Here's the second and for now final round of pictures from Rye Playland, until our next visit, whenever that should be.
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We went to Playland toward the evening and so got to enjoy it becoming lit to its wonderful early-60s remodelled style. |
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I was not allowed on the bumper cars. Apparently, I'm too tall. So I amused myself instead taking photos of the Dragon Coaster as the sun disappeared past the horizon. |
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This is the Dragon Coaster. As part of this wonderful ride, you go rolling into its mouth. A cool mist sprays as you enter so there's fog and surprise and the weird change of sound as you barrel into the tunnels. It's fantastic. |
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This is a bit of art at the Dragon Coaster entrance. |
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This is one of the Dragon Coaster's original model cars. They ran until the 1980s, and they don't have any of those fancy post-1920s roller coaster safety devices like seat belts or a restraining bar. You were just kept in your seat by being sensibly dressed for an amusement park in three-piece suit and straw boater. |
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Underneath the Dragon Coaster is a neat little ``mine ride'', in boats going along a canal path. The rides were built together and part of the mine's experience is hearing the roller coaster rumbling overhead. Unfortunately the lighting and presence of a plexiglass tube make it difficult to prove this, but there's a safety monkey in that tube telling riders how to be safe. |
Trivia: In September 1904 there were 1,800 laborers on the Panama Canal Commission's books. The fortnightly payment took six and a half hours to complete, and involved filling in 7,500 individual sheets of paper weighing in total over 102 pounds. Source: The Impossible Dream: The Building of the Panama Canal, Ian Cameron.
Currently Reading: The Far-Out People, Editor Robert Hoskins. Anthology of such wild far-out crazy groovy writers as Isaac Asimov and Chad Oliver. (OK, they're the normal end of things.)