I may be lucky, this may be on the square
We're into June already in my photo roll! Will I end the year less than six months behind? No. But how close will I get? And what do I have to photograph next? Well, it's ...
The parking lot. Michigan's Adventure has a lot that always strikes us as hilariously oversized, in part because we always go there on days it's not packed. But this Sunday visit was on one abnormally low in attendance too.
The entrance, complete with the metal detectors used to catch any suspected teens and annoy them enough they stop doing that anymore.
They renovated some of the gift shops in the Old West-themed area. The General Store sign, I believe, used to be along the former main midway, but that shop was renovated out of existence last year and there's no sense throwing a thing like a sign away. Leather Treaty used to be attached to a freestanding sales cart too.
And here's the path from the General Store, looking down to Thunder Bolt, with Shivering Timbers's entrance on the left. Note the shiny new map, one of three put up in the park last year.
Oh and here's this little shaded seating area that we never noticed before last year and yet that's just ... very pleasant and right out in-between a bunch of major attractions where you'd think it would be impossible to miss.
Thunder Bolt, the Matterhorn ride, has its lights in good shape now but lost its cover!
Here's the Shivering Timbers blue train on the final helix. The lift hill's on the left there.
Another cycle of the Shivering Timbers blue train going onto the helix.
And this is not Shivering Timbers at all --- it doesn't have a red train --- but rather Wolverine Wildcat's lift hill. You can tell by how I angled the shot to make the train look like it's not really going uphill.
Biggest shock this year was the petting zoo never opened and, I'd later realize, was gone from the park maps. Here it's used to hold some flowers, I assume ahead of being planted, but nothing for us to look at.
Zach's Zoomer seen from the front, and looking out on the Speed Splashers ride, the one with the mermaid there. I'd assumed from the style that Speed Splashers dated back to time immoral but no, it dates to like 2000.
Zach's Zoomer's station offers this nice elevated perspective to see more of the park. Like Cedar Point, Michigan's Adventure lacks an observation tower or similar ride (except the Ferris wheel) so this is about as good as it gets.
Trivia: Amos Ives Root, whose trade journal Gleanings in Bee Culture broke the news of the Wright Brothers' heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk, was in the 1870s the first man in northern Ohio (and plausibly in all of Ohio) to own a bicycle. He also bought an Olds Runabout in sprint 1903 and wrote about it at great length in his column. Source: To Conquer The Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight, James Tobin. Tobin explains that Root used his column to write about everything, in an interesting enough style that the journal had hundreds of thousands of subscribers, many with no interest in bees whatsoever.
Currently Reading: Marvel Tales Featuring Rocket Raccoon, Bill Mantlo, Mike Mignola.