Tuesday, the 4th of July, started with our dealing with the car. Part of what had me so infuriated with the missteps was that it was eating time away from our amusement park for the day. Our goal was Gilroy Gardens, in the garlic hub of California, and that park closed early. We didn't have the time to waste. While driving there we debate whether to eat at the park or on the road. Advantage to the park: we'd get to the park sooner. Advantage to the road: it's an amusement park, probably all they have that's vegetarian is fries and pizza. (We would get fries there, yes.) We decided to get something from a California-local fast food place, and since we'd heard good things about Jack-in-the-Box, we tried that. I got fried cheese sticks and vegetables which were great. bunny_hugger got the pancake-breakfast-all-day side, which was great except they didn't have syrup, so it was hot but dry. Gilroy Gardens opened in 2001, as Nob Hill Foods supermarket magnates Michael and Claudia Bonfante turned their employee-recreational-facility into an amusement park. This involved putting in enough rides to, they hoped, make the money to support what was really a botanical garden. This likely explains why the park has a cramped, odd feel to its layout, like someone playing Roller Coaster Tycoon who didn't know how tight their space constraints were when they went crazy on the landscaping. After a couple years of struggle, Paramount Parks took over management. When Paramount jumped out of the amusement park business, Cedar Fair took over management. But when Cedar Fair announced they were closing California's Great America, Gilroy Gardens took over management of the park themselves. The practical effect: our Platinum Pass to the Cedar Fair chain wouldn't get us in here. (In an odd quirk, people with Great America season passes do get in free this year, I assume because the season's passes were already on sale before Gilroy Gardens ended the deal with Cedar Fair. Someone from the Bay Area could be reasonably supposed to have bought their season pass on the assumption they could go to Gilroy Gardens; someone from Michigan, not so much.) The most amazing bit of landscaping in the park are the Circus Trees, something like two dozen sycamores grown, like full-size bonsais, into strange patterns. Trees with two, three, or four trunks. Trees whose trunk disappears, replaced with four square braces, like a revolving door in motion, before merging back together. Trees with the trunk given over to a thin waffle pattern of woven sub-trunks. Trees with a broad trunk that's nothing but holes passing all the way through. The trees were designed and grown and sculpted and grafted by Axel Erlandson to make a roadside attraction, and get the occasional showing in Ripley's Believe It Or Not or the slick weeklies. But Erlandson died in 1963, and the land got sold, and fell into neglect. Official neglect, anyway; some local botanists started breaking into the grands to tend the wonders. Finally in the 80s Michael Bonfante bought the trees and moved them, these impossible growths, some of them with multiple root balls a dozen feet away from each other, to his gardens. There are ten or so of them in various spots across the park. But flanking the entrance to the park are a dozen of the amazing growths. As we entered the park we didn't notice them. Oh, now, what was in the boy's bedroom in the Turner-Dodge House that captivated my attention for so long? That's right, it's book of century-old newsprint! ... Also a very worn doll that's not as ugly as you stereotypically expect for the time. But mostly, newspaper. Back in May 1919 the Lansing State Journal was full of news abuot things happening in and around Lansing. Also note the ad for Vicks Vaporub [sic] and the Capital National Bank, the bank that Ransom Olds helped form and that built the city's biggest building, Boji Tower (originally Olds Tower). Capital National Bank became Michigan National Bank in the 50s, and was bought out by Standard Federal Bank in 2001, and seven years later was eaten up by Bank of America. Also note the ``Wierd [sic] Pest Said Now Due Hereabout''; it's 17-year locusts. The new Mary Pickford show playing at the Bijou. I have no idea where that theater was. Daddy-Long-Legs is available to watch, though. The Orpheum, which I have no idea where it was, has June Elvidge, who I never heard of either. Note the $7,000 organ they advertise. Wikipedia and IMDB don't list The Social Pirate as lost , and do note that Ned Sparks was in it. He's always fun. At the Plaza, again a theater I never heard of, Alice Brady, who I haven't heard of either, in At The Mercy Of Men , set in Chaotic Russia . Taylor Holmes's Taxi is the first of these pictures I've found listed as lost. Again, no idea where the Empress was. The Better Ole was a Syd Chaplain joint. You remember Syd Chaplin, Charlie's older brother. Trivia: The 1969 lunar rover proposal from Chrysler Corporation's Space Division had the astronauts sitting back-to-back, one always facing reverse. It also had separate hand controls for speed and steering --- steering was a T-shaped handle between the diver's knees. On deployment, the astronauts would have to attach the wheels. It was the only proposal to have (cable-activated) disc brakes. Source: Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings, Earl Swift. Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Sundays Supplement Volume 7: 1945 , Bela Zaboly, Tom Sims. Editor Stephanie Noelle.