Makes you laugh like mad

Knoebels isn't just an amusement park, with a lumber yard next door that the family also owns; it's also a campground, and I admit I'm not an experienced camper but mustn't that be great? The border between park and campground is vague, since the park is free-admission, but it also means it's easy to find you've walked out of park territory and into campground territory and we'd do that several times over the day. We also run across old campground evidence, in the form of little cabins that are still dotted through the park. Some of them are obviously being used for operations; some have been turned into shops. Many of them have historical plaques explaining that, for example, this was the first known cottage (dating to 1917, which is about a decade before the amusement park side got started), which just fires the imagination of living, even if it's just for a couple days, in an amusement park.

Oh, yes, we missed Knoebels' spaghetti night, and from the signs announcing that we realized that spaghetti night at amusement parks was not a quirk confined to the one owned by a spaghetti sauce maker, but was a general property of Pennsylvania Parks. We'd learn of another one, at the park that made the deepest impression upon us, and which was part of our Sunday on the trip. You won't believe everything that's true about that park, though.

Something we missed were any photo opportunities with their mascots. Their main mascot is Kozmo, a creature we couldn't really figure out whether is a bear or a chipmunk or what. I think we ultimately came to conclude he's probably a chipmunk but I'm not sure on what basis we figured that. (Well, his Google+ page identifies him as spokeschipmunk, but that's Google+.) They do have a statue of him and a frame so you can take a picture beside Kozmo, with a word balloon saying, ``My name is Kozmo. Here's a picture of a friend I met at Knoebels'', which is cheesey so of course we were delighted by it. Kozmo appears on most of the ride queues, identifying how tall people have to be for each ride, and on most of the rides Kozmo is drawn custom to the ride, which again, delighted us to no end. There's few enough parks that make their minimum-size signs distinct to each ride, so to do it for most rides is fantastic. The log flume even has a picture of a fish, labelled Codzmo; and the ride with cars on a guided track has ``the fast lane'' with Crozmo.

But Kozmo isn't their only mascot. They also have a raccoon named Dexter, who's in evidence on far fewer signs; mostly he's announced as being available for photos at times we couldn't be on stage, and a couple of the redemption games where you're challenged to toss stuff into his mouth. But there's good reason for his comparative rarity: According to BUnow.com, a student newspaper for stuff around Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, they just introduced Dexter this season. While I certainly can't argue their introducing a raccoon sub-mascot I admit I'm a little surprised they didn't pick a girl raccoon. On the other hand, according to the Dexter origin story that Knoebels posted, and of course they posted a Dexter origin story, that's just the raccoon as they found him. I honestly do wonder if there's a real-life raccoon cub who inspired the character.

Another odd little bit is they have a sign with the rather famous Alex Fraser Tytler quote, about how a democracy cannot exist because the majority will start voting for the candidates promising the ``most benefits from the public treasury'' and then the democracy ``always collapses over loose fiscal policy''. It's a curious thing to post at an amusement park, not just because Tytler never said it, but because even if he had said it there's been two centuries of experience with democracies not collapsing over ``loose fiscal policy''. Invasion, coups, and civil war, yes, but examples of democracies collapsing into dictatorship because of too many ``benefits'' being voted the public are short on the ground.

Anyway, back to rides and Knoebels's wonderful arrangement. We had a fine time on a very 60s-styled Roto-Jet, the kind of ride where you can control how far your car rises or falls. The two of us made for a heavier car than average, and we had to look at the cars with single kids far out-maneuvering us. But the important thing is the ride looks great, and it's one where you the rider get to control how you rise or fall.

We hoped to get over to the roller coasters, which took us to the vicinity of their great unfinished roller coaster, the Flying Turns. It's got photos of the ride's construction history, and a piece of the Riverview Flying Turns that inspired this ride's track layout, and we were crawling around it taking photographs when a guy who we assume was connected with the park came up to ask if we had any questions about the Flying Turns.

Well, there's the obvious, about when it's going to open, but they must get that even more often than professors get ``will this be on the test'' so we spared everyone that scene. The obvious joke question --- are there any loops --- we also suppressed because they've heard that surely too many times too. But that kind of left us without much to say. But the Park Guy explained that they were hoping to get the ride started soon, and I admitted I was hoping it'd be later this afternoon.

Not likely to be that soon, though, but he did say that the safety inspectors for the state had been around and they were doing their first tests of multiple-train operation, a key sign that they were getting closer. He also said they were closer than they'd ever been, prompting bunny_hugger to note, with equal parts logician and comedian, that you're always closer than you've ever been. He said no, there've been times they were stalled, but all that seems to be behind them and they're looking forward to opening it soon.

bunny_hugger was thinking, of course, that there's some date when the Flying Turns will (presumably) open and it's impossible not to be approaching that; of course, if you think of the opening date as ``following (X) more person-hours of work the ride will open'' then it is possible to be getting farther away from the opening date. It's all a matter of perspective, anyway, and while I got her joke, the Park Guy apparently didn't notice, or feigned not noticing. He seemed proud of it, and ought to be, as the ride looks really great.

We did wander back several times over the day --- the park defies any linear arrangement, so it's easy to wander back to it --- and found the cars on the track (complete with dummies used for testing the ride stresses) in different positions, so obviously there were some test runs that we missed. But the ride didn't open that day, obviously.

After we got home there were reports of Knoebels successfully completing more test runs, so that an imminent opening got to be credible. We resolved that if they opened this season we'd drive out just to get on the Flying Turns, never mind what the drive is like. Well, Google Maps says it's only eight hours.

As of today, they haven't opened it.

Trivia: In 1481 the Common Council of the City of London prohibited the raising of the drawbridge on London Bridge except for great ``necessite and defence'' of the City, as raising and lowering it weakened the drawbridge. Source: Old London Bridge: The Story of the Longest Inhabited Bridge in Europe, Patricia Pierce.

Currently Reading: Naming Infinity: A True Story Of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity, Loren Graham, Jean-Michel Kantor.

PS: Some Difficult Math Problems That You Understand , which you truly do. Go ahead and check.