Knott's Berry Farm is a nice place. Not really a controversial statement, and not much of a flashy conversation starter but that was the most prevalent thought in my head as I strode throughout the suburban old-west throwback amusement park. What struck me first was how accessible Knott's is in comparison to, say, The Happiest Place On Earth. As a motorist, you simply put on your turn signal and pull into the parking lot. It reminded me of going to Ontario airport as opposed to going to LAX; you just get off the freeway and pull right up to the curb and take your time instead of navigating multiple streets & lanes and an army of rental cars and cabs to wait in line and try to squeeze up to the curb long enough for your arriving friend to hop in before you get honked at for taking too long. All that separates the grounds of Knott's from the traffic and strip malls of Beach Blvd. is a modest wooden fence. The grounds are obviously much bigger than they seem from the street, which is very evident from the heights of such rides as Supreme Scream, where you also get a view of all of Orange County for a few short seconds before plummeting back to Earth. I was pleasantly surprised by how accessible everything in the park was. From where we parked, we only had about a 3 minute walk to the front gate where there was no line and no security, simply a woman with a handheld scanner who scanned my printout (yes a printout, everyone else had tickets on their phones) and there we were.
The park, I learned, sits on the site of Walter Knott's family berry farm where they sold fruit, pies, and chicken and built a number of other restaurants and attractions to entertain people who came for the food. In addition, the park was modeled on Calico Ghost Town out in the Mojave Desert where my elementary school would frequently take us on field trips. Many of the attractions even share the name - Calico Ghost Town Railroad, Calico Mine Ride - and the scenery is the same, only Knott's of course has big colorful steel struts stretching 50 feet up in the air holding up roller coasters amid the faux ghost town motif. The mine ride gives you a little history of the California gold rush of the mid 1800's with the help of a guide who peppers his narration with quips about Disneyland and jokes like: "They mine for all kinds of nuggets here, gold nuggets, silver nuggets, chicken nuggets." There is also a joke in the Wild West Stunt Show where a bumbling Sheriff's deputy tries to avoid a fight with a bandit by offering him Disneyland gift certificates, who then stops & states, "Nevermind, nobody would want those." There is a little brother-big brother dynamic in play in Orange County, with Disneyland being the bigger, sleeker, more popular older brother with Knott's being forced to poke fun and crack jokes in order to keep up. Although, it's no secret to anyone who knows me that I would be drawn to anything that is the opposite of sleek and popular. I like going to a park that is smaller, cheaper, more old-fashioned and less crowded. I like the Old West motif much more than the fairy tale wonderland of Disney, it's more aesthetically pleasing. Instead of Snow Whites and Goofy's wandering around, Knott's has costumed men who hop on the train and pretend to hold up the passengers and improvised gunfights in the middle of the plazas. The contracted cartoon character mascots at Knott's are Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts gang, which I have no interest in and I successfully avoided Peanuts On Ice and the various Peanuts-themed rides and attractions. However, what I thought about most of the day was why Charlie Brown kept putting up with all of Lucy's shit after she continually pulled the football away right before he kicked it. But Charlie had a crush on the redhead so maybe the kid does have his priorities straight. I did find out that Schulz had a real-life unrequited love for a woman who he based the little redheaded girl off of which served as a recurring theme throughout the life of his work and as a guy with a series of unrequited crushes, maybe I'd find some connection with the Peanuts strips but I digress.
Perhaps the best part of going to Knott's Berry Farm on a Wednesday is the complete lack of waiting time for rides. The most I had to wait for anything was about 10 minutes to take a ride on a horse-drawn stagecoach. Every single other coaster and ride had zero or minimum wait time, which immediately increased the enjoyment of all those rides. I'm not a big amusement park guy, I don't enjoy spending an hour in line for a two minute ride but today, there was no excuse not to go on some of the coasters that would normally be packed. Boomerang and Silver Bullet, whose names fit with the Knott's motif but whose appearance would be more suited to sit next to the colorful loops and twists of Six Flags coasters, run smooth and fast and are very enjoyable. Then there are outdated coasters like Ghost Rider which jostles and clanks it's way around a track atop a behemoth wooden structure which physically hurt me. I came off almost limping and with a cramp in my hip from being whipped and shook around in the rickety car. And of course there are also the classics like the Timber Mountain Log Ride, on which you will get slightly wet and Bigfoot Rapids where you will get soaked from head to toe and have to walk around with a wet ass and soggy shoes for a few hours. The shows, arguably better than the rides, were more attended than the rides and enjoyed more by my parents. My parents, Native American and California history buffs, brought us to the Mystery Lodge where a figure behind a glass partition on a dark stage walks the audience through lessons his people have taught him and stories his grandmother told him. The show has a very interesting effect that they create with the use of an invisible screen and a projector that displays images onto the smoke rising from a fire. The Wild West Stunt Show, while corny and unexciting, was humorous and made me want to run on stage and jump off the roof of the fake saloon onto the mat built into the ground. Even the stage featuring elementary school singer/dancers was well attended, with cheering families and even costumed cowboys watching attentively.
Knott's Berry Farm, whose website claims it to be "California's Best Amusement Park," is, as previously stated, a nice place to visit. My visit was equal parts relaxing and exciting and the place has an overall charm that is hard to be cynical about. My last visits to Disneyland and Magic Mountain, close to a decade ago, were not very exciting if memory serves, and part of the pleasure today had to do with the absolutely perfect weather. I wore a light jacket all day and never got too warm during the day or too chilly after the sun went down. I remember waiting in line at Magic Mountain in the sweltering heat and going in & out of those ungodly switchbacks and promising myself that I would not come back anytime soon, which was a promise to myself that I kept. Knott's is probably neither California's Best Amusement Park, The Happiest Place On Earth, or the amusement park of choice for most people I know*, as evidenced by the number of times in the last week or so that I heard, "Knott's? Why are you going to Knott's?" I enjoyed Knott's, soberly of course^, and genuinely had the most fun I've had in quite a while. Maybe I'm just filled with the holiday spirit.
^I only mention this as a footnote because I think it's been years since I've heard anyone mention going to an amusement park sober. Apparently the only way to enjoy them is to be so high or so wasted that you don't remember doing anything there. #Sarcasm.
*According to the 2012 Global Attractions Attendance Report, Knott's is the 14th most visited amusement park in the North America, behind Disneyland, Disney's California Adventure, Universal Studios and Sea World but more attended than Six Flags Magic Mountain. Although, interestingly, Disneyland and Knott's are the only two in the top 20 who have declining attendance rates.
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