Track Season!!! ARG!!!!

[Mayonnaise]

Track Season will end September 1st. Thank goodness. It's just a little over than a month long and the rest of the year it's a gloriously lovely place to work. The property taxes from all the rich STG (Stupid Track Goers) pay for really nice municipal care. Mostly for like, a zillion flowers and stuff to be planted in the medians, and hanging baskets on all the lamposts and all that... durring track season.

I haven't actualy had to deal with it the past few days because I've been home sick with a viral infection, which I'd mistaken for allergies, for the past week, which hadn't let me sleep thru the night for about a week, which probably didn't help my disposition on Friday when I posted the first post.

I'd still like to kick one of the snooty ladies with their tiny dogs and really big racetrack hats. I'm not sure what the thing is about the hats... but it's a tradition, that you wear really outrageous Victorian looking hats to the track. Well... if you're posh and going to sit in the stands and drink cocktails. Locals who go to the track usually go in jean-shorts and baseball caps and bring a picnick lunch in a cooler, because the food in there costs far too much. And Spin... my roomate sometimes goes Spinning. That's when you pay the really cheep general admission price to get the free givaway, and then just go thru one turnstile and out the other with your givaway. (An umbrella, a cooler, a lawn chair... whatever.) Then get back on line and go again, till you've got as many as you want, or just go once, and not bother with the track. Any instance of going thru the turnstiles just for the giveaway is spinning.

I'm rambling again.

I blame the Codine Caugh Medicine.

8^)

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Not to be feminist and all, but why a mister? Couldn't a missus do the job just as well??? ;) :D:

Well, I was always told that "Missus" don't drip water, they glow!

I don't think the horseys would want to glow, but rather be cooled!!

[felinefan]

Dazeyhill, you're right, they do get the horses from racetracks at the end of their racing careers. I guess you never heard that they are trained there at the park, stay with Knott's for 14-17 years (I forget which), then are sent out to pasture. Except for the Knott's Berry Farm stagecoach, the stagecoaches came from movie companies, who in turn got them from Wells Fargo, Butterfield, etc. when they no longer needed them. The KBF coach was made for Knott's in Arkansas, but I forget which year. I think in 1959 or so--the stagecoach ride is the oldest ride in the park, with the Calico train second-oldest.

[Zazu]

The KBF coach was made for Knott's in Arkansas, but I forget which year. I think in 1959 or so--the stagecoach ride is the oldest ride in the park, with the Calico train second-oldest.

Ah... no.

The oldest attraction at Knott's is the Ghost Town & Calico Railroad. The locomotives were built in 1881.

Just a tad older than the stagecoach.

(Don't mind me, I've written a book about steam locomotives like these.)

[GRUMPY PIRATE]

Ah... no.

The oldest attraction at Knott's is the Ghost Town & Calico Railroad. The locomotives were built in 1881.

Just a tad older than the stagecoach.

(Don't mind me, I've written a book about steam locomotives like these.)

Oh sure...confuse a good story with FACTS!!

hehehe

[ktulu]

(Don't mind me, I've written a book about steam locomotives like these.)

In print? Out of print? Coming soon?

I think the Steam Train tour last year unleashed my love for trains that I had when I was a child. My wife thinks I am obsessed. Look, just because I have already have in my head how to lay tracks around our house for a 7 1/2" gauge railroad does NOT mean I am obsessed!

Yes, it would have a spur track to the train shed, and a possible trestle where my wife wants to put a pool.

[Zazu]

(Don't mind me, I've written a book about steam locomotives like these.)

In print? Out of print? Coming soon?

My first choice of publisher backed out and I couldn't interest another, so I put it online.

"Colorado Consols: An Expanded Roster of Consolidation-type Locomotives Used by the Rio Grande Family of Companies"
<http://figzu.com/rr/consol/consol.htm>

Pretty dense stuff if you're a non-fanatic. Consider yourselves warned.

[ktulu]

My first choice of publisher backed out and I couldn't interest another, so I put it online.

"Colorado Consols: An Expanded Roster of Consolidation-type Locomotives Used by the Rio Grande Family of Companies"
<http://figzu.com/rr/consol/consol.htm>

Pretty dense stuff if you're a non-fanatic. Consider yourselves warned.

That's interesting. I'll have to go through some of that when I have more time. I'm glad you included at least one photo ;)

[felinefan]

Ah... no.

The oldest attraction at Knott's is the Ghost Town & Calico Railroad. The locomotives were built in 1881.

Just a tad older than the stagecoach.

(Don't mind me, I've written a book about steam locomotives like these.)

You're right on the age, Zazu, though I think some of the stagecoaches may be older than the train. But by oldest ride I was referring to which was at Knott's the longest. Originally, the Stagecoach ride was a covered wagon pulled by oxen, beginning in 1947, I think. A few years later Mr. Knott got the stagecoaches and horses, and a year later got the train--bought at the scrap price of 2 1/2 cents a pound. One of the engines was working in the railyard in the morning, and by that afternoon it was on a really big truck on its way out here. The engineers told me that when that loco got to Knott's, the boiler was still warm.

[BRWombat]

My first choice of publisher backed out and I couldn't interest another, so I put it online.

"Colorado Consols: An Expanded Roster of Consolidation-type Locomotives Used by the Rio Grande Family of Companies"
<http://figzu.com/rr/consol/consol.htm>

Pretty dense stuff if you're a non-fanatic. Consider yourselves warned.

Let me know when you put out a coloring-book version. :)