Knott's Berry Farm

Christmas break we decided to try Knott's, a more low key theme park counterpart to Disneyland which had a Western theme - chicken dinners, Pendleton apparel, old West town - and a measure of authenticity, built around an historical Walter and Cordelia Knott and their berry stand:
My family sometimes went to Knotts just for the famous fried chicken dinners and shopping, which you didn't need park admission to frequent.

The ghost town - former center of the park - was actually foraged from abandoned ghost towns and rebuilt in Buena Park as a backdrop for the Western spirit and Americana patriotism. This later melded perfectly with the '70s Jesus Movement, as a Knott grandson purportedly attended Calvary Chapel and, later, the Simon Greenleaf Law School - the explanation for the quality Christian bookstore on site. I used to attend the New Year's Eve concerts and bought some hard to find apologetics books there.

Now, it's morphed into Camp Snoopy, lending a cartoonish motif to the hotel and the Peanuts franchise everywhere.
I have mixed feelings about it all, but Michael & Jack loved it, especially the amusement park rides, much like pier arcades and roller coasters.

We panned for gold...

but Michael LOVED the thrills best

reminding me of pushing him in a swing upon returning from Guangzhou. He wanted to keep going higher, laughing hysterically

until he threw up.

Back to Knotts. The chicken dinner was a bust, bookstore gone, shopping mostly of cheap trinkets, the ghost town still there, but lacking any coherence standing next to Camp Snoopy. My memory has taken a bruising, as I realized I couldn't deliver the goods to my own children.