A BERRY GOOD TIME AT KNOTT'S BERRY FARM!!!

 

Hello my CRAZIES!!!  Another July has come to an end, but it had to be better than last July at least!  I mean, 2020 set the the bar pretty low, but any progress is better than no progress.  Last year, all I could do was sit in my house and pray for the best.  This year, I can actually do stuff.  That's a pretty good change I think.  I even got to visit one of my favorite places to go, Knott's Berry Farm!  Last year's 100th Anniversary had to be postponed to this year for obvious reasons.  But it's on now and the whole park is decked out and ready to party!  So put on your cowboy hat, strap in and get a slice of boysenberry pie because we are heading up the 5N to Buena Park!  Enjoy...

The Calico Mine Ride.  Knott's first dark ride that actually had some input from Walt Disney!

Charleston Circle, home to the fountain from Hello Dolly.  This area of the park is currently known as The Boardwalk but was previously known as the Roaring 20's.  Despite the upgrade, there's still a lot of 20's motif all around.

The new old ride, Knott's Bear-y Tales!  Previously it was Voyage to the Iron Reef and before that, Kingdom of the Dinosaurs and before THAT even, the original Bear-y Tales!  This building has had a LOT of facelifts over the years.  Of the all the rides that were in this building, the original Bear-y Tales is the only one I never rode.  and the "75-86" sign on the water tower marks the years the original ride ran.

In honor of the park's 100th, they've set up photo ops of former rides near their old locations.  This one honors Wacky Soap Box Racers.  Never got to ride it, but many fondly remember it.  I did ride its successors.  Windjammer had a notorious reputation.  Oddly enough, the one time I rode it, it actually worked just fine.  Guess I was there on a good day!  Xcelerator I've only been on once and learned a harsh lesson about squishing myself into a ride I was too tall for!  That was a first for me!  Still a fun ride though.

This photo op honored The Haunted Shack, a bizarre building where the impossible became possible!  Only got to see the real deal once, the highlight being my teacher's son walking up a wall sideways!  Many wild rumors surround the Shack's closing but in reality, it closed for not being ADA compliant.

The stage at Calico Square currently sits where the Haunted Shack once was.  As a stagehand, I gotta admit, it's a pretty impressive setup.  On this particular, the Peanuts Gang was on stage with some random teenage employees doing the opening medley from Moulin Rouge!  

This room is one of the old buildings that happened to have a bunch of the old Kingdom of the Dinosaurs props in it!  Totally stumbled upon this by accident!  Definitely made me wonder what they're doing with this, as none of the windows were blocked off.

In the early days of the park, before there were any rides, Walter Knott had all sorts of stuff laying about the property in an effort to keep guest entertained while they waited for their table at the Chicken Dinner Restaurant.  Apparently one of those thing was an actual steam-powered steamroller.

There's not a whole lot left of the old berry farm at this point, but if you know where to look, you can still find some of those legendary boysenberries growing!

Finally, we got the original Knott's K!  For over 40 years, this iconic uppercase letter stood at the top of the Sky Tower, lighting up the Buena Park sky at night.  This year, they replaced the old K with a newer, more energy efficient one that uses LED technology.  The old one is currently being used for photo ops!

And that concludes our look at Knott's Berry Farm!  A far more affordable option than nearby Disneyland, Knott's is the world's oldest theme park, a title they stumbled upon by accident!  Disneyland may've been the first to directly go in with the idea of actually theming a park, but Knott's formed in a completely organic way more than a decade before!  It's a wonderful place with fun rides and amazing food.  Their Christmas theming is also awesome.  I look forward to future visits to the Farm!

And that's a wrap on July!  I hope y'all enjoyed the pics.  I just wanted to do a little something different this month is all.  The art returns next week, and also next month, I might actually be going back to work!  We'll just have to see how it all goes!  Until then, take care, stay safe and I'll catch y'all later!