When the Carnival Comes to Town

They arrived yesterday morning or maybe it was Sunday night after we’d had our last sip of Chianti and crawled under warm, late summer blankets. The carnival’s back!

It used to be, when the show came to our town, it rained. Always! Torrential downpours even. Often for the entire week. This was when they played a spot on a busy intersection just down from the town center.

The midway would turn into a swamp of mud. Awful. I felt so sorry for the jointees. If things are the same now as when I was with it, jointees get paid based on how much they bring in. If no one plays your game or you’re swamped out by a surprise monsoon season, whelp, you’ll be eating out of the apron—using your start up cash for a dinner of corndogs.

Yech and cringe.

The lot where that big show set up is now a soccer field—part of the new high school. Now, they set up on the field behind the Catholic Church—just a few blocks from us here in Valhalla.

Either this is a different group or it’s a wee subset of the rainy day carnivalers. There’s still a bunch ‘o’ rides—the Arctic Blast (named the Himalaya in my day), Pharaoh’s Fury, The Thunderbolt and, of course, the Jenny (the carousel), to name a few.

My fav ride—not that I’ve been on it, I just like the big, bright green beasties—is Dizzy Dragons.

The Dizzy Dragons is a family-friendly kiddie ride in which the whole family can ride together in one of four dragons!  Riders are able to control the spin of their vehicle to make their ride as enjoyable as possible!

There are games too—the usual assortment of Ball in a Bushel Basket, Pop the Balloons, Whack-a-Mole, Hoop around the Soda Bottle. As of last night, the joints aren’t set up. The rides were just being wheeled into their midway spots. The food wagons will be rolled in later with their assortment of sugary sweet drinks, fry bread, corn dogs (hurl), cotton candy, popcorn—you know, all that great shit that’ll rot out your teeth before you can even step off the midway.

This truck (below) really piqued my interest—The Ultimate Illusion. What is this? I didn’t see anything about it on their website. Yes, I’m imagining some Neil Gaiman-ish fantasy, mystery where I’d walk in as 57 year old deaf broad and exit as a Great Grey Owl.

It could happen! I’ll need to wander over there later today—take more pics and dream.