst of a large city park; there'd surely be an Authorized Taxi stand somewhere nearby. And if there weren't, there was a metro station nearby. That would have one. There were a handful of signs pointing to the subway. By the time the signs thinned out there was a good-sized crowd of people moving in the same direction. I trusted this would be leading to the subway. I was right, but it took a while: several blocks one way, then a turn, then down past a hospital(?) and some more minor roads and then down an overpass over the highway that looked familiar from driving in and then down another narrow street and further along but then, what do you know, but there was the Metro entrance.

With ... no sign of an Authorized Taxi stand. But they did have pay phones. I got the number for the hotel and over a very noisy, crackly line, and got someone at our hotel. I explained quickly where we were and that we needed a taxi. The person said all right and put me on hold, saying I needed the concierge. After several unnerving minutes of quiet and my thinking about how much change I had in my pockets the phone picked up again, to a person who had no idea who I was or why I was calling. So I explained the situation again and was put on hold again, with the assurance that the concierge would be able to help me. And then more waiting while I worried about how long a pay phone call will last and whether I would understand an operator's instructions to deposit more money. Most of what I had managed to do in Mexico City had been borne out by contextual clues. A new voice in a confusing situation? Could be anything.

Ah, but finally, someone picked up who had no idea who I was or why I was calling. I explained it quickly and they said that we were pretty far from the hotel. Yes, that was why we wanted a taxi, thank you. They spent some time doing ... something ... and then explained there wasn't one to be had. I said, well, we're at the subway, can we at least get closer to the hotel by it? They didn't think so. I cursed myself again for not at least looking up the nearest subway stop to our hotel, but when we got home I didn't look it up. (It looks like we could have gotten to the university by subway, although it would've taken a couple transfers.)

So I led us into the subway station, to see what the station attendant recommended. They had nothing, but the language barrier probably worked against us.

What to do, lost somewhere in Mexico City late at night on a Sunday? ... My only plan was retreat. Go back to La Feria and trust that maybe we could find something there. The way back was almost all uphill, which felt really good after all this trudging around. But, to my amazement, we were not lost. I remembered enough major landmarks that it was easy navigating what had been a twisty path getting there. I often surprise myself managing something like that. (bunny_hugger, meanwhile, has the ability to actually remember the names of streets. I'm coming up on six years in Lansing and still could not tell you the name of the street one block west of ours, nor two blocks east, and I know there's a Prospect Road somewhere nearby.)

As we trudged back towards the park we found a few straggling groups of people walking back and forth. The last food stalls that were on the sides of the street outside the amusement park closing up. And, mercifully, a couple of taxis still taking pick-ups. For all that we'd been warned about the hazards of street taxis going on extravagant rides, we also didn't have a choice. So we took the taxi we could find. The driver, this time, chatted a bit about the park, but we didn't have the same kind of rapport as with the morning driver. Still, he drove us straight (as best we can tell) back to the hotel, safe and sound and for about what we had paid in the morning.

Back at the hotel, besides getting some large water bottles and some candy, we established that the paid Wi-fi codes didn't lapse at exactly 24 hours after you started using them. That is, if, say, Saturday you started using a new code at 10 pm, and Sunday you connected to the Internet at 9:30 pm, you were good up until the time you disconnected. So if we were thoughtful about closing our laptops we could drag one day's connection code out for two days' decent Internet. In practice, we'd use this to switch off, buying a code for me one day and bunny_hugger the next, but either way we could feel like we were getting away with something.

Trivia: At the end of World War I, the United Kingdom averaged a production of 3,500 aircraft and 4,000 engines per month. Source: Taking Flight: Inventing the Aerial Age from Antiquity through the First World War, Richard P Hallion.

Currently Reading: The Mismapping of America, Seymour I Schwartz.

PS: And some more at the Columbus Zoo.

Reverse-angle shot of the Columbus Zoo carousel animal I was riding. I don't think the ride was moving when I took this --- I don't do that --- but I'm not sure how to explain the blurry motion look in the background with the sharp look of the foreground animal otherwise.

Reverse of the Columbus Zoo's band organ, which had a portrait of what the zoo might have looked like back in the day. Well, in a very stylized fashion since while I know zoos used to, like, keep an elephant in an enclosure nearly large enough for them to turn around I'm pretty sure they were never kept behind a barrier short enough for the elephants to step over anytime they wanted.

And we continue to fail to completely ignore real actual animals in the zoo. There was a little and impromptu-looking exhibit of flamingos as we walked back to the amusement rides.

We entered the overhanging porch area of whatever La Cabana Chueca del Sereno was and sat on an empty patch of bench. This caused people around us to start saying something or other excitedly and pointing. We worked out that although it just looked like everybody sitting where was most comfortable, there was actually a line, and by sitting in the spot that a group of people had just vacated we were cutting. By ``we worked out'' I mean ``bunny_hugger worked out while I looked helpless''. So when the next group went in we stayed where we were, and resumed our roughly proper spot in line. Which was not in the next group; we had to sit through another round of ... whatever ... was going on in there, so close to the door we could debate whether sticking around was just the sunk cost fallacy.

Finally inside we took seats on a row of log benches near the back of a small classroom-size room that was open on two sides. There the ride operator gave a quick talk about: I don't know. It was in Spanish. Contextually, it has to have been explaining the lore of the attraction and just why it was something we should ``¡No dejes que la malédiction caiga sobre ti!'' And probably also the safety spiel, which would probably amount to not going off the paths or touching stuff.

They led us on a twisty sidewalk path through a nice desert-style garden and then down a breathtakingly steep incline into a building. A crooked building: the attraction was a mystery-spot type house, with the floors and walls built at severe angles relative to the ground. They gave us several demonstrations of the mysteries of the place, water flowing up a trough, people on a seat that seems to lean precariously forward. A pool table that, once the cue ball is hit, sends all sixteen balls into the corner pocket behind the cue. Some of these were done with volunteers. This was in a string of rooms, carefully paused so that there was a room's gap between us and the previous group and, I assume, the next group. I took a couple of pictures of the inside and got withering looks from people. bunny_hugger pointed out, later, that there were signs warning ``no photographs'' on the door and, probably, in the introductory spiel. Well, i can find videos of the whole walkthrough online so it's not like I'm the first oblivious patron.

But, still: that's what everybody was waiting for. And it's a lot of attraction for the wait, a good 15 to 20 minutes. And not an upcharge either; it's just part of the park admission, at least on the pass level we'd gotten.

While we were in La Cabana night fell. It had been a warm day --- one of the nice parts was stopping for an ice cream that we managed eventually to order --- and now it was one of those warm but not muggy nights. We could enjoy the park in resplendent night glory. The only sad part of that is it meant we were down to the last 90 minuts of the park's being open.

So some time we spent appreciating its glories. Some we spent on rides we had missed before. Such as the Musik Express, which like often happens at quirkier or smaller parks was run crazy fast. Enough to be a little exhausting and a little dizzying. We really didn't have enough food over the day. We also went into the mirror maze, having learned that those are more disappointing by day. We were getting ready to joke about these mazes not really being that difficult or challenging when we started to get lost, and the maze went on just long enough after that point that we had to admit we'd have gotten our money's worth, and maybe stepped over into the Roller Coaster Tycoon guest thought of ``Guest1 wants to get off Mirror Maze 1''.

Something we dare not miss was a night ride on Montaña Rusa. This turned out to start from the left side of the station, the one we'd first ridden on, the one with the more neck-shocking hill. But I was ready for it this time, at least, and avoided feeling bashed by the ride. And, yes, it was glorious in the blanket of night.

The little model of the ride was also illuminated, by a chain of tiny lights on the model itself. I tried to zoom my camera in as far as it could to get pictures. The ride operators noticed me doing this, and asked if I'd wanted to go closer for pictures. They opened the gate to that part of the platform, and I was basically falling over myself thanking them for this. It gave me the chance to walk around the model and photograph that, and also to get a good set of close photographs of the dragon/phoenix/coatl figure that looks over it. Really, really kind of them.

We weren't sure we wanted another ride on Montaña Rusa, or even if they were going to send out another train, as it was that close to the end of the night. bunny_hugger lead the way, to the Condor ride. This is a tower ride, yes, but the ride motion is basically that of a Troika: cars spinning around the end of an arm that itself is spinning around the center axis. The novelty is that the arms rise along the central axis to get up a hundred feet or so. I'm trusting the complicated movement, and speed, kept it from worrying bunny_hugger's fear of heights. And I thank her for the chance to see the park from the top of a tall ride, and at length.

We were pretty hungry by now, and got what seemed like the best option from the many closing stands, some nachos with cheese. And we passed that unspoken moment of 8 pm, when the park's day came to an end and the lights began to huddle up for the night. We had finished the day at La Feria Chapultepec.

Trivia: The last act Mississippi's Confederate governor did before surrendering to a loyal commander was to arrange for rations sent to the eleven pupils in the state institute for the blind. General Peter Osterhaus gave $150 from his pocket for their help. Source: Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America, William C Davis.

Currently Reading: Learning From The Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science, Shauna Devine.

PS: Someone Else's Homework: Some More Thoughts, on a cute little mathematics problem.

PPS: Hanging around the zoo some more.

Sea Dragon with its 60th-anniversary livery.

Circular-tube style bumper car ride that can spin in place, which I never remember seeing before this, but then they were everywhere. They are quite fun; that spinning in place adds a lot.

The log flume, and the person up top making sure people aren't screwing around before going down the big drop.

So among the smaller attractions at La Feria, what did we get to? I've mentioned the carousel. One just beside Cascabel 2.0 was the Jules Verne Orbinaut X10. It's a motion simulator. I don't remember the last time we even saw one; could it have been as far back as Dutch Wonderland in 2010 or 11? Well, we couldn't resist. It was small, and cramped, and hot, and the movie in front was just on a flat-screen TV. And showing the computer screen for some media player with a MP4 or some other ordinary old movie format. The ride was the flying of our ship over a strange alien terrain filled with dinosaurs and exploding volcanoes and collapsing mountains and all. And rendered in this gloriously 90s-style computer-animation that didn't look real, per se, but was fun and oddly nostalgic. And the motion matched the animation well enough that it worked.

Another one, tucked beside part of the Montaña Rusa track where we thought there might have been a queue entrance? And also beside one of the food stands labelled ``Hamburguesas Crispy Chicken'', which seemed like a fascinating heap of words to put together? (My photo of the place shows three overstuffed shelves of Doritos and Cheeetos in the window.) Casona Del Terror, with a delightful-looking vulture standing on the ride sign. The haunted house. They let in groups of people at a time, although only after photographing everyone --- using a real digital camera operated by a person --- standing in front of a green screen.

The house was packed, with lots of props, lots of stunts, some of them things we'd heard about being in old-time haunted houses but fallen out of favor in American walkthroughs because they're too likely to break or too fussy or too easily vandalized. Or possibly dangerous; they didn't just have floors with slats set on shakers. I think they also had roller bearing floors, so you would step on and slide forward or back and good luck keeping your balance. Rooms built at angles, animatronics popping out unexpectedly ... and some real dark places with strange noises. This was probably the most intense haunted house at least since the ghost-ship walkthrough at Morey's Piers, which gains some of its power by going on for as long as fourth grade.

This did not. We were with a younger bunch, and whether they were really frightened or playing it up for the sake of making a bigger noise around their peers, they started rushing through the rooms. And we tried to keep up; it's bad form to get separated in a group like that, not least because either the actors converge on you, or because the actors have done their business on the group ahead of you and all you get are the actors resetting their stunts. So by the end of the house they were running and we were trying to run fast enough to stay in sight while still staying in the house and, well, we didn't spend enough time in the attraction. And we forgot to look at whatever scary thing they put behind our pictures. We probably wouldn't have bought souvenir photos (we just don't do that), but in our haste we lost the chance.

We admired the log flume, and the people enjoying the big splashdown just beside Ratón Loco, but didn't want to go on that. Not without it being a lot warmer than it was.

We had, many times over, passed by what looked like a log cabin, with a covered porch and dozens of people sitting, waiting to go in. The name: La Cabana Chueca del Sereno. bunny_hugger's Spanish didn't prepare her for this. My translator app didn't help much either. ``Cabana'' we were fine with, but the rest? The logo was a guy with a walking stick standing at about a 20 degree angle. The slogan on the ride sign, underneath its name, read: ``¡No dejes que la malédiction caiga sobre ti!'' Between the two of us we got a tiny bit farther: something like ``don't let evil fall on you''? Another haunted house? That seemed odd for a place not a minute's walk from the Casona Del Terror. But it wouldn't be that weird, especially if they decided to have a haunted house that's more family-friendly than the Casona Del Terror. Or if the park just had someone who liked haunted houses.

The long string of benches were almost full. But there were some seats free. We could probably get in the next ... show or group or ... whatever it was. What could go wrong? We would at least learn.

Trivia: The first space shuttle launch happened while eight hundred machinists and other workers, employed by Boeing, were on strike for delayed raises and cost-of-living adjustments. Boeing replaced the strikers with supervisors to meet the launch schedule. Source: A History of the Kennedy Space Center, Kenneth Lipartito, Orville R Butler.

Currently Reading: Learning From The Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science, Shauna Devine.

PS: Getting to the part of the Columbus Zoo that we most wanted to see, given that we only had a couple hours there before we had to get back to bunny_hugger's parents.

``Excuse Our Mess!'' You can see what a borderline disaster area the Sea Dragon roller coster is, here on the approach to the ride.

The first drop of Sea Dragon, with a nearly full ride. The first car's seats were closed off; apparently, the restraints got stuck closed. (When a roller coaster's restraints malfunction it's almost always they get stuck closed.)

The end of Sea Dragon's first hill, where it rises again and turns back around. And it's an angle on a roller coaster that it seems like I never get, although there's no reason I shouldn't.

La Feria amusement park has a couple different wristbands for admission. There's the Magico, the cheapest, letting people on 28 of the rides, mostly the smaller, child-friendlier rides. There's the Mega, offering 39 rides, but cutting out the biggest thrill rides. There's the Platino, all 45 attractions. Good way, especially for the families that the park seems to cater to, to tailor their purchases to what the kids can actually ride and also to save a bit of money in the process. Mind, the Platino wristband cost M$200, or about US$10, so this might be an even better value than the endangered Lakemont Park in Altoona, Pennsylvania. (Which when we last visited offered daily rides for US$5, the right day of the week, but had fewer rides and a smaller footprint than La Feria.) We didn't have a real choice what to buy anyway, since only the Platino pass included Montaña Rusa or the other roller coasters. bunny_hugger handled the buying of wristbands, since she could actually follow much of the language, while I would just be hopeless.

We saw Montaña Rusa running, a great relief. We'd heard it was not always operating. Only one of the two lift hills was running at a time, apparently an increasingly common state of affairs. When the American Coaster Enthusiasts ran a Mexican tour last year they only had the one lift hill running, and if they were able to run two trains at once you'd think it would be for the coaster enthusiast convention. Yes, both hills worked, in alternate succession; it's a M&oum;bius-strip coaster and there's no choice about that. But the racing aspect was a part of the ride we were doomed to miss.

If we didn't miss the whole thing. You may think that yes, we were two PhD's, but there's still no way that we could miss the onetime largest roller coaster in the world --- the last wooden roller coaster to be the world's tallest roller coaster --- in a park whose landscape is dominated by the ride's hills and supports. But we were not having an easy time of it. La Feria doesn't seem to have any park maps, not as brochures and not as signs standing in the park. There's not much in directional signs in the park either. We figured, well, the station has to be near the base of the lift hill, and the queue has to start somewhere near the station, so let's try that. Yes, yes, the queue for The Phantom's Revenge at Kennywood is crazy far from any element of the ride. But what are the odds of something weird like that in a cramped urban amusement park on a hilly terrain? Allow me to explain why this is a correctly formed and therefore very funny amusement-park joke: Kennywood is also a cramped urban amusement park on a hilly terrain.

So we went down several hills and saw nothing. We found some tunnels underneath the roller coaster's structure. This seemed promising: a queue underneath the roller coaster would make good sense. It was not there. We did find a couple shops, and a side attraction called the Reptour. This would be a great name for a 30-day challenge to draw a new species each day, or maybe a vacation package for shapeshifters. But in this case it was a small side animal attraction with reptiles and we tried hard not to think about the animals being kept as a side show in an amusement park.

This would all give us a great tour of the lowest level of the amusement park, some of which was beautifully themed --- even the tunnels under Montaña Rusa were decorated as fairy-tale castles --- but which didn't get us any closer to a ride. Finally, naturally, bunny_hugger saved the day.

She remembered having seen pictures of a bride leading to the station. When we emerged back under the tunnels one more time she looked up and found a pedestrian bridge leading from the highest level of the park's ground and going, ah, to the launch station. The frontage of it is decorated with what my uncultured eye recognizes as ``that Aztec-y style, I think it is?'', ornate feathered serpents with heads that envelop human faces, lining the arches into the place with a big V and a circle of flames that's maybe the sun rising over it. On the inside were big posters celebrating a 2006 marathon ride session; six names are listed with from 586 to 1,333 consecutive rides. Sitting on the platform level, gated away from people, were a miniature of the whole roller coaster and a colorful dragon-creature several feet tall standing beside and towering over the ride.

I had plenty of time to watch this. There wasn't a long queue --- only about one train's worth when we arrived --- but it took time for any staff to come up, to open the gate, and to let the 24 people for one train's worth of riding in. Then to go down to the platform with the 24 people and check buckles and restraints and all. That the ride operators had to switch sides each dispatched train didn't help matters.

So apparently Montaña Rusa enjoys a reputation for being a rough ride. I didn't know this and I'd have ridden anyway. It seemed a little fast and a little wild to start with, but nothing outside the ordinary. Then came the end of this one drop on the return leg, and that was harsh; it battered my knees and left me feeling momentarily like my head was fleeing my body. This was a bit much. When we rode it again, as of course we would, we knew when to brace for this, and the end of the drop was much less bad. Can understand people who wouldn't go for that, though.

It's a fun ride, though, and my only regret is that it couldn't be my 200th. (Or what we believed my 200th to be.)

We went back around, of course, to try to ride the other lift hill. And did some close counting of the people in the queue ahead of us, so as to make sure we got on the correct side. Not only did we get the correct side, we were the first ones onto the train and so could get a front-seat ride. The particularly rough valley seemed less bad, possibly because we had learned to brace for it, possibly because it is, after all, a different piece of track with a slightly different geometry.

And so we had got to the most important roller coaster at this park. We had our objective met. The rest of the day was bonus.

Trivia: In 1811, as the (First) Bank of the United States's charter was to lapse, about 70 percent of its ownership was British stockholders. Source: A Nation of Deadbeats: An Uncommon History of America's Financial Disasters, Scott Reynolds Nelson.

Currently Reading: Learning From The Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science, Shauna Devine. Remarkably not a book taken from the Michigan State University library; this is the city library's.

PS: So where did we go after leaving the Holiday Inn Worthington for the presumably last time the Monday after Anthrohio finished?

We went to the Columbus Zoo! With the convention's new weekend the roller coaster in what used to be the Wyandot Lake Amusement Park, absorbed into the zoo years ago, would be open when we could visit. Also, as you can see, when everybody else in the world could visit since it was a beautiful sunny warm Memorial Day.

The Flying Scooters that were a big thing in amusement parks in the 1940s and which have made a comeback. So ... are these Wyandot Lake originals going back decades, or something newly made and brought in? Write down your answers; I'll be back with the correct response soon. Yes, I totally forgot to follow up on how I did that photo trick at Motor City Fur[ry] Con last year, but I was reminded of that fact and figure to share that secret soon.

Swing ride, along with some of the signs that show the mix of zoo and amusement park that absorbing Wyandot Lake has caused the Columbus Zoo to be. Also the sign pointing out what we really went to the Zoo for first and foremost. No, not the restrooms. ... Nice zoetrope-style pictures along the header and rounding boards, by the way.

With the most important ride ridden, and confident we'd have time for the antique carousel at the Columbus Zoo --- which had been at the former Wyandot Lake amusement park and was now tucked somewhere deep in the main zoo grounds --- we turned to what else we might look at. Oddly, we didn't go right back to re-ride the roller coaster although that would have made sense: we hadn't gotten a front-seat ride, nor a back-seat ride, and it's not like we could expect the lines to be shorter than what we had already experienced. Indeed, when we checked back in a few hours the ride was closed, underscoring the importance if you make a trip to a place for a specific ride to get on the ride as soon as possible.

But, other rides. There was a Music Express, one of those flat rides that puts you in a car and spins around, climbing and descending a hill while music plays really loud. This one had a vaguely African Safari Or Something theme, one we don't remember seeing on another Music Express. Well, they're mostly decorated in Airbrush Art Of 70s/80s Rockers. Something with Airbrush Art of Zebras Considering a Jeep is novel.

Our most interesting discovery was the bumper cars ride. Or what we figured was bumper cars. They're more a ring, though, a seat sitting on a cylindrical disc, with an inflated tire serving as protective bumper. The driver has two sticks, one for the left motor and one for the right. Push both together and you go forward. Push just one forward, or one forward and one back, and you turn pretty fast. Push both backward and you reverse at the same speed you could go forward. In describing this later on bunny_hugger and her brother worked out the hypothetical meeting at which this invention was proposed: ``what if we had bumper boats, but on land?'' And someone starts to say something, but falls silent. Fair enough. It seems like a silly change.

Thing is, it's a great ride. The levers mean you can stop on a dime, and change direction instantly, and yoink into reverse without a pause. This changes the dynamic of bumper cars dramatically. The ability to evade your pursuer is greatly enhanced, and there's something really delightful in seeing someone coming at you head-on, throwing it into reverse, and just sailing backwards out of their reach. At a similar ride we'd find in Freehold, New Jersey, we'd learn there's a spot which, if hit, makes the hit car lose control and go spinning for a couple seconds, which is an even greater variation. We have no idea whether the ones at the Columbus Zoo do that. Now that we know to test we might find out next year, all going well.

The ride you'd least expect to see us on we took: it's the log flume. We're really not log flume riders, what with how soaking wet they try to leave riders. But given the incredible heat and still air, getting a bit soaked a few hours before we would have to set out seemed like not such a bad idea after all. Hard to say, after it happened: we did get quite wet, just in time for the wind to pick up and a heavy cloud to move over, spoiling what should have been good evaporative fun. But we kept drying and were less insufferably hot after all.

On to the Flying Scooters, a ride that in the past decade has gone from near-extinct to maybe overpopulated. It's a fun one. You sit in a scooter seat, with a giant metal sail in front that you can turn left to right. The tower lifts you up and swings you around and you can guide where it is you're pointing and some of your rotation and make yourself sick if you work hard at it. That part's in your control. Good ride.

We went back to the Sea Dragon, hoping to get a front-seat ride this time, to find that it was closed.

Trivia: In May 1945 the British Military Government evacuated a five-kilometer strip between Westphalia and Holland, displacing hundreds of families including the entire village of Suderwick. In October the strip was reduced to 500 meters and local farmers allowed to return. Source: Germany 1945: From War To Peace, Richard Bessel.

Currently Reading: Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine, Sarah Lohman.

Monday morning after Morphicon/AnthrOhio we traditionally sit a little in our room, moping about the end of the convention and the long drive home which will be tempered only by getting lunch somewhere (we never do the burrito place on the way home, oddly) and stopping at Coon's Candy about an hour north of Columbus. It's a fine spot, lots of homemade candy, and just far enough away that organizing a side trip at the convention would be ludicrous. We varied that after we got our room cleared out and checked and re-checked.

This was, as you'd figure, to walk around the hotel and take our last photographs of it in the daylight. I thought there were more people at the con for the day-after stuff than usual but that might be a false impression. We wouldn't usually go up to the front desk to turn in our keys, just leaving them in the hotel room instead. But who wouldn't expect the day after to have more lingering people photographing stuff than usual?

The extra time treated us well. The previous day bunny_hugger had mentioned she didn't know what PunkCat looked like out of his raccoon fursuit. I said I'd point him out to her when we loaded the car, since it seems like I always run into him when loading the car. And I hadn't seen him when loading up the car this time. But with the time we spent prowling the hotel taking farewell photographs we were in the right place and time to run into him again. As expected, she did know the guy from appearances, she just hadn't connected him with the suit. I hope the tradition of running into him at checking-out transfers to the new hotel. We need our certainties in life.

We didn't go somewhere to eat. We had a new prospect open. There used to be a small amusement park, Wyandot Lake, adjacent to the Columbus Zoo. In 2006 the Zoo bought the then-110-year-old park and divided it into a water park with separate admission and an amusement area dubbed Jungle Jack's Landing. We had wanted to get there since, besides the remnants of the old park, they had a wooden roller coaster named the Sea Dragon. It had always been something that opened in mid-May, too late for Morphicon/AnthrOhio in its traditional weekend. But now that it's moved to Memorial Day weekend we could go! The amusement park area would be open and the roller coaster running. We could try that out, and could also see their antique carousel.

It was a bright, sunny Memorial Day. We figured we'd only have a couple hours there, as we needed to get to bunny_hugger's parents at a reasonable evening hour. But that should be enough for a short visit to a couple of rides. And it might be crowded; we had no way to guess what the zoo and amusement park crowd would be like this early in the summer season, on a weekday, but a holiday weekday. We had heard we could buy admission tickets from the AAA, or possibly from the Kroger. We decided not to, though, trusting that while the tickets would be a little more expensive we'd be better off not taking the time to divert away from the Columbus Zoo.

This was as completely wrong a decision as we could possibly have made.

Trivia: Nicaragua's 1902 postage stamps, including the one depicting the Momotombo volcano which would help sway the United States away from a Nicaraguan and to a Panamanian canal location, were printed by the American Bank Note Company of New York City. Source: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Stephen Kinzer.

Currently Reading: Sky Island, L Frank Baum.