But bags of bones seem so unsafe, it's semi-serious
Last weekend would have been an outstanding time to visit Cedar Point, as the ``bonus weekend'' between the Labor Day end-of-daily-park-operations and the start of Halloweekends usually sees a crowd measured in the dozens. So it was a week ago, we're told, but work deadlines wouldn't let bunny_hugger take the time for it and I wouldn't go by myself like that. This past weekend would be second-best, and we took the chance on Sunday to go and see how lucky we could get.
A stroke of bad luck going into things: we would have to leave early, before the park's close at 8 pm. This because not just I had to get up for work, but bunny_hugger had to get up an hour earlier than usual. She had jury duty, and had to report at 8 am downtown, and while I can get under six hours' sleep and be functional, she can't. It turns out we drove out of the park at 7:50 pm, which is still early for us especially since that counts the time taken to walk out of the park and go to the bathroom and get in the car and take out contact lenses and all. And we made great time getting home, getting in the door by about 11:30.
The weather was great, clear cloudless skies and mid-to-upper 80s. The crowd size was around normal, based on where we parked, but the crowd just ... wasn't in line for stuff, at least not the stuff we were interested in. We were able to ride Millennium Force, one of the marquee roller coasters, with a maybe 20 minute wait, not much more than the 15 minutes promised for line-cutting Fast Lane riders. Steel Vengeance, the always-in-heavy-demand ride, claimed a wait of fifteen minutes and it was not even that long. That was the most incredible thing of the day; there's always a huge line and this ... this was Mean Streak-type waits, just nothing. We did not ride Maverick, which had a sign promising a 50-minute wait --- five minutes for Fast Lane --- but now I wonder if we should have looked at the actual physical line instead of the (electronic) queue estimate.
At the trading-pins stand, where we've only ever bought pins, I got a couple that I liked, from the 'Escaped Mouse' series. These have a couple of the mouse mascots of the Wild Mouse coaster seen in front of other rides from the area. Simple but they have good poses. I also picked up the pin that claims 'I Rode Top Thrill 2', the rebuilt Top Thrill Dragster that ran for about three weeks this season before being closed and, surely, sued about. I claimed this as an ultra-rare pin. (It's not; it's one of the common pins, but actual Top Thrill 2 riders are rare.)
Though the Halloweekends things were all in place and even some of the haunted houses opened we weren't looking for them particularly. We were looking for good spots to look at Snake River Falls, the Shoot-the-Chutes ride that closed for good on Labor Day. Nobody knows what the park is planning to put in its place, although apparently the park's teasing something to do with sirens. As in the lure-men-to-their-doom kind, not the warning that there's a tornado kind. We got our photographs at least, as well as pictures of the Town Hall Museum and its attached buildings. If they're renovating Snake River Falls there's an excellent chance that those are going to be demolished or renovated to make room.
I suggested, on our way out, stopping in one of the gift shops up front and see if there were, as bunny_hugger hoped, any good new Iron Dragon merchandise. Way back at the start of the season she had been talking with a manager-y type of a gift shop and got the tease that there might be something good coming but not until later in the season. She found it in the gift shop underneath the sky chair ride: an Iron Dragon travel mug. Steel interior, and with an actual artistically designed pattern outside, not just the ride logo slapped on a black background. Its only real drawback was being hand-wash.
Also --- on the shelves of Squishmallow plush she had already looked at and disregarded as having nothing new --- I noticed the grey body of Aaron D Ragon. Yes, they'd created an Iron Dragon-based Squishmallow plush after all, with a goofy but fun name and also a biography on his nametag that recommends people go to the Dragon's Inn and try the chicken tenders. Cedar Point replaced the Dragon's Inn this year, turning it into a cocktail bar, one of suspiciously many. You can still get chicken tenders anywhere in the park, though, including ice cream stands, the Tilt-a-Whirl people don't realize is there, and the parking brake on the GateKeeper roller coaster.
Now, the high point of the day would be our stopping in the 'historic' farm/petting-zoo on the Frontier Trail. The animals were out and active and engaged enough and, particularly, there were two chickens outside the fenced-off areas just strolling around. And then, from behind the barn that serves as night quarters, came two turkeys strolling in, to the theme from West Side Story, as bunny_hugger was whistling. Though the approach looked like there would be a rumble the birds did not actually fight, both parties being lucky that their chick was here.
And then as we were walking out and past one of the just-opened haunted houses she cried out ``Bunny!'' I couldn't see anything. I was a little too tall for this. There's a part of the petting zoo that's itself inside another fenced area, and in that was a square pen with a couple rabbits inside. One had settled into a form in the dead center of the pen, where it couldn't be touched until someone picked up their kid and held them out past the fence. Another was sitting under a shelf in the corner of the pen, and put up with several rounds of being petted before going off to join the other rabbit, where they asked for grooming from the always-centered rabbit and got some attention. All very adorable and it only hurt a little that the center rabbit, a white bunny, reminded us of Roger. (This one wasn't albino, though; they had tan spots.) And the corner rabbit had a color and build much like Sunshine's, but a touch smaller.
Still. This was a really good day at the park and when we mentioned how we could go next week, it didn't feel absurd. Probably that'll be busier; Halloween season is when amusement parks make their money for the year. But, you never know, do you?
There were a couple people at the park in costume, mostly kids, but a few teenagers or older people. I saw someone wearing what was either a dog or a bear costume walking ahead of us as we entered the Frontier Trail, but never saw him again. That's such a distinctive outfit to not see again that I wonder if he wasn't on his way to be part of a haunted house's attraction, possible as a The Shining reference. No knowing. I guess if we go back and see him again, we'll know.
The Midway Carousel was back to playing Halloween and spooky-themed music on its band organ. Pieces we heard included Johann Strauss's ``The Blue Danube'' for some reason, ``Spooky, Scary Skeletons'', and the theme to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You, a show that famously had zero ghosts, witches, spirits, or supernatural forces at work. We didn't stick around long enough to hear their version of The Exorcist theme yet.
bunny_hugger was selected for a jury, for a case they expect to need just a day to present.
Back to photographs now, and to Crossroads Village, last seen hanging around the antique carousel. And what follows being around an antique carousel?
bunny_hugger getting on a horse for a ride at six rotations per minute on the C W Parker carousel.
Here's the ride ready to start. You can see the band organ on the right.
And looking back outside again. Here's the wooden sidewalk, glistening from past rain, looking out to the main body of the village.
bunny_hugger gets a picture of the decorative arch and, in the distance, that big white ornament light fixture, which you'll be seeing soon enough, don't worry.
Road leading north from the rides section of the village.
The roads have names, although only some of them have street signs. I liked this arrangement. Feels very album cover to me.
Trivia: After his election to the United States Senate in 1930 Louisiana Governor Huey P Long's lieutenant governor, Paul Narcise Cyr --- an enemy --- took the governor's oath before a notary public, on the theory that Long's election to the Senate vacated the governor's office. Long, holding on to the governor's office and not leaving the state, maintained that since Cyr had taken the governor's oath he had vacated the office of lieutenant governor, and therefore State Senate President pro tem A O King, member of Long's organization, had automatically become lieutenant governor. Source: The Year We Had No President, Richard Hansen. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in favor of King, on the grounds that Huey Long, you know?
Currently Reading: Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World's Smells, Harold McGee. bunny_hugger asked if I got this book because of the coati thing and no, that's just coincidence, I happened across it in the bookstore and read a couple pages and they were interesting and it was on the discount shelves so that's why I have it. But yeah, it would happen like that, right?