Sunday California Adventures!
Feb. 17th, 2025 12:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressToday was our day full of ADVENTURE!
Fetian had discovered that there's a haunt in Sacramento that offers a special Valentine's event, for people who enjoy Haunted Houses outside of October. So we signed up to do that tonight (because Friday I was flying and Sat I was exhausted from travel) and based all pur other plans around it.
Other plans started with renting a car. I found one on Turo, and early this morning --which is to say like 8am, which is to say like 11am for the east coaster-- I went off on my own into the wilds of Sacramento in order to obtain The Car.
It was a lovely little walk and train ride, and then I drove back, grabbed mek and we went grocery shopping, figuring that doing the serious version of that was notably better with wheels. We hit up a grocery depot for the basics and a fancy cheese place for the fancy cheeses, and then home again home again to chill for a while before Real Adventures of the day.
Eating some fancy cheese, working on our fancy PlateUp shop, eventually time to get real dressed and go out for the day. We were off to Scandia, an inexplicably viking themed mini-amusement park and arcade that we've been to several times before, but not in a few years.
They are....struggling some. Unclear how much was just "February" and how much was regular, but the very small number of employees felt pretty overwhelmed by the everyone always needing things. We had a nice time though!
Round of minigolf where I actually won, including my traditional doing very well at the pendulum hole (this is one of my favourite stupid superpowers, that I am surprisingly good at specifically pendulum holes.) I didn't get a hole in one, but I got a very smooth two, and I can't remember the last time I got clipped by the pendulum. There was much jesting about "the house that eats balls" after the third hole seemed to have its pipes clogged and our balls never returned after we hit them into the little house. We're pretty sure it's part of a Tingleverse title.
After minigolf was a bunch of ride time. We went on the roller coaster four times, making friends with the guy running it along the way, because the rides part of the park was pretty dead. I think at one point there was a line with seven people, including us? Yeah. Then twice on the scrambler and once on the flyer --the former was surprisingly not disquieting to the tum, although definitely flung one around a bunch. The latter was lovely for two thirds of the ride, and then did rather make me a bit nauseous.
Finally time for...... The Screamer! This is, as far as we can tell, the loss leader for Scandie-land, which used to be just included in the unlimited rides pass, and then 3-4 years ago they realized they were leading too much a loss and then shifted it to "one screamer ride and then it works out to be like...$15 extra per ride thereafter. So far from the heyday of some years ago (I swear mek and I had a year where we rode it 17 times in the same day), we rode it once, and to be fair, had a legitimately excellent time while doing so. It is a glorious take you up high and whip you around ride.
I found the amusement park rides extremely relaxing, in a weird way. Like yes, adrenaline and screaming and weightlessness and being thunked around in all directions, quite normal. But also just a real enjoyment of the mechanics for getting your heart pumping and the sheer physicality of being thrown around a bit. The screamer whips you around at up to 55mph and like 90 feet into the air, but there are moments when your little car is tilted to send you straight up into the endless blue sky and the whole world just unfolds open into opportunity before you. It's beautiful!
And then you tilt the other way and your body is being flung towards the pavement below with nothing but some little scraps of harness between you and falling out, and that's zen too, in a "I really ought to try bungee jumping or skydiving sometime, I think I'd like them" sort of way. And then you're whisper-gasping "fuck!!!!" because of the way you just spun round and round above the ground and you know you're not allowed to say profanities on the ride, but maybe if it's quiet enough you're okay.
I found myself laughing, giggle-cackle-glee on the first drop of the roller coaster, every time. Just sheer panicked delight about having my body drop out from under me. I really like amusement parks and the rides therein and I should probably make a point of attending them more often.
Post-rides, we went to play a few arcade games --it was crowded and over stimulating, but I found some pleasant success in skee-ball, and we did a fun run on the jurassic park shoot-em-up together. Then grab a quick dinner from Denny's, and off...to the haunt!
The haunted house was, as far as we could tell, their entirely normal haunted house set-up with like...a dozen little "happy valentines" hanging decorations scattered throughout. It is very funny to me just *how* aggressively it was not changed at all. It was a pretty decent haunted house, lots and lots of jump scares, and some incredibly cool animatronics. I would've _loved_ to go through at a third the pace and been able to actually look at _everything_, the aesthetics were over-the-top and too much to see, in a way I found intensely enjoyable. Many things were startling, but I didn't really find any of it _scary_ per se --I am possibly too old and too interested in process to be fully immersed. It's not that I was blase, just that I know no one can _actually_ hurt me and it makes it hard to suspend the disbelief.
Also as Fetian pointed out, there's some real awkward around the social scripts there. A real human pops out and goes "bwahh!" you go "AAEEHEEHHHKK!" and then....what. They try to say something scary and sound hokey? You try to say something clever and sound gormless? It's just not clear what should happen immediately after.
I should definitely do more haunted houses, and I should look up if there are any in the Boston area that do behind-the-scenes tours --this one apparently does in October, but that doesn't help me any.
After, in the parking lot, we ate a very good funnel cake from a food truck. It was well fried and very crisp, not soggy at all. Delicious!
We dropped off the car together, and then took the light rail home again home again. I wrote half these words on the train, and the other half in the cozy bed where I don't think I'll be leaving ever again. (It was a _lot_ of walking today).
Ta!
~Sor
MOOP!
Fetian had discovered that there's a haunt in Sacramento that offers a special Valentine's event, for people who enjoy Haunted Houses outside of October. So we signed up to do that tonight (because Friday I was flying and Sat I was exhausted from travel) and based all pur other plans around it.
Other plans started with renting a car. I found one on Turo, and early this morning --which is to say like 8am, which is to say like 11am for the east coaster-- I went off on my own into the wilds of Sacramento in order to obtain The Car.
It was a lovely little walk and train ride, and then I drove back, grabbed mek and we went grocery shopping, figuring that doing the serious version of that was notably better with wheels. We hit up a grocery depot for the basics and a fancy cheese place for the fancy cheeses, and then home again home again to chill for a while before Real Adventures of the day.
Eating some fancy cheese, working on our fancy PlateUp shop, eventually time to get real dressed and go out for the day. We were off to Scandia, an inexplicably viking themed mini-amusement park and arcade that we've been to several times before, but not in a few years.
They are....struggling some. Unclear how much was just "February" and how much was regular, but the very small number of employees felt pretty overwhelmed by the everyone always needing things. We had a nice time though!
Round of minigolf where I actually won, including my traditional doing very well at the pendulum hole (this is one of my favourite stupid superpowers, that I am surprisingly good at specifically pendulum holes.) I didn't get a hole in one, but I got a very smooth two, and I can't remember the last time I got clipped by the pendulum. There was much jesting about "the house that eats balls" after the third hole seemed to have its pipes clogged and our balls never returned after we hit them into the little house. We're pretty sure it's part of a Tingleverse title.
After minigolf was a bunch of ride time. We went on the roller coaster four times, making friends with the guy running it along the way, because the rides part of the park was pretty dead. I think at one point there was a line with seven people, including us? Yeah. Then twice on the scrambler and once on the flyer --the former was surprisingly not disquieting to the tum, although definitely flung one around a bunch. The latter was lovely for two thirds of the ride, and then did rather make me a bit nauseous.
Finally time for...... The Screamer! This is, as far as we can tell, the loss leader for Scandie-land, which used to be just included in the unlimited rides pass, and then 3-4 years ago they realized they were leading too much a loss and then shifted it to "one screamer ride and then it works out to be like...$15 extra per ride thereafter. So far from the heyday of some years ago (I swear mek and I had a year where we rode it 17 times in the same day), we rode it once, and to be fair, had a legitimately excellent time while doing so. It is a glorious take you up high and whip you around ride.
I found the amusement park rides extremely relaxing, in a weird way. Like yes, adrenaline and screaming and weightlessness and being thunked around in all directions, quite normal. But also just a real enjoyment of the mechanics for getting your heart pumping and the sheer physicality of being thrown around a bit. The screamer whips you around at up to 55mph and like 90 feet into the air, but there are moments when your little car is tilted to send you straight up into the endless blue sky and the whole world just unfolds open into opportunity before you. It's beautiful!
And then you tilt the other way and your body is being flung towards the pavement below with nothing but some little scraps of harness between you and falling out, and that's zen too, in a "I really ought to try bungee jumping or skydiving sometime, I think I'd like them" sort of way. And then you're whisper-gasping "fuck!!!!" because of the way you just spun round and round above the ground and you know you're not allowed to say profanities on the ride, but maybe if it's quiet enough you're okay.
I found myself laughing, giggle-cackle-glee on the first drop of the roller coaster, every time. Just sheer panicked delight about having my body drop out from under me. I really like amusement parks and the rides therein and I should probably make a point of attending them more often.
Post-rides, we went to play a few arcade games --it was crowded and over stimulating, but I found some pleasant success in skee-ball, and we did a fun run on the jurassic park shoot-em-up together. Then grab a quick dinner from Denny's, and off...to the haunt!
The haunted house was, as far as we could tell, their entirely normal haunted house set-up with like...a dozen little "happy valentines" hanging decorations scattered throughout. It is very funny to me just *how* aggressively it was not changed at all. It was a pretty decent haunted house, lots and lots of jump scares, and some incredibly cool animatronics. I would've _loved_ to go through at a third the pace and been able to actually look at _everything_, the aesthetics were over-the-top and too much to see, in a way I found intensely enjoyable. Many things were startling, but I didn't really find any of it _scary_ per se --I am possibly too old and too interested in process to be fully immersed. It's not that I was blase, just that I know no one can _actually_ hurt me and it makes it hard to suspend the disbelief.
Also as Fetian pointed out, there's some real awkward around the social scripts there. A real human pops out and goes "bwahh!" you go "AAEEHEEHHHKK!" and then....what. They try to say something scary and sound hokey? You try to say something clever and sound gormless? It's just not clear what should happen immediately after.
I should definitely do more haunted houses, and I should look up if there are any in the Boston area that do behind-the-scenes tours --this one apparently does in October, but that doesn't help me any.
After, in the parking lot, we ate a very good funnel cake from a food truck. It was well fried and very crisp, not soggy at all. Delicious!
We dropped off the car together, and then took the light rail home again home again. I wrote half these words on the train, and the other half in the cozy bed where I don't think I'll be leaving ever again. (It was a _lot_ of walking today).
Ta!
~Sor
MOOP!
no subject
on 2025-02-17 06:47 am (UTC)Oh yeah, amusement park rides are amazing. I had a glorious summer as a kid when I was tall enough to be allowed on all the adult rides and short enough to be allowed on all of the kids' rides and had a strong stomach and felt no fear. I still miss it sometimes.
LOL, yeah. I'm tempted to contact him just to see if he'd write it.
Ooh, funnel cake. I've never had it but I want to try.
no subject
on 2025-02-19 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2025-02-19 07:32 pm (UTC)At some point, I should make Medieval Funnel Cake for y'all. It's a good deal like the modern recipe, but better. (Honey!)