More Words, Deeper Hole

Saturday after Christmas we got to Crossroads Village. This was not quite the final night of the season for the historical-village-decorated-in-lights, but we figured to keep Sunday as a contingency in case, say, the weather were too awful to visit. It happens Sunday saw four billion inches of rain so it would have been impossible to visit, but the idea was sound.

The big question was which of the train rides to get tickets for. They run their 19th century train for a roughly 45-minute loop through holiday lights while the public address system plays music, and the last scheduled train was for 8:15. But often when the place is crowded they run an extra train, at 9:15, after everything else is closed and as it maximizes time in the Village it'd be the best train to get. So for days bunnyhugger watched the tickets for sale, and while every day up to Christmas they opened a 9:15 train, we never saw one open for the Saturday we planned to visit. Finally we decided to get tickets for 8:15 because who knew if there would be a 9:15?

This proved wise: there was no 9:15 train, this despite the village being extremely busy. So busy, in fact, that when we arrived the parking lot was full up and they directed us to park on the shoulder of a service road. We stayed at the village past closing, of course, and by the time we got back to the car mine was almost the only car along that road, and I observed, so many people must have thought I was a jerk parking there.

Also, mysteriously, at the entry booth they explained that the ticket we'd printed out online wasn't good for getting on the train. It had been, up until about a week before, when ``they'' changed the system on everyone and now they had to print out a ticket on the spot for us. I don't know what the system change was or why they'd implement a week before the new year but I also completely believe this string of events.

We got there in enough time we could see the holiday show which, as it's been for several years now, was a musical-comedy thing starring Santa and We Never Actually Call Him The Grinch, with numbers done by a polar bear, Rudolph, and Frosty. It's fun though we do miss the Victorian-ish Melodramas of a decade ago. We also got really distracted wondering if the performers in suit were doing their own dialogue, or if it was done by a voice actor in back, or if it was prerecorded. The case against prerecorded is there's a bit early on where We Don't Say He's The Grinch dubs one of the audience kids his new reindeer, and if the kid doesn't play along you're in trouble. The case for prerecorded is N T Grinch didn't actually ask or say the kid's name and why wouldn't you, if you could? Some year we've got to find out where they bought the script for this from and see how it compares to the published dialogue.

That small tent-based shopping village from the previous year was gone, but one of the buildings had, we were all but sure, a new store in it. The new store was selling, you know, crystals and inspirational candles and that other sort that's the modern version of patent medicines, so it has a weird authenticity-of-experience I suppose.

The most important thing, of course, is that the antique rides were running. Both the carousel and the Ferris wheel, the latter of which went a couple years without our seeing in operation. The carousel's still going at its six rotations per minute, and they were packed. Also, while we waited for one ride, a bunch of kids were doing six-seven at a kid on the carousel, so that's still a thing. And the Ferris wheel was going at good clip. We even got the lucky coincidence to be the last car loaded and the first unloaded, so we didn't sit swinging around in the cold breeze; we just got the fast spinning up and down.

Also, the carousel building still has the penny-press machine, and I brought a couple pennies for just this chance. bunnyhugger believes herself to have three of the four penny patterns they offer --- two Christmas and two Halloween --- but so far as I know has not yet verified this.

And now, a bit of Plopsaland De Panne, not including any roller coasters close-up this time.

Well, a little bit of roller coaster: you can see a bit of the Nacht Wacht coaster (Draconis) in the archway, in this passage through the building that hides its launch station. Behind the camera is the Heidi stuff; ahead of it is The Ride to Happiness.

Following this path, which also gets us closer to the front of The park. I admire the dangling flower light fixtures that look like something Roller Coaster Tycoon made up.

Now here's a silly parrot who thought we wouldn't notice them in the giant sugar bowl.

And here's a mouse who's snagged a teacup. I don't know how old any of these statues are or if they represent pre-Plopsa park features.

The turtle who's got their hat on is beside the teacup mouse.

And what the heck, have a mouse in a saucepan.

Trivia: A January 1969 planning document for the first moonwalk outlined a minute-by-minute work chart with the respective astronauts labelled A and B, without any identification of which would be the Commander and which the Lunar Module Pilot. Source: Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969, Courtney G Brooks, James M Grimwood, Loyd S Swnson Jr.

Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.