Day 3: Is this Knoebels? No, it's Knott's

(That post title, by the way, is simply a play on words and is not to imply that Knott's is anything like Knoebels in Pennsylvania. It's knott.)

The morning began with a phone call from work. A-yes that's right. 7:50 a.m. Pacific. My boss required my assistance on sending a file to our digital platemaker. Fortunately, I had already been up for half an hour, so I was cognizant. I stepped him through it briefly, but then he had to go do something else and said he would call again 10 minutes later. After 20 minutes, still no call, so I went ahead and showered and began my day.

Several of us thought it wise to eat breakfast at the hotel, for time's and convenience's sake. The buffet was a pretty good deal, in the same way that a paper cut is a pretty good deal when there aren't any lemons around. I exaggerate, of course; we knew Anaheim prices would be inflated, but it was still a bit much even though the food was good. The coffee was "drinkable at best," but I did like their mugs. By the way, coffee mugs were a recurring theme throughout this trip, as you'll see.

It's funny, even the dinky little Super 8 I stayed at in East Buttcrack, PA offered free wireless internet and a continental breakfast. Not so at the Hilton Anaheim. Ah well. What should one expect, being a stone's throw from Disneyland?

The trek to Knott's Berry Farm:

(The tall beige building in the background of the left picture is the Tower of Terror at Disneyland.)

Knott's Berry Farm is an amusement park in Buena Park, and is home to the original Peanuts-themed Camp Snoopy. Cedar Fair bought Knott's in 1997, which allowed the Peanuts branding to extend to other CF parks such as Cedar Point. It also means Stu, Laurie, and I got free admission with our CF Maxx Passes. The boysenberry farms are long since gone, and in their place are 160 acres of funventuretainment.




Those who think Cedar Point is running out of room should take a look at Knott's. The park features eight roller coasters (nine next year), most of which are intertwined and jumbled together in close proximity. From one spot, I could see five coasters at once:

No, it's not the most attractive sight, but it's doable.
[nerd] Truly geeky typographers who also happen to be Cedar Fair enthusiasts should make a note of what font I used in that image. [/nerd]

I added seven of the eight rides to my coaster count (we forgot about Timberline Twister, which I'm jjjust short enough to ride). By far my favorite was Silver Bullet, which has bumped Cedar Point's Raptor from the #3 spot on my top ten. The two are very similar, but Silver Bullet is incredibly smooth.



The carousel was a veritable menagerie of "horses," including rabbits, jungle cats, and ostriches. Being a Bird, I chose the ostrich:

And now, a Family Guy quote:
We now return to Disney's Too Many Ostriches, starring Don Knotts.
Don: There's way too many ostriches. *Why* are there so many ostriches? The brochure said there'd be a *few* ostriches. This is a *terrible* vacation.
Yeah, it wasn't that funny in context either. I think that was the point.

As I mentioned earlier, coffee mugs were a recurring theme: I bought one with the Knott's logo and a cartoon montage of various park rides, and one that must have been on the shelf at least 5 years, as it had the old Camp Snoopy logo on it and no price tag. Logos, by the way, are the #1 criterion in my decision whether or not to buy a mug. Kings Island and Geauga Lake missed out on a sale because they didn't have any mugs with their official logo on it. Did I mention I like logos?

Knott's at night:


We had dinner at Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant. We all ordered, appropriately, the signature fried chicken dinner. Continuing my trend of trying new soft drinks, I had a very good boysenberry soda. I also enjoyed some boysenberry sherbet (not sherbert) for dessert. There was way too much food to be had, and we took no less than six containers of food with us; thankfully, we had a mini-fridge back at the hotel room for Chloe's formula, so we stuffed all the boxes in there.

Oh, speaking of chickens, birds, and Bird (this is really more of an inside joke with my college friends):

"B'GAWK!!"

Tomorrow: LA and the return to LV.