Stratovania

We visited the Brooklyn Botanic Garden the Tuesday before last, and Clementon Park that Saturday. There wasn't much new at the former, but they did have a sign about how inaccurate the term "horsechestnuts" is.

So much of the latter is the water park now, and we didn't go on anything there, so it left us with only a few rides.

The Tilt-A-Whirl and the Hellcat weren't running, but I didn't mind that with the latter, as it's very rough.

The sign does not lie.
Some other people at the park were obsessed with the eagle at the top of the roller coaster, and I don't know how long it's been there.

We rode the Ring of Fire for the first time, and it was the first time I'd ridden a Super Loops sort of ride at all. I think I first saw one of them in the movie Big, and wondered if it was like a coaster loop without the coaster. I guess it's a little different, because it builds up momentum before going all the way around. While it didn't burn, burn, burn, it was uncomfortable.

The C.P. Huntington train was taken out of service a few times, although we did ride it twice. I get the impression they had to overhaul the engine, as it's now noisy and smells of gasoline, and it was sometimes difficult for the engineer to get it started. And I rode both the zebra and the dragon on the carousel.

They serve Pizza Hut there now, and I hadn't had that in quite a while. Do they even have old-style Pizza Huts anymore? The last one I ate at was an Express, and while the food seems to still be the same, I miss the stained glass lamps and the strangely dim light.


This past Saturday, we visited Long Beach Island in New Jersey for the first time. I actually had a provisional job offer there once, but I figured it was too far away, and there was no guarantee that the job would last anyway. According to Beth, around where she grew up in South Jersey, people going to the beach said they were going "down the shore," which I can't recall hearing when I was young. We first visited Seaside Heights, which has a boardwalk and a little amusement park called Casino Pier. While there, we rode Xolo Loca, Pirate's Hideaway, the Ferris Wheel, Hydrus, and the Skyride.

Xolo Loca, named after the Xoloitzcuintle dog, is a small roller coaster with spinning cars.

I thought Pirate's Hideaway might be a dark ride, and I guess it is in a general sense, but it's really just a coaster that's mostly indoors. They also had an odd assortment of statues, including Paul Bunyan, a hobo alligator, a chicken on steroids, and what looks like Mighty Mouse with his face erased and then drawn back on.

As funny as the writing on the hobogator is, I can't help but think some kids would WANT to be bitten.
You can't actually get onto the beach there without a pass. I didn't have any particular desire to do so anyway, but monetizing just walking somewhere is kind of scummy. The other place we visited was Jenkinson's Boardwalk in Point Pleasant Beach, which is more geared towards kids.

There, we rode the train (also a C.P. Huntington) and the carousel, as well as a coaster called Tidal Wave, which was largely the same as Xolo Loca, but had a beach theme instead of a Mexican one. Both boardwalks had a lot of arcades, focusing more on games where you can win prizes than ones you just play.

Spider-Mario says, "With great-a power-ups comes great-a responsibility!"
There are several games called Cut 2 Win or something similar that involve cutting down a big stuffed animal in a case, and I don't think I'd seen that kind before.

They had a lot of stuffed seagulls with food, too.


We ate the Rainbow Diner in Brick (home of the late Rachel Cosgrove Payes) afterwards, and my obsession with kids' menus where the foods are named after cartoon characters continues. Shouldn't the Super Mario be the spaghetti, or maybe mushrooms? I associate Snoopy with pizza and cookies, although the Turtles are even more pizza-obsessed. Diners don't often have pizza, though. And clownfish eat plankton and other tiny organisms. The one thing they got correct is that Donald Duck really does seem to eat a lot of turkey, despite being a bird himself.

After OzCon and our visit with Stephanie, we checked in at the hotel in Anaheim. It's one of those ones that isn't on Disney property, but has an arrangement with the park, including transportation as part of the price. It also included a breakfast buffet, including a station where a cook made omelettes and waffles.

Even Beth liked it, and she's normally against typical breakfast foods. Driving around the Los Angeles area is kind of fascinating because of how so many entertainment media are based there, so you come across a lot of place names that you've heard in movies and TV, but were largely meaningless to someone growing up in Pennsylvania. We did a lot of freeway driving during the time we were there, and it's too bad they had to destroy Toontown to build that. We also drove by the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank when we went with Stephanie to a coffee shop near there.

Considering how spread out Walt Disney World is, it's kind of fascinating that Disneyland is relatively small, and there's an IHOP right across the street from the entrance with a sign forbidding parking for Disney.


The first thing we rode on at the park was Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, although we did the walkthrough of Sleeping Beauty's Castle before that.

A lot of the stuff we were most interested in was in Fantasyland. The Mr. Toad ride is one that seems to get mentioned quite a lot. I remember one Simpsons episode with something called "Mr. Frog's Mild Ride," maybe not a great joke but one that stuck with me.

The ride itself runs along a curving track with scenes from The Wind in the Willows, and ends up in Hell.

I guess that's the moral message, that if you drive recklessly and try to outrun the cops, you'll be eternally damned. Was this ride the inspiration for Grand Theft Auto? Other rides in the area had the same basic theme of riding through scenes from an animated movie.

Snow White's Enchanted Wish, Pinocchio's Daring Journey, and Peter Pan's Flight are all right in there together, although we ended up not riding that last one until Wednesday. They all give some sense of the story while you're waiting in line, and I found it strange that the Snow White one didn't even mention the Queen trying to kill her. The poison apple is part of the ride, but the part with the huntsman is glossed over.

The Casey Jr. Circus Train and Storybook Land Canal Boats are right next to each other, and go past a lot of the same stuff, largely miniature versions of places from movies.

When I first saw Monstro, I figured it must be part of the Pinocchio ride, but it's actually the beginning of the boat ride.

The Matterhorn was another one that's exclusive to Disneyland, and that was fun. The theming reminded me of the Germany section of Busch Gardens in Virginia.

I know the real Matterhorn is in Switzerland, but it's close enough for jazz. Or polka. Or theme parks. Apparently the Yeti on the ride is named Harold, and the one at Expedition Everest in Disney World is Betty. Hmm, that's my dad and Beth's mom.

Next, we rode Alice in Wonderland, and had some dinner at the Red Rose Taverne. Beth had a cheeseburger, and I had pepperoni and cheese flatbread. (Is there really a difference between that and pizza?)

After dinner, we rode Indiana Jones Adventure and Pirates of the Caribbean. I'm not sure why it was necessary to add Jack Sparrow to the ride, but I've only seen the first one of those movies. I liked the film pretty well, but there's something to be said for preserving the original layout. And Johnny Depp is rather problematic these days. Then we unsuccessfully tried to get a spot for the Main Street Electrical Parade. Fortunately, there was another one later that night.

The parade has been running on and off since 1972, and still has the relentlessly cheerful yet somehow a bit unsettling electronic music. They Might Be Giants did a cover of it, and it's so well suited to them.

I noticed that the floats included both Goofy and Dopey driving trains.

Also, there were several that had heroes and villains hanging out together. I saw Colin Ayres at the ice cream shop before the parade; he and a few other OzCon attendees were also visiting the park that day, but I didn't run into anyone else I knew. Our last stop before leaving the park was Tomorrowland, where we rode the Astro Orbiter (okay, that one was actually before the parade), Autopia, and Space Mountain.

I believe I'd first heard of Autopia in the NES game Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, which my family rented once back in the day. Space Mountain was different from the one at Disney World.


Next time, we have a California Adventure!

For our third day at Walt Disney World, which was Leap Day and our anniversary, we visited Epcot, which is officially no longer spelled with all capital letters. I had remembered it from the last visit as involving a lot of walking, and while that was still true, it seemed easier to get around than the others. Hollywood Studios is the smallest park, but I found myself getting lost all the time there. Anyway, the first thing we rode was Soarin', which was there in 2008, but I didn't get to go on it then. It's reminiscent of earlier virtual reality rides and IMAX movies, but with better effects. Patrick Warburton does the introductory video, and the ride itself gives the illusion of flying over places around the world. You get really close to a lot of people and animals just going about their business, which would be pretty terrifying for them if it were real. Then we rode Living with the Land, an environmentally themed boat ride sponsored by Chiquita, perhaps as consolation after they lost the Adventureland frozen treat contract to Dole. A lot of the food they use at the parks is grown or raised there, at least if the narration was accurate. When they said that about the fish, I couldn't help thinking, "One day when de boss get hungry, guess who goin' be on the plate." I like fish, though, and shellfish perhaps even more. I just think Disney sometimes sends mixed messages. Then came Journey Into Imagination, a multimedia ride hosted by Eric Idle and a mischievous little dragon named Figment.


I believe we went into at least one building in every country at the World Showcase on our first visit, but since we had a FastPass for Spaceship Earth and a dinner reservation at the Coral Reef that evening, we skipped some of them this time. Sorry, Mexico! I wouldn't have minded doing the Three Caballeros boat ride again, but we weren't sure about the timing. We remembered the bake shop in Norway having good pastries, so we got some this time as well.

I'm bothered that they replaced the Maelstrom, the troll-heavy boat ride, with a Frozen-themed one. Sure, Arendelle was INSPIRED by Norway, but it isn't really the same place! And yeah, I know they have Aladdin-themed stuff in Morocco when Agrabah would pretty much have to be in or near Saudi Arabia (although the original Aladdin story is set in China and mentions Baghdad), but it's not as heavily emphasized there. Dorothea suggested that Japan might be the most fun for shopping, and they also had a kawaii exhibit that had a few things relevant to my interests, including Tom Nook and a Dragon Quest Slime.

We saw the movie at the American Adventure, which had apparently changed since last time, although I don't remember it well enough to say how. Probably something to do with the Native American complaining about how white people ruined the place, when most of it seemed very much in favor of European colonization. The Canada film no longer has Martin Short narrating; I don't know if his contract ran out or what.
It turned out that we really didn't need the FastPasses for Spaceship Earth, as there was hardly any line at that point, but how would we have known that a month in advance? We didn't go on Test Track or Mission: Space this time, and Ellen's Energy Adventure is no longer there. At the Coral Reef, I actually had cioppino for the second time that week, although it had some different stuff in it.

I first saw this restaurant on Full House, which kind of sucks, as I kept thinking about Joey being afraid to get out of the fish tank.

Don't ruin my experience, crappy nineties sitcoms! Right near there was The Seas with Nemo and Friends, the last thing we did that day other than trying to watch fireworks that ended up being too far away.