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My Family

 My children don't "do" amusement parks; the parks have not been a top priority. But we have one "ride" nearby. It's the Turtle Back Train experience.


The train does several things--it does its tasks very well. You get "themed" topiary. (The black bear is dressed in a patriotic hat around the Fourth of July.) You get African vistas; real giraffes seem to wander close to your train. (You can also spot sanga cattle. To me, these descendants of aurochs are the unsung heroes of almost any zoo.) ....After speeding through "African grassland," the train makes a sharp turn and soars above a manmade lake (so you may feel you are chugging along the perimeter of Lake Victoria). There are inevitably pedestrians wandering by the lake, and my son, in Princess Di mode, likes to shout, "Enjoy your day!"

The final part of the "set" is a model of a ghost town, and here I do think the engineers could have slowed down a bit. They have hastily labeled one building as "Miss Penguin's Ice Cream Parlor." And I get it: Penguins enjoy cool treats. But think about "Zootopia 2," which has an Equinox for elephants ("Gym Trunks"). In "Zootopia," you don't watch "YouTube." You watch "EweTube." I guess that the writers in Disney Studios make good money; perhaps their salary is higher than that of a Maplewood resident working on the Turtle Back Train.

I like my local ride so much, it's almost as if I don't mind the end phase, which is (predictably) a dispute with my daughter. She sees the popsicle truck--she wants a treat. A refusal leads to a "why"--as if she is automatically entitled to an explanation. Even the tantrum feels like a semi-pleasant ritual or prayer; I imagine I will miss my weekly argument once this stage has passed.
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