He'd end up blowing all his wages for the week

Eating, and getting the first of the roughly 24 pops we drank that day, took care of our basic needs. What about the really fun, important thing of being at Indiana Beach Amusement Park: the rides? We went first to Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain. It's a wooden coaster built, somehow, in the incredibly tight confines of what used to be a dark ride, plus some space beside it that spills over the Antique Cars ride. It was nearby and it often draws a huge line because it can only take eight people in one train, and can only run two trains. Only the one train was running, then or all day (so far as we saw), but that's all right. The wait was only a couple of ride cycles. The first one had some weird long pause before loading the next people on, but after that, the ride went quick enough. The ride operator asked if we'd been on it before, and we said (we thought truthfully) not in five years. He said, ``Oh, so you know it goes upside-down now?'' and when I said great, I love an RMC conversion (this is a correctly formed roller coaster fandom joke and therefore funny) he explained he was joking. Well, yeah; it'd be hard to make Lost Coaster any more intense. It is all sharp turns and sudden drops, a ride comparable to Roar-A-Saurus for how much it packs into such a tiny space, and maybe better for fitting in a couple of dark ride gags too, including a skeleton miner who, as you ride the elevator up (no room for a lift hill), starts spilling about the legend of the Superstition Mountain. Or just tells you jokes, since it turns out not to be the same every time. When we got back, very well shaken up, I told the operator, ``I thought you said the ride didn't go upside-down''.

The next coaster to catch our eyes was Tig'rr Coaster, although something about it seemed unfamiliar. It was on a small dock leading over to what I guess is the main body of Shafer Lake, the body of water created by the damming of the river and giving Indiana Beach its beach. I had thought it was on the other side of the park's narrow width, facing the other side of the water. But, new owner, lot of things have changed, maybe they moved the coaster to make room for other things. We did notice the sign calling the ride 'Cyclone', but thought that was the model name for the roller coaster put on the sign as a not-actually-helpful explanation of what the ride was. This was a walk-on ride, with new wood ramps leading up to the platform. And the ride was in great shape, a good-size steel coaster of the kind that, honestly, Cedar Point needs as a bridge between the kiddie coasters and the scary adult coasters. bunny_hugger was disappointed that they had replaced the bobsled-style cars with more conventional cars-with-seats-and-restraining-bars, but, that's all right. We're never going to be upset with a coaster ride like that.

So I've given the punch line away. 'Cyclone' was not a confusing mislabeled sign to a relocated coaster. A few minutes later we found Tig'rr Coaster, right where I remembered it being, on this raised platform over near where you get on (and off) the Cornball Express coaster. No, what had happened --- and we confirmed, with the people at the historical center --- was Indiana Beach had not just got Quimera but also another roller coaster, and had installed that over the winter this year. We had gone to the park expecting to ride a roller coaster that wasn't in fact installed, and instead got to ride a new-to-us roller coaster without even suspecting! (Cylone, too, used to operate in Mexico, run by Garcia Attractions as ``Cyclone''.) Entering this into Coaster-Count is how I would learn that we'd misremembered the year of our previous visit. So this roller coaster is just an endless series of silly little things designed to delight me.

When we did ride Tig'rr Coaster, we found it still had the bobsled seats, as expected. I had a vague memory that the coaster had a tendency to valley out, and need an operator to come up and give it a push this one place. bunny_hugger wasn't sure, but did remember that happening somewhere, and there's only so many coasters it could plausibly be. Another thing we found? That is a really intense coaster. It's not very tall, but it does a lot of helixes that are tighter than you'd think. (It's also quite different from Cyclone, really in every way.) So very glad to be able to ride it again.

Sunday at Anthrohio we spent a greater percentage of our awake time in panels and such. But those are all boring to photograph so I took fewer pictures of them. Here's things that did seem worth my attention, and your seeing. Of course it starts with animals.

Guinea pigs! A bit of fluff at the Pipsqueakery layout.

And here's that black hen; somewhere in there, her chick is hiding.

Patagonian cavy is not at all sure anyone turned the stove off.

Rabbits getting together for an urgent discussion.

Trivia: Wally Schirra's Mercury capsule had five experimental heat-protective-material tiles, meant for research into new heat shield technologies, attached by lamination to the beryllium shingles of the capsule's cylindrical upper section. Source: Sigma 7: The Six Mercury Orbits of Walter M Schirra, Jr, Colin Burgess.

Currently Reading: The Nightlife Of The Gods, Thorne Smith.

PS: How June 2022 Treated My Mathematics Blog ever since I stopped really trying on it.