Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Pt. 1

I'm dedicating Pt. 1 of the Santa Cruz Boardwalk portion of our weekend post, entirely to the Looff Carousel and the Giant Dipper. The family photos must wait :) These two attractions alone are not only blog worthy, but worthy of taking precedent over the family pics and having their own post!

To begin with, both the Giant Dipper roller coaster, and the Looff Carousel were declared National Historic Landmarks together in 1987. When you ride them, you're riding history (I love history, btw). The Giant Dipper was built in 1924, and the Carousel in 1911. The carousel also still has its original pipe organ that was constructed in 1894, so not only are you riding history when you're on it, you're listening to it as well.

I first rode the Giant Dipper with my friend Tauna Fudge when I was a teenager. I remembered it all these years until we went as a family to Santa Cruz last year and rode it again. The thing about riding a National Historic Landmark that happens to be wooden roller coaster that is over 80 years old, is that you feel that you are taking your life in your hands when it's your turn to step into its car. Half the thrill of the ride, is realizing the cars didn't jump the tracks and you weren't killed or maimed. Besides that, it's just a great ride!!!

I've been to the Looff Carousel a couple times too, and even have a cute picture of Eva and Sophie riding it last summer. But I guess I'd never been on it myself, or I would have noticed that it's not your ordinary carousel, besides being a National Historic Landmark. I'm kind of ashamed I didn't notice before what's different about it. This carousel has a brass ring dispenser that you can grab a ring from as you ride past, and then you try to throw the brass ring at a giant clown face. The target is the clown's mouth. I was wondering why all these adults were chucking money at the wall kind of violently when the ride started, and I was down watching the kids. Then I peeked around the corner from where I was standing and saw the clown. I didn't realize at first that they were grabbing rings. Well it was all such a surprise - and a pleasant one! To see a bunch of adults taking over a child's ride and wildly throw things at a target was heart warming :) Of course I had to do it myself too! Unfortunately, we were moving on as a group to do other things, or I would have stayed and done it a few more times. You can rest assured, that the next time we go to the Boardwalk, I'll be pushing children out of the way to get to a horse on the outside - my own children if need be :) That carousel is too much fun!!!

This is the ring dispenser and clown face target

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