Oh My Darling Clementon

[vovat]

We went to one small amusement park not long ago, and another even smaller one just yesterday. This was Clementon Park, in the area where Beth grew up. She went there a lot as a kid, and we went there together several times as adults. It had closed a few years ago, but was then bought by a new owner. It was always small, but now a lot of it is water rides, so there's even less room for the dry rides. It wasn't very crowded, so we got to ride everything we wanted to, mostly multiple times. There were a lot of little kids, but that was proportional to how many people there were in general. They still have the train, Sea Dragon, the carousel, the swings, and the log flume from earlier.

It's weird how a log flume is technically a water ride, but is usually not in water parks. It's called King Neptune's Revenge, and I've probably said this before, but I'm not sure what he's seeking revenge for. The train is of the C.P. Huntington variety, modeled on the Central Pacific Railroad locomotive built in 1863.

A lot of amusement parks have these, and this one goes along a track lined with animal statues.

Speaking of animals, I appreciate that the carousel has some animals other than horses, including a dragon, a lion, a tiger, and a zebra, although not all of them move up and down.

The lion has an eagle on its back, so I have to wonder if they're the parents of a griffin.

I rode on the rabbit for my first ride, and it reminded me of Peg Amy riding Wag in Kabumpo in Oz.

There's also still the wooden roller coaster they put in to replace the old Jackrabbit, which was previously called the Tsunami and the J2, but is now the Hellcat. Whatever the name is, it's a very rough ride.

And the Ferris Wheel is still there, but it wasn't running that day. The park also got a new Scrambler and Tilt-A-Whirl, and by that I mean they're new to the park; they look and sound pretty old.

For a while, they had a Turtle Whirl, with cars shaped like turtles. The current one is painted purple with green slime.

We didn't go on the new Super Loops, called the Ring of Fire, but we did do the Thunder Drop. They have a Pizza Hut at the park now, so I had a personal pan pizza for dinner. Well, Beth had one slice. I eat a lot of pizza and Beth not much of it, but Pizza Hut is nostalgic for both of us. Yeah, Brooklyn has a lot of pizza that is objectively better, but it doesn't remind me as much of childhood. Oh, and at one of the gift shops, there was this flag with a bird on it. It reminded me of Heckle and Jeckle, and it's not like it's the park mascot or anything, as far as I know.


We'd been going to the Monster-Mania Convention for a long time, so it was surprising that the most recent one made the news, and not in a good way. Gary Busey was a guest there, and there were a few sexual harassment allegations about him. This had nothing to do with us, of course, but it's crazy when something familiar comes up in unexpected places.

We have tickets to see Neko Case twice this week, both at standing room venues. Let's hope my feet will hold out for that long.