Link to Knoebels Amusement Park


My lovely daughter, Kelsey, gearing up for the day with a Cappuccino.










Injured bald eagles who have found a home at Knoebels. The female has lost a wing and cannot survive in the wild. The male has lost part of a wing and also suffers from a leg injury. Since eagles mate for life, these may have been rescued together and are being kept together even though the male can still fly. Although sad to see these majestic beings caged, I felt honored to have the opportunity to get a good look at them. They truly are breath-taking!

Kelsey and her cousin, first in line, waiting for the Phoenix roller coaster to open. The Phoenix is the best roller coaster I have ever been on and consistently ranks among the top ten coasters in the country. The line got horrendously long toward the end of the day (which is our traditional riding time) so I only rode it seven or eight times. It was a blast!




This is me and one of my nieces on the Fandango. It's basically just a big swing that also spins around slowly. Also like a swing, it doesn't quite make it all the way over. It's an awesome ride!




Here are my girls on the Grand Carousel. You can still grab the brass ring which is what Kelsey is doing. I've never tried it, because you have to lean out a bit, and I'm afraid of falling off!



Not the best picture, but this is Randi on the High Speed Thrill Coaster. She's in the front with her hands in the air. The kids loved this ride and went on it three times in a row. I only managed it once -- it is horribly wrenching and not quite so much fun for those of us who aren't as young as we feel! Once we learned that the littler kids could ride with the bigger kids, I bailed. My sister had to ride it every time, though, since there weren't enough bigger kids to go around. She's sitting in the last car, holding on for dear life!

Here we are on the Ferris Wheel. It's a big one and scares me a bit. But the ride is relaxing and the view is incredible. My sister was in the car ahead of us with the boys and I sat with the girls. I tried to get a picture of my mom, who was in the car behind us, but this was the best I could do. I think the blur is a smudge on the lens, since it showed up in a bunch of pictures. Sure does look like a spirit, though, doesn't it?

The girls on the Merry Mixer.











Two of my nephews, my daughter, a niece and my sister on the Pioneer Train. My mom and another niece were also riding, but I couldn't get everyone in the picture. This train is great. It's a mile and a half ride through the woods. We saw some squirrels, I was hoping to see a deer like last year, but no luck. We also saw some trees that were uprooted during the flooding at the end of June. There are two tunnels and it also goes under the Twister, the other roller coaster at the park.

Two of my sister's kids, two of my brother's kids, and my daughter taking a break to watch the swans in one of the creeks that flow through the park. I had a lot of fun with these kids, my mother, and sister. The kids are close in age and were getting along great. It was just as much fun watching them ride as it was to ride myself (maybe more, even). Plus it gave us adults a chance to rest!



My daughter was the oldest of these three and was having a grand old time being the biggest.

I dubbed these three the spice girls because my niece had wanted to be called Ginger the last time I saw her. At that time we had nicknamed Randi Freckles, but we changed that to Cinnamon. And when my brother's daughter joined the group I called her Nutmeg to fit in with the theme.


The question of which sex is the better driver has been answered! My nephew and niece both took a ride on these mini go-carts. My nephew's group was all boys and my niece's all girls. The boys had much more difficulty maneuvering than the girls. They could drive okay, but they seemed to have trouble noticing obstructions in the road and kept running into things, including each other. Perhaps they thought they were on the bumper cars! The girls, on the other hand, managed to avoid collisions of any kind.

And here we have the ladies, my two girls, my sister, and her two girls. Although ladies is questionable. Women for sure, though.









I hope you enjoyed the revisitation of my Knoebels trip. As always, we laughed, we screamed (and I cackled) , we walked, we rode the rides, we walked some more, but most of all had a lot of fun.