A Carney's Life For Me...

Sadly, there was something sinister about this ride!

Don't worry, I'm not really going to hit the road with the "Carney's," but we did have fun last night when the traveling carnival came to town.  I first noticed it when it sprung up overnight in our new sports park literally overnight.  It kind of reminded me of the classic Ray Bradbury novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes".   (See my tribute to Ray Bradbury here.)

So last night, as I enjoyed a beautiful SoCal sunset, I felt the carnival calling:

Note the enticing lights of the carnival at the left...

These pictures never do these sunsets justice.  The pinks don't really come out the way they should, but I gathered the boys and E. up and off we went.  E. was so cute.  She kept wanting to know "what that circle thing [was] called?"  I kept telling her it was a Ferris Wheel.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we realized that it was more like a "Scare"-Us Wheel because the cars twisted and rotated all around, so we didn't get to take E. on the ride.

We did a loop of the carnival first so that everyone could get a feel for what their favorite ride might be.  Then $25 bought us 32 tickets. It wasn't a terrible deal, given that most rides took 4 tickets per person.  I figured we had enough for two rides each and was willing to double down (and risk blowing the wad) if need be.

Waiting for the first ride...

One thing I noticed while walking around was the hordes of 13-15 year old kids.  Not many parents in sight.  I wondered what type of parents just dropped off their kids to roam unsupervised at these types of activities.  Seeing so many kids running around only made me feel old myself!  :-/

E. got to pick the first ride.  Perhaps not surprisingly, she picked the Merry-Go-Round.  She was a little scared, but luckily, I told her that I was going to be right there beside her.

I think that the Merry-Go-Round was three tickets.  I'm going to complain and sound like a grumpy old man, I know, but it really should have been two.  If there were any saving grace at all, it was that I got to ride for free.  There just seemed to me to be something wrong about having to pay to ride just so that my kid could ride the ride.

S. and R. didn't ride, but they really got into the spirit of it.  They were running around the Merry-Go-Round trying to keep up with us and get E.'s attention.  It probably wasn't the safest thing, but I didn't care.  It was really cute and I envied their enthusiasm.  I kinda felt lucky to have such great kids.  It's nice when those type of fun parenting moments sneak up on you like that.

E. is so excited.  Look closely and you can see R. running alongside in the background.

Next up, as R.'s choice.  He wanted to do a ride known as "The Zipper" (see the pic at the top).  The only problem was that he wanted me to do the ride with him.  At first, I thought: "No big deal."

In Line for The Zipper

I had S. and E. wait for us and I left strict instructions for them not to move.  And lest you think that someone should have tipped of CPS about me, there were people that we knew waiting with them at the ride.

The Zipper is a ride where you get in a little metal cockpit.  The cockpit goes up and down, but is also free to fip and roll over and over.  R. and I got on the ride and the minute that they shut the door to our little cockpit and I instantly knew that I was in trouble.  This ride was not meant for people of my height!

I could barely fit and the legs and head were jammed in at all sorts of awkward angles.  I got hit with a crushing wave of panic.  This was not a carnival ride, this was a metal coffin!!  I seriously fought the urge to demand to be let off the ride.  Probably the only thing that helped was that I knew that no one could hear me even if I tried!

I tried to focus on taking deep breaths and reminded me how "fun" this ride was supposed to be. At the same time, I prayed that someone had performed all of the proper maintenance on this traveling, little, rackety, death trap!  I looked over at R.  He was all smiles and loving it!  At least one of us was!

After a minute or two, things got better and then the ride started.  Once we started flipping and spinning, I got a little more into the spirit of things.  I also gained a healthy appreciation for the thrill rides at amusement parks like Disneyland and Magic Mountain where I can actually fit on the ride!

S. picked a Tilt-A-Whirl ride next and all four of us rode together.  I got a really cool video, but I'm reluctant to report it for two reasons.  First, I'm not sure that anyone can actually watch the videos that I post on my blog.  Second, E. looks really nervous in the video (even though she was totally fine) and I already fear that I'm on CPS' radar after making E. and S. wait for R. and me while we went on the Zipper!  If you're interested, let me know and I'll either post it or send the video to you.

Yes, I know this is washed out and blurry, but I love E.'s smile
Let's just pretend that this photo is from
Instagram and I applied a really "artsy" filter!  ;-)

We finished the night with a ride on the Magic Carpet giant slide.  S. and E. could barely handle it.  They were so scared to slide down.  We all slid down together (side by side by side) and they loved it!  :-)  One of my great regrets of the night is that I didn't get a pic of us coming down together.

By this time, our tickets were gone and it was almost E.'s bedtime.  I hustled us out of there before we were tempted to seriously blow the wad there.  The best part was that our house was literally 2 miles away, so it took longer to walk to the parking lot than it did to drive home!

The carney is in full swing tonight, but I suspect that by tomorrow morning, it will be all packed up and gone...leaving only memories and some random scraps of trash.  My kids are already asking if we can go back next year.  I'm pretty sure we will!  :-)

The Carnival