One of my first outings when I moved in with my last set of roommates was to Six Flags. I'm not a huge roller coaster fan, but I enjoyed the water rides and other mechanical brushes with danger. When my cohorts decided to get on any large coasters, I merely hung back with the toddler we had in tow. During one rendezvous with their mortality, I took the tot up to the Wiggles area of the park and bopped along with grown ups dressed like over-sized dogs and other miscellaneous creatures that may only exist in Wiggle World.
When I was little, I used to love to go to Dutch Wonderland. It is a kiddie theme park in Lancaster, PA. Lots of miniaturized rides for wee ones all set in a kingdom setting with castles, princesses, knights and dragons. My other favorite park was Sesame Place. I am unashamed to say it - I was a Sesame Street groupie. My favorite is Ernie of Bert and Ernie fame. In a quick Google search for the link, I am a little surprised to see it is an Anheuser-Busch park. Something about a beer company sponsoring a children's park is vaguely off, but if boogying down with Elmo is wrong, I don't want to be right.
However, the following video from YouTube blows both of these out of the water. This is the 60th anniversary of my favorite childhood board game - Candy Land. How could a child not like an entire little world made out of candy?? Apparently the game was invented in San Francisco in 1949 by a woman recovering from polio. So in honor of those beginnings, Hasbro has turned Lombard Street (the crookedest street in the world - major kudos to the genius who thought of using all those switchbacks for this) into life-size version of Candy Land. I love San Francisco, and I only wish I could make it out there while this was still happening.
