Phroobar
Well-Known Member
The sign is still gone and still closed.. They will use it again for a maze this year.
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The Miscellaneous Thought Thread
- Thread starter mickEblu
- Start date
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
True there is a little bit of life at Xcelerator. My guess it will be back after Haunt.
NotCalledBob
Well-Known Member
My first thought is that if Death Valley remains closed, you'll need to stay on highway 95 on the Nevada side of the border north to get you over to Lee Vining eventually. Which brings to mind Tonopah?
An old mining town with abandoned mines and ghost town type stuff, but also a recreational area for ATV's and hiking. It has some of the darkest skies in the continental USA, so the stargazing at night is spectacular. Especially after Hilary blew through and cleared out the stratosphere. There's a turuoise mining tour the family can take, and you get to keep all the spoils you find. That could be fun?
Turquoise mine tours — Otteson Brothers Turquoise
An experience of a lifetime awaits you in the expansive Nevada Desert! Here’s your opportunity to tour and dig some of the most beautiful turquoise in the world from our mines.ottesonbrothersturquoise.com
Perhaps Tonopah, if the family is outdoorsy and/or the type to enjoy a historical site or three. Or, if the family is in the mood for something slightly creepy yet bizzarely American, you could try staying at the Tonopah Clown Motel. Or just visit the gift shop.
Clown Motel – Tonopah, Nevada
www.tonopahnevada.com
We made it! Thanks again for the suggestion!
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
We've gone to the chicken restaraunt and marketplace about once a year for the last 5 years, still great and always way too much food. Glad the Mystery Lodge is still going. I never knew if it was a person or a projection.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Mystery Lodge closed pre-covid.
I didn’t realize Mystery Lodge was a beloved attraction. Never got to experience it. Like Rocket Rods it was either closed the day the went to the park or it broke down while we were waiting in line for it.
MoonRakerSCM
Well-Known Member
Random Tonopah!!! lol
If you have time, head to the Tonopah Historic Mining Park just above the town (I think your photo is looking at it). Take the tour there and you'll get some local mining history and some views into the underground workings that exist underneath the town.
The clown motel is worth a 10 second stop to take a photo and not much more. If anything the adjacent Tonopah Cemetary is worth a stroll as it's sort of like going through the cemetary at Knotts Berry Farm except it's real.
While in the area south, and I think north on a different station, Radio Goldfield (based in a ghost town south of Tonopah on the 95) can be a great listen for local color. KGFN 89.1 (I think it's 99 something north of Tonopah)... if you're lucky you can catch Leon the Weather Burro.
Have fun out there, stay safe, and mind any roads that may have washed out due to Hilary rain!
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Speaking on behalf of the good people of Tonopah and myself, you are very welcome.
Wasn’t planned or anything but on my last trip as a passholder this past Saturday I did not set foot into DCA, Galaxies Edge, Toontown or Tomorrowland. I must have needed that “comfort food” and those lands + most of DCA don’t really do anything for the soul.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
It was a theater show done with a live actor and Pepper's Ghost, brought in from an Expo in the 80s. The show was created in consultation with a Native American tribe, and the proceeds from the gift shop it exited into would help benefit said tribe. It was a cool show and something different from what you'd find in an average theme park.
While I miss it and hope that eventually it comes back, it wasn't on the same tier as, say, the Mine or Log ride.
Other unique thing to seek out at Knott's: go to Independence Hall across the street and ask them to play the show for you in the main chamber. It's very reminiscent of something Walt would have done in the 60s (albeit lower tech).
networkpro
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
Except drain it from your body. I wish they had a better idea on what exactly to theme its area around.... Emotional Whirwind for an off the shelf carny attraction?
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
At Independence hall ask them who the first President of the United States was. It is a trick question.
Sounds like it was pretty cool. Thanks for the tip I’ll have to do that. I might go this Saturday. Might do Soak City (kids have never been to a water park and it closes 10/1) for a few hours then finish the the day at Knotts. I have to eat at Mrs Knotts too. I don’t know - might be biting off more than I can chew for one day.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I'm sad if it really is gone. Why would they do that?
It was actually the headline show at the General Motors Pavilion at the 1986 World's Exposition in Vancouver (Expo 86). You went up into a giant wedge shaped building on stilts (with General Motors cars and trucks on display in the cue and beneath the building) and they had several theaters doing this show up in the pavilion's second level for added capacity. They only brought one of the theater sets to Knott's, and the Knott's theater had a much smaller capacity than what I remember at the World's Fair.
The show was based off of the tribal cultures of the Salish-speaking Indian Tribes of the coastal Pacific Northwest, in what is now British Columbia. The "consultation" was needed to bring that show down to Buena Park after the Fair, because Orange County is not home to that tribe, its culture or its language. So the local Gabrielino tribal leaders had to agree to allow it to be shown on their ancestral lands (AKA Knott's Berry Farm), and luckily they agreed to it being here and using the foreign Salish language and inconography. The show opened with their gracious blessing.
It was one of those shows that was really impressive 40 years ago, and still held up well in the 21st century. At the World's Fair, everyone talked about the need to see the "GM Show".
I've always thought it would be fun and really interesting if Knott's redid it, and based it off the local Gabrielino and Juaneno tribal cultures instead of the Salish cultures from 1,000 miles north. The Spirit Lodge show took place in a Douglas Fir longhouse on a rainy night, and there's not really a direct analogy to that in Gabrielino culture.
But still, I would think it would be interesting if the show was more locally based on the people and culture that were there in Orange County long before we had freeways and theme parks. And even before boysenberries.
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Suspirian
Well-Known Member
Paradise Lost ’06
If you know me, you know I’m easily obsessed with ideas that never made it. Well, great, now I’ve got a new one. When it opened, Disney’s California Adventure was a good theme par…
cabel.com
This actually ed me off lol. So many good ideas that could've been used for DCA 2.0 and we got Pixar Pier.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
It's been gone for years. Funny how everything is still intact. You guys might remember Dark Beer's talk of Knott's expanding Ghost Town in to their back stage area kind of like Disneyland did with Galaxy's Edge. The rumored name was Fort Calico. They were to move the haunt barns back there and relocate a lot of infrastructure. The idea was to use the Mystery Lodge as the portal to the new land or as a loading area for the new giga coaster they were planning. None of that happen. Knotts decided to update and clean up the rest of the park instead. They updated the rafts, rebuilt the pizza restaurant, added Berry Tales and rebuilt Festiva Village and Montezuma's Revenge. Even Camp Snoopy is getting a couple of new rides.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Well, they haven't rebuilt Montezuma yet. I'm just hoping they don't bail and tear it down at this point (like the way they spent a fortune completely retracking Thunder Road at Carowinds, only to decide to demo the thing basically the minute the restoration was over). Whatever momentum they once had on the ride appears to have stopped. Much like when DLR pulled down that scaffolding by the NOS train station to reveal that no work has been done? That's how Montezuma looks, except much more obvious.
It would be nice if they were able to do that built-out expansion at some point, but I think that all of the refreshes that have come instead were very much needed. If that expansion was the reason Mystery Lodge has sat vacant, it would be nice if they would bring it back until that goes forward. It can't be that costly to operate-what, one team member per room and a single performer?
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Here's some fabulous news not just for the trees and flowers at Disneyland, but for anyone else who eats all the nation's food grown in California's Central Valley...
Drought is long gone in California as of today's drought monitor update. The drought ended in most of California months ago, but there was still some lingering moderate drought in the high deserts of southeast California as of last week. It was wiped away by Hilary a few days ago, except for a small pocket around Lake Havasu.
Here's a comparison map showing current conditions on the left, and last August on the right.
What a difference a year makes.
Drought is long gone in California as of today's drought monitor update. The drought ended in most of California months ago, but there was still some lingering moderate drought in the high deserts of southeast California as of last week. It was wiped away by Hilary a few days ago, except for a small pocket around Lake Havasu.
Here's a comparison map showing current conditions on the left, and last August on the right.
What a difference a year makes.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
Here's some fabulous news not just for the trees and flowers at Disneyland, but for anyone else who eats all the nation's food grown in California's Central Valley...
Drought is long gone in California as of today's drought monitor update. The drought ended in most of California months ago, but there was still some lingering moderate drought in the high deserts of southeast California as of last week. It was wiped away by Hilary a few days ago, except for a small pocket around Lake Havasu.
Here's a comparison map showing current conditions on the left, and last August on the right.
What a difference a year makes.
View attachment 739083
Bring back all the Disneyland grass! I almost gave them a little credit when I rode the Storybookland Canal Boats this past Saturday but then I realized they didn’t keep the real grass on that attraction because it’s charming. They kept it because it would have been a huge pain in the @$$ to cut around all of those little miniatures.
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