The Joker's Kingdom.
I haven't been there since I was in the Mermaid Parade, so I spent yesterday at Coney Island with Brian, Jocelyn, Brian's son Henry, Brian's brother Kenny & Kenny's son Jaden, & semi-latecomer Kat. That is Kenny I'm picking up in the photo; Brian took it. I've met Kenny & Jaden before-- we went to the Natural History Museum a few years ago-- & having two kids with you is really different from having one? I mean, one kid is an oddity, a novelty, but two kids really drives home...well, being an adult. We're Henry's dad's weird friends. I can remember strange adults from when I was their age. Remember how infinitely old they seemed? Well, that is us now. Mortality, everybody! The first thing we did when we got there-- after a quick shopping trip-- was eat at Nathan's. & get a giant jug of beer. Seriously, you can get basically a bucket of beer for seven dollars. We bumped into Terra, Vicki & Jasmine while we were there; there had been some discussion about merging groups but they were aquarium bound & we were more boardwalk-wise. The first ride we elected to go on was bumper cars! That was fairly fun; I had a couple of good collisions with everybody. Wandering out of there we found a horrible statue outside of a haunted house, a fallen Freddy Kruger with water coming out his mouth like puke & out his bottom like...well. Under the Wonder Wheel I saw a "Test Your Strength" with the greatest difficulty chart. That's right, Superman is better than Iron Man!
Waiting in that little tunnel is where we met up with Kat, finally. Do you know the little area I mean? There is a dark ride, a bunch of the fortune teller robots, punching bag games...right between the Wonder Wheel entrances? That is the place that is the "most" Coney Island to me, my brain sort of uses it as a touchstone for the whole amusement park part. There is the midway, the boardwalk, then the beach, right? Anyhow, we went up & even the people who were thinking of getting into the stationary cars of the ferris wheel picked the spinning ones. It is way scary then you expect, though; I like the Wonder Wheel! Got a cute photo of Jocelyn & Kat, too. After that, I suggested we hit The Cyclone just so we could check off all of the major things on the list. We got in, playful hassled the people working the ride, & were off! You know, I also like The Cyclone. I grew up around a lot of amusement parks-- something Jocelyn & I can talk about, since we're both from the Wasteland, & Terra has been to Cedar Point too-- & I feel pretty confident saying that wooden roller coasters are the best! Henry & Jaden went too, which was brave of both of them, since it isn't not scary. It isn't not scary at all. We got a pretty awesome photo on the souvenir camera, too, all hands up! The rest of the time we spent on the beach; I picked everybody up, we looked for oysters, & in general it was a lot of fun.