OLP 2013 – 7 – Riptide

Yay Riptide! I like that photographer in front, too.

Here’s what the Riptide looks like in a shorter exposure:

I think that’ll do us for this year’s Our Lady of Peace festival. ‘Til next year!

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OLP 2013 – 6 – Run rabbit run

I still get a kick out of non-horse mounts on carousels.

OLP 2013 – 5 – Dragon Loops

The Dragon Loops are a new one for me. Apparently they’re a variant of the Loop-O-Plane ride.

Here’s what they look like in a shorter exposure:

OLP 2013 – 4 – Himalaya

The Himalaya is apparently so named for the chilly blast of air in your face as you speedily go ’round and ’round. It’s based on German Caterpillar rides from the early 20th century.

As far as I can tell, it’s one of the only modern rides that uses a DJ— or I guess technically it’s a “manual operator,” but he/she controls the music and talks to the riders (“Do you want to go faster?!”).

It’s charmingly old-school, which I guess could be said for all amusement rides.
But in contrast, this year, the Gravitron and Monkey House both had automated voice recordings to deliver safety admonitions, which I don’t remember from years past.
I still like to hear the voices of real humans sometimes.

OLP 2013 – 3 – Ferris wheel

Ferris wheels are fun.

Hats off to George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. for designing them. Thanks man.

I got nothin’ beyond that.

OLP 2013 – 2 – Swing ride

I’ve never actually been on a swing ride… or any other carnival ride, actually, come to think of it. It looks like fun, though! What’s your favorite amusement ride?

OLP 2013

New Providence’s Our Lady of Peace Festival was this week, culminating in tonight’s festivities, all very exciting.

I’m trying to go through all the photos I took and weed out the REALLY bad ones… but I’m falling asleep on my keyboard. This’ll do for tonight, eh?

Italian Festival 7 – Grab bag of leftover photos

Exactly what it says. I had some leftover shots, and I couldn’t let them rot on my hard drive. Above are the bumper cars.

 

And then we have the Rockin’ Tug…

…which unfortunately broke. The operator had to physically push it back into place, let all the passengers out, and give them their tickets back. The ride was fixed 10 minutes later.

 

And then there’s the Wipeout…

 

And then we’ve got an overall summary of the festival.

 

Totally done with this carnival business, I swear! ’til next time.

Italian Festival 6 – The Balloons

The rides at the Scotch Plains Italian Festival, which were provided by Majestic Midways, mostly featured small fiberglass sculpted cars— bees, and dune buggies, and puppies, and teacups, and so forth. This one— “Up, Up, and Away”— was the only one of these sculpted-fiberglass rides that ALSO included lights that looked cool at night. (Most of the fiberglass rides don’t offer many lights.) So of course, I took a picture. I coulda done without the fence in the way, but so it goes. NEXT TIME.

Italian Festival 5 – Carousel

More Scotch Plains Italian Festival.

Man, if they’d had crazy sea dragons on carousels when I was a kid, maybe I’d’ve been more excited to ride them. It seems like hardly any carousels are horses-only these days! Have you noticed that?