summer vacation

Summer Vacation on Channel Islands

· September 6, 2024 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , , , · No Comments

For the summer after my daughter’s fourth grade, year, we used a perk available to all fourth graders to get into national parks for free. After visiting Crater Lake and Lassen Park on consecutive days (not to mention a Treehouse Resort), we were off to Southern California for a jaunt out to the Channel Islands with my mom.

Channel Islands is one of those less-visited national parks. Shocking considering you have to book a boat long in advance, then be at the dock, which is a good hour outside of L.A., by 7:00 am..

Pretty sure they aren’t selling park-specific annual passes. 

Come to think of it, I’m not sure Chanel Islands has an entry fee at all. You pay for the boat and it takes you out to an island. Perhaps the boat ride in counts as a de facto entry fee. Except the boat is operated by a private company. Do they bury some graft for the government inside the price of the boat? If so, we totally got shafted. In addition to Daughter’s fourth-grade status, my mom has a lifetime senior pass. Bogus.

If I ever make it to American Samoa, I’m going to demand that the airplane trip is free.

Since the boat ride takes an hour or more, you’re only allowed to visit one island per trip. “Fortunately” for us, a couple of the islands were closed for refurbishment or something, so we only had to decide between two islands. I don’t know how one refurbishes an island, so if you happen to check out Santa Rosa Island after it reopens in 2025 or 2026, you can let me know if it’s retrofitted for 5G or something. I sometimes still get crappy reception despite having the Covid vaccine.

My mom originally wanted to do Anacapa Island, which is the smallest island and the one closest to land, because she believed it was the basis for the book Island of the Blue Dolphins. However, we noticed on the website that people had to use a ladder and large staircase just to get from the boat to the island. That would wipe my mom, in her late 70s, out for the day, and it didn’t look like there was a ton of shade. Wouldn’t be very fun to have her sitting there baking and exhausted while Daughter and I explored the island. 

In addition, Anacapa Island has a beautiful selling point of being a bird sanctuary, making it loud and smelling of bird crap. Five star accommodation all the way.

Finally, we found out that it’s actually San Nicolas Island that is of Blue Dolphin fame. It’s inaccessible to the public, which seems like a huge marketing miss. 

So to sum up: Anacapa means exhaustion, sunburn, bird poop, and nary a dolphin nor a shipwrecked Native American in sight. Santa Cruz Island, you’re the winner!

There’s a ton of things to do on Santa Cruz. There’s kayaking and there’s hikes and there’s… um… swimming. 

Oh, and a visitor’s center. Although don’t expect a visitor’s center like other parks, which are ten percent geology information and ninety percent store. The Santa Cruz Island visitor’s center was basically somebody’s house from a hundred years ago, in which they’d put some information about the Native Americans who once lived on the island. They did have the passport stamp, which made Daughter happy, but they didn’t have a single thing you could buy. What’s the point of visiting a national park if I can’t buy a cheesy “Go Climb a Bird Poop” t-shirt?

The boat company’s headquarters also had the passport stamp available, so Daughter managed to get two different stamps. I told her she should get an Anacapa stamp, too, but she only wants stamps that represent where she’s actually been. So while stamps from both the north and south entrance was a goal at Lassen, she’s not getting some cheap-ass reflection of a place she’s never been. 

Damn, I was hoping I could just ebay the Virgin Islands.

If left to my own devices on Santa Cruz Island, I would’ve kayaked. They go into caves that look beautiful. Unfortunately, the ten-year-old and late-seventies-year-old I was with weren’t likely to be the strongest kayakers. If it was on a calm lake, I could maybe take a kayak by myself and hope that the two of them together in one kayak could get where they needed to be, but in the ocean, I assume the best case scenario would be the waves washing them back to shore. Not sure I want to envision the worst case scenarios.

So hiking it was. There were a number of different directions to go. One trail goes along the north side of the island, first to a couple of lookouts, then to another port (Prisoners Harbor) where we could have taken the boat, but which doesn’t have a visitor’s center, so why bother? The other trail goes up and over the middle of the island to a more secluded inlet (Smuggler’s Cove). That looked cool, and as an added bonus, we might be able to see the Island of the Blue Dolphins from it. But that hike was listed as strenuous, which didn’t sound appealing less than a week after I nearly died on a similar hike at Crater Lake. 

Okay, fine, I didn’t really almost die. I just took a really long time to get where I was going and felt like an out-of-shape almost-fifty year-old the whole time. 

So we opted for the first trail. In addition to only being “moderate,” there were a number of spots along the way where we could double back in case the going got too tough. Those roads back were a shorter distance and a smoother grade than the hike up. You might question why we would have opted for the steeper and longer distance in the first place, but that’s because the view was better, hiking along the cliffs over the ocean instead of a dirt path amongst the sagebrush.

And boy howdy, hiking at sea level! OMG, I could breathe! I kinda forgot about that whole thin vs thick air thing. But all of a sudden I could hike uphill without stopping every hundred paces. I wasn’t trying to parse out my water as if it was the last bit of moisture on earth. Daughter and I did a five-mile round trip and I was still at damn near 100%. If I had known it was going to be like that, I would’ve opted for the strenuous hike over to Smuggler’s Cove.

The hike to Prisoner’s Harbor, meanwhile, was never gonna happen. Santa Cruz Island is not as small as it first appears. We started on the northeast corner of the island and Prisoner’s Harbor was barely at the halfway mark. I figured it was maybe five miles away. But the round trip between the two is 34 miles! Kinda hard to hike that and be back in time to catch the 4:00 boat home.

My mom didn’t make the full five miles. After we saw Cavern Point, the first destination on the hike, we were faced with that first return route. She kept going back and forth about whether she wanted to press on to Potato Harbor with us or return to the harbor and wait for us. I didn’t think she should come with us but didn’t want to come across as a “go away” dickhead. At the same time, I think she also wanted to go back but didn’t want to sound like a “Screw you guys, I’m going home” asshole. What followed was the most passive aggressive debate ever.

In the end, she finally returned to port and let us venture on by ourselves. When we reconvened at the end of the day, we all agreed it was the best option. That turn-back point wasn’t even halfway to Potato Harbor and the path back wasn’t quite as pedestrian as it seemed. It was mostly level, but there were a few spots where the path was thin and steep, cut into granite that didn’t provide a lot of cushion for the pushin’ (of my feet).

Fortunately I had a walking stick.

Daughter had wondered about hiking sticks when she saw a number of people using them at Crater Lake. She asked what they help with, and unfortunately, I wasn’t much help. 

In truth, I’ve wondered my whole life how much of the help people gain from hiking sticks are the placebo effect. At best, it maybe helps keep your arms in motion , stops you from getting to where you’re just dragging your knuckles behind you like a gorilla. But it’s odd that ninety percent of hiking tools are designed to lessen the weight and effort, then they top it off with a clunky, anti-aerodynamic deadweight. 

But my mom had some of the lightweight collapsible poles, so I let Daughter try them out. She used them like ski poles, swinging both out in front of her, staking them on the ground, then walking through them before moving them back in front. If only this path had some flag-gates to slalom through.

Most helpful sign ever!

When we parted from my mom, she took one walking stick, we took the other. This might seem like yet another dick move by her son, taking the support away from the elderly, but again, bringing both sticks just makes more burden. Even if they’re collapsible, she was already carrying a water bottle and a backpack. Gotta keep at least one hand free.

And yeah, for the most part, I still don’t get them. They don’t seem to help with balance or momentum. Now that I’m older, they helped a little on the downhill. I put it in front of me to slow down gravity’s momentum. But I mostly see people using them on the uphills, as if their upper body strength is going to be the thing that drags them up to the upper echelons. This ain’t rock-climbing, people.

Daughter and I went on to Potato Harbor, which could either be named for being in the shape of a potato or because that’s where potatoes once grew or were delivered or washed ashore after a shipwreck. I heard multiple explanations, and everyone spoke with absolute certainty that their explanation was correct. Shocking that in a country where less than five percent of the people change their mind from one election to the next, everybody would be certain that their explanation of Potato Harbor is the correct one.

Is it a Potato? Is it a Harbor? The world may never know.

Unless you voted for Dan Quayle, in which case it’s Potatoe Harbor.

Boy, I would’ve been a hilarious blogger in 1992!

The weirdest part of the Channel Islands trip was what came after we finished our hike. It was around 2:00 and our boat back to shore was at 4:00. Not enough time to do another hike or anything. But two hours is quite a long time to occupy ourselves with only a few park benches and informational signs. 

Daughter wanted to go in the ocean, so my mom and I hung out on the beach. I made it more than a couple paragraphs in my Jack Reacher book this time, which I’d failed to do when she went “swimming” in Lassen. Not that Daughter was better at occupying herself in the water here. But this time Grandma was there to take the brunt of her “Come play with me.”

As we sat there, more hikers came back. Then the kayaks all came back. A few of those kayakers didn’t seem much more adept than my mom or daughter would’ve been. Seriously, people, how hard is it to get to shore in the goddamn ocean? There are waves coming in, for pete’s sake. 

The beach grew more and more crowded as everybody found themselves in a holding pattern after finishing their activities. In most national parks, you can drive out whenever you feel like it. All done for the day? Great. Leave now and grab dinner outside the park instead of whatever crap they’re serving there. Suddenly decide that hiking at sea level was easy peasy and you wanna try Smuggler’s Canyon? Go for it! So long as you’re willing to leave the park after dark.

But on the Channel Islands, you’ve already pre-booked the time at which you can leave the park. One boat leaves at 4:00 and the other at 4:30. Which means a whole lot of sitting around waiting for said boat. Most of us were lined up and rarin’ to go as soon as that bad boy appeared on the horizon. 

At least there was a beach to enjoy while we wait. A rocky beach that might slice your feet up, but a beach nonetheless. 

But the Channel Islands were lovely. Simple hikes, ocean breezes, and allegedly some caves you can kayak to.

I only have two complaints. One is that we didn’t get to see an Island Fox. The Channel Islands are considered the Galapagos Islands of the North because they all have their own breeds of certain animals. The main one is the Island Fox, which is a different species on each island. The websites implied they were all over the place and would be easy to see one. Not so much. Perhaps if we camped there, they’d all come out in the evening, but we searched the whole way down from Potato Harbor and couldn’t find one.

There’s an island-specific blue jay, as well. We might have seen one of those, but I couldn’t tell for sure. However, I can verify that we saw Huginn and Muninn conspiring before sending some messages back to Odin.

My other complaint is about the visitor’s center. Not the visitor’s center on the actual island. That one I understand. It’s sparse with nothing to buy because the island is pack-in/pack-out. Can’t really have the usual commerce in that environment, to say nothing of the difficulty it would require to boat your employees in and out every day. On a boat owned by a private company that is currently selling every seat. 

However, there is another visitor’s center. It’s back on the dock in Ventura. As far as I can tell, it’s got all the usual shirts and knick-knacks and stickers emblazoned with the park’s logo.

I say “As far as I can tell,” because the visitor’s center is only open from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Our morning boat left Ventura at 8:00 am and our return boat left Channel Islands at 4:00 pm, with a travel time of a little over an hour. Which means, follow me here, people who visit the park cannot go the park’s visitor’s center. What the hell? They should name it the non-visitor’s center.

Fortunately we live in the internet age, so when I returned home, I ordered some Channel Island stickers for Daughter’s passport. Plus a little coin for myself.

But really, it feels kinda cheap to order these things online. The whole point of the passport is to get us to visit those parks. Not to get us to order shit online.

Or maybe spending money is precisely its goal. Doesn’t matter where.

And, voila!, it’s time to cross American Samoa off the list!

Summer Vacation in Lassen Park

· September 5, 2024 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , , , , · One Comment

Last time I wrote about my family vacation to southwestern Oregon, en route to Crater Lake.

Ever since we took her to Rocky Mountain National Park, she’s been obsessed with visiting them all. As soon as I can figure out the road map to American Samoa and Virgin Islands, we’ll get right on that.

In the meantime, we hit some of the ones in California.

Of course, her main goal in visiting these parks is to procure stamps and stickers for a passport we bought her. Each visitor’s center usually has its own stamp, sometimes two, and it’s the only damn thing that is free there. 

They also have stickers, which look like postage stamps, that aren’t free. Nor are they as cheap as postage stamps.

Since Lassen has a visitor’s center at each entrance, that dictated a lot of our plans for the day.

But if she can get the stamps and stickers while I have an excuse to see some new parks, it’s a win-win.

And as long as I can pretend she’s still in fourth grade, it’s a win-win-win.

I believe Lassen might be the closest national park to my house. Technically Yosemite might be a few miles closer geographically, but Lassen is a more direct route. 

Yet somehow I’ve visited Yosemite at least forty times while going to Lassen exactly… let’s see, carry the two… zero times. 

I’m not the only one. Lassen is pretty far down the list of most visited parks and it’s often described as “Yosemite without the crowds.”

Now that I’ve been there, I can confidently say it’s… not really Yosemite with some crowds. Plus some bubbling mud farts. And rednecks.

First, I’d like to clarify that I visited Lassen before it, and the entirety of Northern California, became a smoldering hellscape of smoke and ash. For most of August, the park was closed as a result of the Park Fire, which is a stupid name because all fire names are stupid, something I noted when Paradise burned down. Call this one the Lassen fire, if you must.

So yeah, Lassen was still open in mid-July when we visited, although you wouldn’t know it. Manzanita Lake was packed. The Bumpass Hell Trail was closed. Burney Falls was closed. 

Technically that last one isn’t in Lassen, but it’s so close that it would be silly to make the trek to one without stopping at the other. Like people who go to Australia without checking out New Zealand. 

Burney Falls, our first stop on the day, was closed because of construction. Sounds like it’s been closed for a year or so and ain’t coming back until at least next year. They’re making it, I don’t know, ADA compliant or more accessible or some other such excuse that government types use to shut things down for a while. My commute has a bridge that’s had “construction” on it for two years or so, complete with lane redirects, and as far as I can tell, this construction isn’t going to expand the bridge or add any lanes. It’ll just fuck with my commute for two solid years and tell me it was for my own fucking good. Then they’ll increase my taxes to help cover the chaffing.

Fortunately, you could still see the falls, you just couldn’t walk to the falls. That was probably the good news, because if we had spent longer there, we never would’ve made it to the second visitor’s center before it closed at 5:00. 

The falls were beautiful. Half cascade, half fall. It spreads out like a mini-Victoria Falls. There are portions of it that just pop out of the rock halfway down.

In fact, the entire river that creates Burney Falls pops out of the ground only a half-mile upriver. I didn’t check it out myself, just heard it from the old man who was trying to alleviate our annoyance that we couldn’t walk down to the falls.

The price to get in, of course, hasn’t gone down from what it was when you could walk to the falls. As if that’s not a key piece of what you’re paying for. As if there wasn’t a free friggin’ parking lot on the other side of the falls that offers more or less the same view of the falls but that doesn’t offer access to the falls. So now the “State Park” gives us the exact same experience as the free parking lot, but charges $10 for it. 

No wait, there’s also a store there. Where we spent more money…

The Bumpass Hell trail is usually listed as the top destination inside Lassen. It was closed not for refurbishment, but for snow. In July.

I’m not saying there wasn’t a fair amount of snow around. I’m sure we would’ve had to walk around a couple mounds. We’d had to do something similar at one of the Crater Lake lookouts. But even at 8,000 feet, it had been a pretty damn warm three to four weeks. I assume the Bumpass Hell Trail is like some of those campgrounds I’ve booked before, where it’s not open in mid-June despite the last storm having been in February. But the campsite can’t open until some bureaucrat fits it in his schedule to check that the snow didn’t damage a tree or, in the case of Bumpass, a wood plank.

I wonder if Bumpass Hell ever opened this year. It couldn’t have been there more than a week or two before the fire shut the whole place down. I guess that makes Lassen the only place in this country that can claim 2024 was a year without hell.

Before I get much farther, let me clarify: Lassen is absolutely beautiful. I don’t know that I’d compare it to Yosemite. For sure not Yosemite Valley, which is only at about 4,000 feet elevation because it’s, follow me here, a valley. Most of Lassen is double that. So the landscapes were more reminiscent of Rocky Mountain than Yosemite, 

It also doesn’t feature distinct images like Half Dome and El Capitan. Maybe if I traveled there often I might be able to pick Lassen Peak out of a lineup alongside Shasta and Hood and Rainier, but on first viewing, it was just a tall mountain. Although not too tall because I think the trail up it started at 9,000 feet. No way was I attempting that the day after Crater Lake.

There looked to be some other fun hikes, too, that totally warrant a return. The Kings Creek Falls trail looked totally accessible. We almost went on it until we opted for getting home at a reasonable hour. I also noted it was one of those “the downhill comes first” trails I don’t particularly love, but it was a more gradual drop (and then rise) in elevation than Crater Lake. Maybe if we weren’t on back-to-back days, and on a time crunch, we would’ve done it. 

Bumpass Hell would be nice to try, too, if I can ever make it there in the ten day period between snow season and fire season.

And maybe I could even tackle Lassen Peak. A two-thousand foot elevation gain, starting at eighty-five hundred? Easy peasey! At least the uphill comes first.

But on this particular trip, we stuck to the lakes.

First up was Manzanita Lake, which was crowded. It’s so close to the entrance that I got the feeling this was basically the closest beach for the towns of Red Bluff and Redding. Hence my rednecks comment. If you’ve never heard of Red Bluff and Redding, California, I’ve now given you all you need to know. Rednecks. And a Sundial Bridge.

I noticed that Lassen had a price for an annual pass to just that one park. I don’t think I’ve seen that elsewhere. Nobody heads up to just Yosemite for an evening. And if they do, they’re probably enough of an outdoors nut to buy the annual pass to all of the parks. But Lassen is close enough to a couple towns that don’t have a lot of beaches, and Manzanita Lake was proof of that. I assume eighty percent of the Lassen-only annual passes never venture farther than two miles from the entrance.

Daughter wanted to swim. I didn’t, especially in one of those mountain lakes where the bottom is basically slime. So, after we spent a half-hour walking to and from the bathroom at the visitor’s center to change into her swimsuit, because all the closer parking lots were full, I sat down on a log near shore to read a book while she walked into the lake.

Then promptly decided she was done and came back to shore.

Like seriously, I don’t think I finished two pages. And these weren’t Game of Thrones pages. I was reading a friggin’ Jack Reacher book. Two Jack Reacher pages probably don’t have a single word longer than two syllables. No sentences longer than five words. I made it about as far as “Reacher said nothing” before she was waving and squawking at me to bring her towel and shoes to the shore.

But she wanted clean feet, so what followed was a never-ending cycle of sit on a log, lift up a foot, get it dirty again, move to a rock, get distracted, clean the other foot, fall back in, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. I shit you not, she probably spent less than five minutes “swimming” and more than twenty minutes getting out. 

And I might never find out what Jack Reacher said.

We went through a similar process at Summit Lake. Fortunately that lake was much less crowded, because Manzanita Lake is right by the entrance while Summit Lake is, follow me here, at the summit. So she kinda had the whole lake to herself and stayed in for a good fifteen minutes until some teenagers showed up and made her feel self-conscious. 

We stopped by a couple more lakes on the way out that were absolutely beautiful. Helen Lake and Emerald Lake were pristine. Technically we could’ve swam in them, but at 8,200 feet elevation, they were pretty much a degree above ice. But damn, did standing next to them feel great when the valley had been over 100 degrees for a month straight. 

My favorite lake, though, wasn’t really even a lake at all. It’s called Hat Lake, and maybe there are times of the year when it’s a legitimate lake, but if my visit was any indication, the times when Hat is a Lake and Bumpass is a Trail are months apart and never the twain shall meet. 

When we were at Hat Lake, it was a beautiful brook babbling through a lush, peaceful meadow. Even better, we were the only people there. I guess everyone else took one look, said, “screw that, it’s not a lake,” and raced on to see the “Closed Do Not Enter” barricade at Bumpass Hell. Me, I could’ve stayed next to the stream all day, found a comfy batch of grass to fall asleep in, and woken up in the same spot the next day, never witnessing a mud fart, and I would’ve been content. 

It was Daughter’s favorite part of the park, too. Good to know she’s taking after some of my nicer qualities and not just my blood type and allergies.

Then we stopped at the mud farts. Technically it’s sulphur pools, where underground magma pockets turn the surface into boiling liquid. And magma, being sulphur, smells like hard-boiled eggs or, less charitably, farts. Ergo bubbling mud farts. 

Which were impressive. But still, after a minute or so, you realize it’s just bubbling mud and you start to realize the smell ain’t going away any time soon.

Oh, and lots of friendly signs tell us what should be obvious, that you shouldn’t try to touch the molten plasma.

Not sure who looks at something that’s literally boiling granite and feels the need to touch it, but… hold on, I teach high school. I probably encounter a hundred people a day who would do that for nothing more than a dare. 

And they’d use their penis.

Two parks down, one to go. Time to head off to some islands.

Summer Vacation at Crater Lake

· September 4, 2024 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , , , · 2 Comments

Did you know fourth graders get into National Parks for free?

Sure, at half of them you still need to pay a reservation fee or whatever, but once you’re at the gate, you just point to a fourth-gradish looking child and tell them to shove their entry fee right up their ass. 

Then apologize to said fourth grader for the profanity.

We discovered this last summer when Daughter was between third and fourth grade. I don’t think she technically should have qualified, because the pass we got expired August 30 of that year, meaning it was probably for kids who were finishing fourth grade, not going into it. But her school starts in mid-August, so if the federal government can’t figure out how to classify a fourth grader, who am I to tell them? 

We got a new one for this year and have visited five.  And since fifth graders don’t have government id’s, guess who’s going to be a fourth grader again? 

“She’s a fourth grader.”

“She looks eighteen.”

“She’s really dumb and has been held back a lot.”

After a few days of treehousing and riverboating and… cat-seeing… we finally headed up into the mountains to accomplish our primary goal, which was visiting some national parks whild Daughter gets in for free.

First up was Crater Lake.

I’ve technically been to Crater Lake before, but not really. I headed up there on a weekend in early May once, not realizing that pretty much the entire mountain around the lake is still caked in twenty feet of snow in early May. Hell, even when we visited in late July, there were still substantial clumps of snow.

So on my first visit, they had only plowed the road up to the visitor center (because the beauty of national parks is second only to the commerce of national parks!), from which you could walk to one specific viewpoint on the south side of the lake. Because it was 90+ degrees in the valley, I took a picture of me wearing shorts and flip-flops in the snow, then promptly drove back down to Medford, thinking Crater Lake was almost as worthless of a National Park as Kings Canyon, in which there’s pretty much only one road in and, once you’ve made it to the end, all you can really do is get out of your car, say “Wow, look at that canyon,” then turn back around and leave the park.

Fortunately, this time around, a fair amount of the ring road was open. None of it had snow, but most of the east side was closed for construction or potholes or some of the usual road-closing reasons. I imagine if they’re only snow-free for four or five months a year, ya gotta get all your constructing done at that time. It seems like every time I visit Denver, the entire downtown is torn apart. Then again, I always visit in the summer. 

So I can now confirm that Crater Lake has, not only a southern view, but also a western and a northern view. Whether or not there’s an east side of the lake is still a mystery. 

You can also view the lake from, wait for it, lake level!

We weren’t sure if we were going to make it down to the lake. There’s only one path down, and it’s all the way on the north side of the lake. The hike is listed as “moderate to strenuous” and it’s the worst kind, where you’re going downhill first. Meaning the return trip was going to be uphill. Even though I’m now of an age where downhills are almost as bad as uphills, I friggin hate those kinds of hikes. For me, it’s rarely about the muscle fatigue, it’s usually the breathing. Downhills don’t task my lungs.

But Daughter wanted to ride that boat, and the boat was, shockingly, only available at lake level. 

We had looked up tickets beforehand, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take us to get there from the treehouse. Good thing, because originally, I was debating between the noon and the 2:00 tours. But after we added in Daughter’s 8:00 am horseriding and stopped for lunch right before entering the park, we were barely at the south side of the lake by 2:00. Still a drive around the lake and a moderate to strenuous hike away from our destination. 

There wasn’t a ton of cell service around the lake, so even if I had a good gauge on what time we might finally make it to the dock, I doubt I could’ve ordered tickets. So when we finally made it there, we had pretty much given up the fight. I tried to remind Daughter that I gave her the choice that morning of riding the horse or riding the boat, but that was little consolation.

But there were two more boat rides on the day, one at 3:30 and one at 3:45. The 3:30 one was full, plus it was already pushing 3:15 when we got there. The nimrods in front of us had tickets for it and the employee told them they better fucking run to the bottom of the trail if they were hoping to get on it. They left at a brisk walk, and she yelled, “Faster than that!”

I asked if they had any more tickets available for the 3:45 boat, but she wasn’t sure. The internet was shoddy or communication was down or something. The list, a few hours old, showed a few openings, but we would have to walk to the bottom of the trail to find out for sure. I was disinclined to haul ass to the bottom, only to find out it’s full and have to come right back up. But the employee said we should totally do it and told Daughter that she could swim in the lake if the boat was full, so off we went.

I’m not sure if we passed the nimrods on the 3:30 boat, but we passed a hell of a lot of people on the way down. I’m guessing they all had secure tickets. If there was going to be a waitlist, I wanted to make sure we were at the front of it. “Oh, Frank Jones isn’t here? Yeah, I passed that guy three-quarters of a mile ago. Trust me, he ain’t making it. Gimme his spot.”

When we made it to the bottom, turns out they didn’t know if the boat was full, either. They had the same shoddy internet and the same hours-old list. 

Instead, we were told to just chill out and wait until the boat was finished loading. Then and only then would they know if the boat was full or not. If not, Daughter could swim for a bit while I got annoyed that we expended energy and muscles to get down here ASAP.

After five minutes or so, they let us on the boat. Magically, the credit card machine had absolutely no connectivity issues.

Since we boarded after all the ticketed passengers, the only spots left appeared to be the jump seat in the back pf the boat. It was a weird setup – whereas all the other seats were on the left or right, with an aisle down the middle, ours was in the middle, right in front of the pilot’s dais. Daughter thought it was VIP, but all I could think was that we’d get the least amount of wind. Plus, in our haste, we hadn’t added any sunscreen and my knees were going to absolutely fry.

Fortunately for us, we had to give up the seats to a couple I’ll graciously call “The Doomed.” Because vulture candy is offensive. 

The Doomed were a married couple who I will generously call “unprepared.” They appeared to be about ten years older than me and less than half as healthy. Bear in mind, I ain’t exactly Dwayne Johnson. More like Boris Johnson. Like I said, I thought long and hard about a moderate to strenuous hike at elevation. Clearly the Doomed didn’t. 

In another ten years, when I’m (possibly) as old as The Doomed, I assume I’ll be even less inclined to believe I can make the circuit. Especially if, like these two, I don’t make these sojourns all that frequently. So if I was questioning whether or not I ought to be making this hike, then these two should’ve answered the query with a hard fucking no from the first inkling.

I don’t know what ship The Doomed were supposed to be on. I doubt it was ours. When they first appeared on the dock, we were already supposed to have left five minutes earlier, but because of people like me and a handful of others buying up the empty seats, we were still within shouting distance.

Doomed Dude’s shin had a ginormous gash on it. It was mostly scabbed over, but there was still a rivulet of fresh blood. So I’m guessing they had taken maybe an hour or more to hike down the path I’d done in less than twenty minutes. I assume he fell, they’d paused for long enough to it to coagulate a bit, then it had reopened when they started walking again. He also had dust and debris up and down his legs and his hair looked like the guy in Airplane! after he stops giving up sniffing glue.

As for the woman, I don’t think she was injured before approaching the boat. She seemed wobbly, but that might have initially been more a result of exhaustion than injury. 

But not for long.

I don’t know where she was trying to go. There was a flat platform secured against the granite, then a long metal ramp descending down to the floating platform that the boat is attached to. On that flat platform are a few containers, kinda like giant ice chests, containing life jackets, making the platform a little crowded. When there were fifty of us heading toward the boat around the same time, some of us stepped off the flat platform, scrambling on the rocks to circumvent the congestion. I doubt that was her goal, since there were only a few employees on the platform at that time, most of them assisting her husband. 

Regardless of her intent, she slipped on either a rock or dirt. With the entire boat staring at her and waiting, her upper torso seemed to lean one way while her lower torso went the opposite. Then her ankle rolled and down she went like the goddamned Titanic, rolling off the platform.

Well, shit, now the boat’s gonna be even further delayed. 

Somehow all the kings horses and all the kings men were able to load them onto the boat. They asked me and Daughter to give up our jump seat, which was perfectly fine with me, and even better, somebody else moved so we could sit together. The Doomed got a couple of free waters that we had to pay exorbitant prices for.

Hilariously, when the boat finally started, the guide asked how hard we thought that hike down was on a scale of one to five. The woman put up all five fingers, but the dude, looking like something out of ground zero on 9/11, only put up two fingers. 

Originally, I thought maybe The Doomed were going to be dropped off at the south end of the lake. There’s no pedestrian path over there (the spot we were at is the only public access spot), but I figured maybe there might be a way for official people to get where they needed to be. Maybe a helicopter pad or something. 

But nope, they stayed on the boat for the whole two-hour tour. 

The tour itself was kinda meh. Considering our last boat, less than 24 hours earlier, included multi-boat twirlies and free beer, it was always gonna be an uphill battle. I mean, what does stupid Career Lake have to offer? Unparalleled beauty of a natural masterpiece? The clearest blue water you’ll find anywhere? Big whoop! Not once did we catch air from another boat’s wake!

The tour guide left a bit to be desired. Not sure if he was running a tour for the first time or if the distracted, nervous demeanor was just his personality, but he left something to be desired in the excitement department. 

He used a lot of “some people see this in the rocks, but I don’t see it.” Part of me thinks it was a shtick to get us to “find” it, but he didn’t fill me with confidence when he said that the volcanic eruption that created the Crater could be seen as far as Montana. “And even… British… Columbia? Is that right? Is that the one that’s in Canada?”

Evidently geology and geography are different practices. And we’ll ignore the fact that British Columbia is probably the same distance from southeastern Oregon as Montana is, so that revelation didn’t add anything to the wow factor. Sure, BC is in a different country, but I don’t think a volcano that blew 6,000 years ago was carrying a passport.

His knowledge of rocks was great, though. He explained how various rock structures were originally fissures inside the ginormous volcano that once stretched across the entirety of the lake. He knew so much about rocks that, when the tour ended, the captain said, “Are you going to talk about rocks some more? Let me run the tour. There’s a great fishing spot over there.”

Then again, his message clearly wasn’t getting through to everyone, since I heard another passenger confidently tell his family “It was a glacier that did it.” Dude, you’re thinking of Yosemite. How many friggin times have you heard volcano today, dumbass?

The best part of the tour was when we filled our water bottles. It’s, allegedly, the ninth cleanest lake in the world. “Allegedly” because the tour guide couldn’t tell us any of the other eight. They were probably in British Columbia.

Regardless of its place on the list, we were on the opposite end from the access point with all those peeing swimmers, so the water should’ve been totally safe to drink. At least before we stopped the boat and leaned over to submerge the bottles we’d just been putting in our mouths. So maybe now Crater Lake is the tenth cleanest in the world. Eleventh if The Doomed got his bloody gash near it.

Speaking of The Doomed, when we all piled out at the end of the trip, they were asked if they thought they could get back up under their own power. I think the answer might’ve been no even if they hadn’t both taken tumbles on the way down. Maybe the falls were all intended to get a free medical evacuation.

So as the rest of us worked our way back up the moderate to strenuous path (which felt much more on the strenuous side this time), we were passed by a number of EMT and paramedic types, one of which had a pretty cool looking gurney unicycle thing. Guessing the standard four-wheeled contraption can’t go up a rocky path of switchbacks. Of course, that meant she’d need at least two, maybe three or four, people to hold it steady as they pushed her back up the hill. 

I would’ve paid money to see her rolling off it repeatedly. Especially after the East German judge only scored her first loop-de-loop a seven.

We never saw them come back up. Not because we were tearing the uphill. It was just as painstaking as I expected.

We were some of the last people going up, especially after a pit-stop at the restrooms and Daughter getting a brief swim in the lake. All the employees left around the same time we did. Our tour guide was jogging the whole way. Whatever, dude. Talk to me when you’re fifty. And know where Canada is.

My legs were fine, but my breathing and heartrate weren’t having it. Especially since my dumb ass decided to push it for the first quarter mile. And that water from the lake was now an hour old and not quite as crisp anymore.

We kept leapfrogging the captain. While we were resting, he would move ahead. Then he would rest and we would pass him. We always exchanged pleasantries. He convinced me there was no shame in going slow, even if I’ve got a ten-year old with me that could’ve probably ran the whole damn thing with the tour guide.

He might’ve been of a similar age to The Doomed, but was in substantially better health, which, again, makes me wonder if they had a shot in hell of hiking uphill, regardless of injury. After all, this uphill hike was the captain’s everyday commute. He knew which trees and rocks were best for leaning against, just like I knew which lanes have potholes. Can’t tell whose commute is more excruciating. Mine is mind-numbing, his is leg-numbing. His has a much better view than mine, no matter how creative those personalized plate are. 

Eventually, we made it. Probably took about twice as long going up as down. And then, exhausted and out of breath, all I had to do was drive back to a hotel we’d booked in Weed, California. Which was still a good three hours away and, despite getting good online reviews, had soap but no shampoo in the shower and an air conditioner that I had to stand on a chair to plug in and wait another twenty minutes for it to cool down the room. 

But, when given a chance, you’ve always gotta stop in Weed, amirite?

Summer Vacation in Oregon

· September 3, 2024 · Blog Entries, Musings · , , , , , , , · 2 Comments

Using the occasion of Labor Day week, the metaphorical end of summer, to write about my summer trips. 

Gonna try something new this week, breaking those trips into four shorter posts instead of one or two long ones, with the goal of posting one per day on this shortened week. 

And by short, I mean 2,000ish words each…

Our primary goal was to hit a number of national parks while Daughter still got in free as a fourth grader.

But before we could hit the first one, which was Crater Lake, we spent a few days in southwestern Oregon. This post will cover all you need to know about cats and trees and rivers. Then I’ll be back in the next few days to take you in depth into Crater Lake, Lassen, and Channel Islands national parks.

Tree House

I learned about the tree house resort a long time ago, but had never really found myself nearby. It’s not in a spot that’s convenient to, well, anything. Even Crater Lake, which was our excuse for visiting this area, was nowhere near it. But I doubt I’ll ever be en route somewhere closer. 

Besides, once I had shown the pictures to Daughter, there was no way we were staying anywhere else. 

A fact I remind her of the first fifty times she asked a variation of “Are we there yet?”

The treehouses are part hotel, part campsite, a fact I wasn’t as aware of as I should’ve been. Other families had brought hamburgers and hot dogs to grill, some even brought ice cream to store in the freezer. We brought… um… some chips for the car.

What we really ought to have brought was water. I can’t remember the last time I was so thirsty as that first night. I bought a Pellegrino from the office and milked it as long as I could, even though I’m not really much of a Pellegrino fan. If they’d had Crystal Geyser, I might’ve traded in my car for it.

Not that I should be too hydrated, because the last thing I wanted was to need the bathroom in the middle of the night. The closest facilities to our treehouse was down some rickety stairs, the bottom four of which went off in a different direction than the rest, so I’m pretty sure if I tried to use them in the middle of the night, I would’ve walked right off the platform and broken an ankle.

Another amenity I’m used to at hotels, but that was missing from the treehouses, is soap. Their website said they had showers, which they do, so I guess I just assumed that shower meant more than “something that sprays water on you from above.” The closest I came to cleaning myself while I was there was putting some of the foam soap from the toilet sink onto a washcloth before jumping in the shower. Needless to say, that’s not stretching across my entire body. Never mind my hair.

Before our excursion to Grants Pass, I told Daughter in no uncertain terms that she was going to shower before we left for Crater Lake the next day. After I attempted to use the shower that night, I told her, “You know what? Just wait till we’re back in civilization.”

The treehouse resort had drastically different treehouse sizes. Many were large, even some multi-houses connected by rope bridges that accommodated multiple families. Some of those groups who were grilling up food seemed to be multiple families who showed up together, and it appeared to be a regular thing for them, maybe a yearly “camping” trip. 

Our treehouse was on the dinkier side. It was bi-level, so Daughter could climb a wooden ladder up to an extra nook to sleep on an air mattress. My “bed” wasn’t much more comfortable. Due to the small size of the treehouse, and to allow Daughter to go up the ladder, my bed was a U-shaped couch during the day with an extra piece to fill in the U at bedtime. The final piece didn’t come in as flush as you might want, so when I laid down, it felt like I was on a chiropractor’s table.

As soon as I got home, I had to visit the chiropractor’s table. 

Minor gripes out of the way, the treehouse resort was pretty fun. What they called a “Fresh Water Pool” was actually a legitimate pond fed by a mountain stream. Daughter wasn’t expecting how cold the water, but considering it was almost a hundred degrees that day, was quite refreshed once she got used to it.

If you feel like sticking around the premises during the day (since in summer they have a two night minimum), they have zip lines and horseback riding and a Tarzan swing. 

Unfortunately, most of those have to be booked ahead of time and aren’t exactly cheap. Plus many of them require minimum parties to book. I get it, since they have to bring in extra staff to work those areas, but which was frustrating when there were only two of us. Our first night, we were informed that horseback riding required a minimum of two people under 220 pounds. There was only one of us that fit that description. The Tarzan Swing, meanwhile, required four people minimum. Both of them, I was told, could be booked if I was willing to pay for all the ghost riders.

I understand that most of the treehouses cater to large families or groups. However, we weren’t in the only small treehouse. The woman seemed shocked, Shocked!, that a treehouse with one couch-bed and one air mattress would only have two people to partake in their activities. And only one under 220 pounds.

That being said, she worked her ass off to get us into the activities we wanted. She said they would let me ride Major, that fat-bearing horse, if we could do it at 6:00 that evening. Unfortunately, we already had plans. And I really didn’t want to ride the fat horse if I could avoid it. As soon as some other kids signed up for the first horseback ride of the following morning, the woman searched the grounds until she found us to give us the option of tacking on. She found Daughter first, who jumped at the chance even before I could assent.

Same thing happened with the Tarzan Swing. Four person minimum, they said. But if anyone else signed up, they’d be sure to let us know. Then they said some of the zip-liners would probably tack it on to the end of their trek. So if we just sort of hung around the end of the zipline at the right time of day, we could pull a Harry Belafonte and jump in the line. 

When we got there, the dude said we’d probably go last since the zipliners would already be harnessed up. We were fine with that. 

But the zipliners were taking a longer than expected, so he switched gears and took us first. By the time we were finished, there were still no zipliners. Some had come down and not come over to us, so there’s a chance none of them opted for the add-on and they actuality opened up the Tarzan Swing for a two-person minimum. Like I said, they seemed to bend over backwards trying to get us into their activities even if they initially gave us a hard time about a couple of loners.

Maybe that had something to do with the $100 I forked over for the horses and additional $35 for each Tarzan Swing. 

Sorry, getting ahead of myself. While I assume you know what “horseback riding” is,  you might be unfamiliar with this Tarzan Swing I keep referencing. 

As was I. 

Which is probably why I let them talk me into it. 

After all the back-and-forth about how lucky we were to have it open for just two of us, I wasn’t going to say, “You mean one?” The dude didn’t rally ask if I was doing it or not, he just strapped me in a harness, at which point I was pot-committed. 

It’s a rope swing. No big deal. That they attach to a waterski rope that you hold onto behind your head. Okay, got it so far. Then they drive a golf cart in the opposite direction pulling the ski rope, and the idiot holding onto it, fifty-five feet in the air. 

What the what?!?

Then you have to let go of the rope and let physics, or maybe evolution, take over. 

Daughter went first. I filmed from the bottom and, yeah, she looked high up there, but it wasn’t for very long, and as soon as she was up there, she let go and was sailing through a parabolic arc. The golf cart guy worried she was freaking out or passing out, because she didn’t really make a sound like most, but I could see the smile on her face from my vantage point, fifty-five feet away.

She went again and this time she laughed. As soon as she slowed down, she asked if she could have one or both of my swings. Dude turned to me and said, “She’s only ten? I hope you realize you’re jumping out of an airplane at some point.” 

That’s my daughter.

So they strapped my 240 pounds into the same contraption that held her 80. The golf cart was Honey Badger, it didn’t give a shit. 

Since you’re kinda lying down at the base of the swing, you have to reach over your head/behind you to grab the ski rope, then it starts tugging and you’re yanked backward and up. It isn’t a rough pull, but it ain’t exactly gentle. Kinda like water skiing, except it’s in the opposite direction. A direction you can’t see.

A direction you CAN see, however, is straight down and holy shit! That ground is fifty-five feet away!

Again, I had just seen Daughter do the same thing, but looking up at an object fifty-five feet in the air is substantially different than looking down from that same height. It might be just a little over halfway between home plate and first base but, well, you wouldn’t want to be dropped from first base. Fifty-five feet is, what, the sixth floor of a building?

And it’s up to me to decide when to let go and start the swing. All you have to do is let go. Easy enough, although Dude told me the longest somebody waited while freaking out was a minute, forty-three seconds. Not the case for me. It’s not comfortable being held up in the air by your arms hanging from a ski rope. The moment he gave me the okay, I was letting go. Hell, on my second ride, I wanted to let go at about thirty feet, but I wasn’t sure if that would fuck with liability.

So I let go. And then I flew. 

It was basically a swing. Times ten. You pick up some serious acceleration on the way down. Obviously, as parabolic arcs go, the uphill portion brought me almost as high as the point from which I’d been dropped, only now the ground was behind me, so no big deal. By the time I returned to the pinnacle the second time, I noticed that my leg was shaking. Pent-up adrenaline or potential energy or whatever caused it, it was uncontrollable and hilarious. Honestly, I didn’t really think I was pent up at all before I dropped, but clearly something needed to get out. It happened again on my second swing. 

So yeah, two thumbs up on the Out n’ About Treehouses. Just bring your own water and food.

Southwestern Oregon

Since the treehouses had a two-night minimum, we ventured out for a couple stops on the day in between.

First up was the Great Cats World Park. It’s a zoo just for cats. Lions and tigers and… um, jaguars.

As we drove up to the rinky little gravel lot in the middle of Podunk, Oregon, I worried we might be venturing into Tiger King territory. Fortunately, they seemed to at least give half a shit about their animals. Plus both the animals and the tour guides had all their teeth.

The tour guides were very knowledgeable about each of the breeds. They let us know about all the things that were threatening each cat’s existence and, unlike Tiger King, the Great Cats World Park wasn’t top of the list. They also seemed to be rooting against extinction, and for more reasons than its effect on their profits. Either that or they’re very good at faking compassion. 

The cats were well fed, primarily because the tour guides kept throwing raw meat to get them to approach because, mind you, most cats are nocturnal, a fact I always remark uponnote at zoos when the “most ferocious predators” are napping in the shade for the entire day. The tour guides, mostly girls between 15-25, had no problem tossing the meat, sometimes with tongs and sometimes with their bare hands. Our first guide’s hands were literally cracking with dried meat juice. Unlike “likes cats and dislikes extinction”, I didn’t have “comfortable handling raw chopped-up porterhouse” high on my list of twentysomething female traits. 

Daughter loved the tour. For me it got a little redundant. Especially after we were handed off to a second tour guide (while the first presumably went to wash her hands or contract e-coli) who repeated a lot of the same amazing factoids. But still, I managed to learn some things.

For instance: There’s no such thing as a panther, so both Marvel and the Carolina NFL team are using black jaguars.

Also, none of the jaguars sported a teal color like seen on Jacksonville helmets, making the NFL 0-for-2 on representing felines. I didn’t check to see if any of the lions were named Barry Sanders.

There’s a tiny cat called a Geoffroy’s Cat that was adorable and looked like a domestic cat. We all just assumed Geoffroy was the owner of the park and thought it would be funny to put his own cat in a section of the park during the day. Turns out that, no, a Geoffroy’s Cat is a mean little SOB who will kill another Geoffroy’s Cat. Or Jeffrey’s cat, for that matter. 

 In fact, the Geoffroy’s Cat is the only feline that will kill its species for no damn reason. Just like real-life Geoffs. I never trusted guys who couldn’t spell Jeff correctly.

After spending time with cats, we visited their favorite locale, water. 

(Except for the Otter Cat that evolved specifically to be fine with water, including hair that instantly dried. One of the cooler cats at the park.)

We took the Hellsgate Jet Boats out of Grants Pass. It’s about an hour down the Rogue River to a spot called Hellsgate, which to me just looked like a regular ol’ canyon, then back. We took the last boat of the day, which also included dinner at a rustic mountain lodge themed restaurant, making it a four-hour sojourn.

Their website shows the boats doing twirlies in the river. I figured they’d do it maybe once or twice so we could write fancy reviews. Instead, we spun close to twenty times. Many of them were when our boat was alone, but there were five total jetboats leaving around the same time, and plenty of the spins were done in tandem with those other boats. 

The driver alternated spinning left and right to ensure different people got soaked. The front row got it the worst, plus the side people in the first few rows. Honestly, if you were in the middle of row five or six, I don’t think you would’ve gotten more than an occasional spray. Daughter was on the far edge of row three, so she loved it. It was like a four-hour long amusement park rafting ride.

Ironically. when spinning, the side on the inside of the spin got the most soaked. The ones on the outside got the initial splash as their side of the boat cut into the water, and that’s the one everyone saw coming and cowered from. But when we finished our turn, effectively coming to a complete stop, the trailing wave then came over the other side, drenching those on the opposite side. 

By the end, most of the boat still didn’t understand those physics. The boat driver said we could do one more spin and asked which direction we wanted to go. The whole front row pointed the direction that instinct, but not experience, told them would keep them dry.

The driver said it wasn’t fair, so we did two more spins, once each direction.

Then I think we caught up with another boat and did it again.

Those were the ones that drenched us all. Because then, instead of waiting for your trail of water to catch up with part of your boat, you’re going straight through the vertical sheet of water tossed up by the other boat. Even the middle of the last row got some of those. 

And, of course, we made sure to return the favor to the other boat, now that we were ahead of them. Sometimes we did it with three boats. 

Everyone seemed to be having a great time. It probably helped that it was ninety-five degrees that day. The boat driver said their first trips of the season tended to be when the high was fifty-five, and those customers weren’t quite as keen on the splashes.

The dinner was fun. Haven’t had family style with strangers in a while. Feels so 2019. 

Daughter isn’t a big BBQ sauce fan, so she was kinda screwed with options of bbq ribs and bbq chicken. But there was plenty of bread to keep her happy. And it’s not like the bbq flavor goes much past the surface of a chicken breast.

The beer and wine was unlimited, too. Sure, it wasn’t good, but beggars and choosers, right? By the time we sat down, the beer had been sitting in a pitcher for a while and was both warm and flat, but it was probably C-minus or Miller Lite, so it’s not like the temperature and carbonation would’ve made it any better. In fact, when we polished off the first pitcher, they brought out a fresh pitcher. I didn’t notice much difference.

Our plates hadn’t even been cleared, much less dessert, when we got the warning that the boats would be leaving in fifteen minutes. Some of the regulars had already mentioned that the service seemed a little off this night, whether from new cooks or new servers. This whole Sophie’s Choice between a wee bit o’ cobbler and spending the night alone out in the elements was a new experience. 

Probably not the best time for the waiters to bust out the gratuity buckets.

In the end, we were able to scarf down some cobbler and high-tail it down to the dock, banking on all those old fogeys not making it down the hill as fast as we would. You don’t have to be faster than the bear, only faster than the slowest person.

Even better, all the ribs and cobbler and flat beer stayed inside my body through all the twirlies on the boat ride home. Twice that day, with the Tarzan Swing, I managed the feat of neither shitting my pants nor spewing my guts! Huzzah!

Not So Magic Mountain

· August 6, 2023 · Musings · , , , , , , · No Comments

Growing up in Southern California, Six Flags Magic Mountain was always one of my favorite places. So the second my daughter was old enough (tall enough, really), I couldn’t wait to take her there. Unfortunately, when that time finally came around, a few Mondays ago, my first visit in twenty years didn’t live up to those childhood (teenage, really) expectations. 

Back then, the various SoCal amusement parks could be broken down by the ages they catered to. Disneyland, despite its Mickey Mouse and Snow White foundation, wasn’t necessarily the youngest option. That distinction belonged to Knott’s Berry Farm, with not much in the way of rides. Mostly Old West shows and maybe a log ride. It was even the first amusement park to offer a kiddie area in Camp Snoopy, although it was added after the time I would’ve been interested.

While the characters and overall motif at Disneyland caters to little kids, many of the best rides are far from that. That’s probably why it has such staying power and parents can’t wait to take their kids. Hey kids, look at Mickey and Minnie over there while I ride Space Mountain again. 

Now if you took the characters and the Fantasyland rides out of Disneyland, and add in about ten more Space Mountains, you’ve got Magic Mountain. All thrill rides, no frills. My happy spot.

It’s odd that Magic Mountain became a favorite since the single most miserable day of my upbringing happened there. I was about 46 1/2 inches tall. So I had to sit on some benches with my aunt while my mom and older sister went on and then gushed about all the rides. This was back in 1980 or so when there wasn’t any kiddie land. Or misters or tv’s in line or, really, anything other than thrill rides. Fucking brutal. I hope my mom didn’t pay full admission for me. Or my aunt. There ought to be some sort of “Designated Driver” discount for someone who isn’t going on rides. 

Actually, a waterslide park I recently went to was free for anyone over the age of seventy, presumably because they aren’t likely to ride many water slides. Magic Mountain, unfortunately, did not follow that logic, so my mom had to pay full admission when she and I took Daughter, despite not going on any rides. She sat on some of those very benches she left me on back in the Carter administration. 

Revenge is best served cold.

My mom wasn’t the only one who paid more than her fair share. All summer long, I tracked prices that consistently showed the day we wanted to visit at $70. There was also a season pass option that would allow us as many visits as we wanted for the rest of 2023 for only $100, including free parking! That free parking made me think long and hard about paying the extra $30 to upgrade from one day, but I would’ve had to get three season passes. It’s not like I would return without Daughter and if the two of us were going to trek all the way to SoCal for an amusement park day, Mother would probably join us again. So $30 extra bucks times three? Meh, let’s pay for parking.

If only. The walk-up admission wasn’t actually the $70 that was showing on the website as recently as yesterday. This paying a little extra for walking up has become relatively common. My local minor league baseball team was the first place I saw it, about fifteen years ago. At first I thought it was stupid to discourage last-minute customers. Hey, what do you want to do tonight? Should we head to the ballgame? Nah, they charge two bucks more because we didn’t buy it yesterday.

Still not a fan of the practice, but much like assholes backing into parking lots, I’ve made peace with it as a permanent addition to this hellscape. You see, discouraging walk-ups isn’t a glitch in the plan, it’s the actual plan. They need to make staffing decisions, and if they don’t know how many customers are going to show up, they have to pay more hourly wages. If they can predict 24 hours in advance, they can staff (or lack of staff) accordingly. Maybe the issues we had once we were inside Magic Mountain were our own damn fault for not “letting them know” we were coming. That would be their explanation, I’m sure. 

But shouldn’t an amusement park in the middle of summer budget for a handful of walk-ups?

So I expected them to charge us an extra ten percent or whatever. Tag on the minimum wage they’re paying the employee mumbling through an explanation of how one day costs more than an entire year. Because that’s what it came out to. One twenty per person. Plus parking.

Naturally, we asked if we might just get the season pass instead, seeing as it was twenty dollars cheaper than the daily admission. They said no with some gobbledygook explanation of adding the season pass onto the top of today’s admission. In all honesty, I couldn’t tell you what the total price would be. It sounded like we’d get no discount whatsoever for actually having already purchased that day’s tickets. So for $100, you can come all season, but to come today and all season, it’ll put you back $220.

Our Magic Mountain experience didn’t improve much once we were inside. It felt like a ghost town. 

We got there around just before noon, a little over an hour after it opened, but you wouldn’t know that anywhere other than lines for a few rides. I had specifically picked a Monday to avoid  terrible crowds, but sheesh, this place felt at maybe twenty percent capacity. Monday, sure, but it’s still a Monday in Summer. Did the former overshadow the latter? Or is this par for the course these days?

Almost nothing was open between the entry gate and the first batch of rides, about a quarter of the way around the park. We walked past closed Dippin’ Dots stands, closed souvenir shops, an entire closed kiddie land. Perhaps this should’ve been a hint about what the rest of the park was going to be like, but it wasn’t a foreshadowing I portended at that moment.

Of course, Daughter wanted to go on the ride she saw from the parking lot first, so we had to truck all the way over to the far corner. Not a bad starting point, since we’d be starting the day at the back of the park while other attendees (if there were any) would start at the front. If more than half the rides were open, it might’ve been a great plan.

Not that we could track how long lines might be like at Disneyland. Because the Six Flags app absolutely sucks. On the way to the Scream we passed a cool looking ride called Full Throttle. It didn’t seem to have anybody in line, but when I checked the app, it said it was a 55 minute wait (that’s where all the customers are!). No way was Daughter waiting an hour for her very first ride of the day, so we continued on to Scream and Colossus (I refuse to call it by its new name), where we found a “Ride Wait Time” TV that showed Full Throttle only had a 15 minute wait. That jibed more with the line we had seen. Meanwhile, the app on my phone still showed close to an hour. Throughout the day, the screens said one thing, the app said another, and neither seemed to have much bearing on reality.

Scream, meanwhile, had a five-minute wait, so we rode that not once, but twice in a row, which, it turns out, wasn’t great for my constitution. I know I’m getting older, but holy crap, that ride zips you back and forth fifteen different directions. Then went on Batman, the Ride, which also had virtually no line and similar movement. I had to take a breather after riding those back-to-back. 

I’m fine with loops and corkscrews and most of the other things a ride will throw at you, but those rides did this weird bob-and-weave on the drops that brought up a dizziness I’ve never really had on roller coasters. Clearly my center of gravity ain’t where it was when I was nineteen.  I should add to my list of reasons for taking Daughter to Magic Mountain now the fact that, at the rate I’m going, she might not have a ride partner much longer. Then again, Scream pretty much never had more than a five-minute wait (if my app and the screens were to be believed), so maybe I’m not the only one that took a hard pass on that one.

Fortunately I rallied shortly thereafter and didn’t experience that vertigo on any other rides. Waiting an hour for the thirty-second Superman ride, which only goes straight, probably helped.

The lines seemed to fall into that all or nothing range. Less than ten minutes or pushing an hour. Two of the rides with short lines were Ninja, which was state of the art back when I was a regular here in high school, and Revolution. Ah, poor Revolution. The world’s first “successful” loop roller coaster. I’m curious about some of those unsuccessful ones. At one point, Revolution and Colossus were the lifeblood of the park. Now, they’ve rebuilt Colossus to add some upside downs and corkscrews and they’ve rebranded Revolution as “The New Revolution – Classic.” What the hell does that even mean? As far as I could tell by riding it, it’s the same ride it’s been since 1976. 

I guess it’s to be expected for a park that adds a new ride every year. The old ones become obsolete instead of classic. You don’t see that happening at Disneyland, though. Matterhorn, Space Mountain, and Big Thunder might not require a virtual queue like their fancy new Rise of the Resistance, but I’ve never been able to walk right on Space Mountain three times in a row like we did Viper. Maybe a paint job is in order? Because every ride more than a decade old at Magic Mountain looked like it belonged at the state fair. 

The ones I was able to get on, at any rate. Because on a Monday in the middle of summer, half the damn park was closed. Riddler’s Revenge:  closed. Goliath: closed. Lex Luthor: closed. Ninja: closed. Apocalypse, which was my favorite ride and now that Colossus is fancy-dancy upside-down and loop-de-loop, the only genuine, straightforward wooden coaster: closed.

Not just the thrill rides, either. The Justice League building was closed. The carousel might’ve even been closed. The most unconscionable decision on a 100-degree day, they even closed one of the two water rides. Maybe they were pissed more of us didn’t pre-buy access to Hurricane Harbor, their waterslide addendum next door. 

Yes, I know amusement parks have to refurbish from time to time, but don’t they usually try to do those one at a time? Also, there’s this wonderful thing called an offseason. Okay, maybe Disneyland doesn’t have a legitimate offseason, but I’m pretty sure Magic Mountain is literally only open weekends between October and April. Tons of time to close down rides for a paint job. And preferably, one at a time.

Especially the water slides. Did I mention they used to have misters in line? How thoughtful!

So yeah, much like childhood friends or a class reunion, the intervening thirty years hasn’t been kind to my simpatico with Magic Mountain. Once upon a time, we were on the same wavelength regarding the proper types of rides and lines and everything an amusement park should be. Now they’re my stoner friend who never left our hometown and has no clue that the rest of the world has moved on to bigger and better things. Even Universal Studios!

A friend of mine calls this the Sizzler Syndrome. He loved Sizzler growing up, but he refuses to go to it as an adult, because he knows he will be disappointed. There’s probably an element of that going on with me, where the things that entice me about an amusement park today aren’t what I would’ve enjoyed back then. But while Sizzler is probably the same it’s always been, I’m standing my ground and saying Magic Mountain is mostly at fault.

It felt rundown, unkempt, and ignored. There’s been talk that many developers want to tear it down and sell the land. Ironically, the reason it’s in Valencia in the first place is because you couldn’t give that land away sixty years ago. Now it’s prime real estate.

At the rate they’re going, a strip mall might be an improvement. 

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