Where did they go?

Beautiful weather, Cool nights and sunny days are making for a wonderful fall. We have been enjoying being outdoors barbecuing and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows on the fire pit. Of course the mosquitoes come out and we have to come indoors as Eastern Equine Encephalitis has made it return to the area. Can never be too careful about that.

Family is doing fine. Frank is driving a truck now for Mid-Fla Hauling out of Worthington Springs. He is home every night so that is good. Sissie and I are still plugging along doing the same everyday (surfing the Internet, washing dishes, surfing the Internet, cooking, laundry, surfing the Internet, babysitting Mikey). Mimi is doing pretty good and Shelby is now 17 weeks pregnant and doing great. A couple more weeks until we find out if it is a boy or a girl.

So how's Johnny you ask? Well don't ask and I won't tell.

Today's fun items are on a subject that I have a hard time dealing with (because I live in the past Frank says). I absolutely can not stand to see history in an abandoned state. While I understand the cost of preserving and saving some of these old sites would be enormous, Years and decades from now the history and learning value from these would be just as great. My greatest sadness is seeing abandoned buildings and railroad cars. Today I have been looking at and mourning the loss of some of the greatest joy many families had back in the day. I can just hear the laughter and squeals of joy. Smell the popcorn and fries. These are just a few of the abandoned Amusement Parks that are still standing, buried in the woods and memories of the past. With the exception of one, they are still out for the world to see.

Chippewa Lake Park

The Ferris Wheel

Turnstile

Built by the Pearce Family in the mid 1920's, the Big Dipper was one of three coasters in Chippewa Lake Park by the time the park closed.

Hidden on a lake shore in Medina County is one of the state's most unique forgotten treasures: the abandoned amusement park called Chippewa Lake. What you'll find there today is the tragic shell of a once-glorious family fun park, one with a history going back to the 1840s. Chippewa Lake had its own amusement park for precisely one hundred years--from 1878 through 1978, when the park's last owner, Continental Business Enterprises, finally threw in the towel. Now the rides--more importantly, the park itself--stand silent and overgrown in the shady woods, in a state roller coaster aficionados like to refer to as "Standing But Not Operating."

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The Enchanted Forest

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful fairy tale themed amusement park in Ellicott City, Maryland called The Enchanted Forest. The Enchanted Forest officially opened on August 15, 1955.

Admission was one dollar for adults and fifty cents for children. At opening, the park was 20 acres, but it later expanded to 52 acres.

The park closed for the first time in 1989 and reopened partially between 1994 and 1997.

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Okpo Land

This abandoned park is in Korea

This was an amusement park run by obviously a corrupt businessman. After the first accident in the park resulting in a fatality, he kept the place open and refused to pay damages to the victim’s family. The second fatality, this time a young girl (aged 4 according to one source), resulted in the closure of the park in 1999. This pedal-powered duck derailed, dumping the young girl out, and she was killed by the fall.
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Prypiat

The bumper car ride in the abandoned city of Prypiat, evacuated after the 1986 Chernobyl power plant explosion.

Prypiat ,is an abandoned city in the exclusion zone in the then Soviet state of Ukraine. A city built for the workers of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant. April 1986, an explosion occurred which spread radiation and resulted in thousands of deaths. The cities were abandoned and Prypiat is frozen in time. Beds are still made with sheets, desks still crowd school rooms and May Day decorations still adorn the town. Once a fairly bustling city with high rise building and an amusement park, today the Ferris wheel stands still and the bumper cars rust.