Anaheim, California – Monday, January 17th, 2011

I admit it. Even more than the coaster credits, part of the reason I went to Adventure City was just because I wanted to finally get a letter “A” name for my North American park index on the right. I even stated this aloud as we waited at the ticket booth. Now that I have it, ain’t it look spanky up at the top of the list?

Okay, so the disadvantage of going to Knott’s Berry Farm on the holiday Monday was a much higher crown turnout than would have been expected had it been a normal working weekday. The advantage was that the park closed an hour later in the evening, a spare hour that I would use as a reason to take a side detour to Adventure City, which would not have been open at all had it been a normal weekday. My aunt Christine even decided to join me for this park, and after I finished the morning hour at Knott’s we met to make the six minute drive south on Beach Boulevard, where we parked in the Hobby City parking lot and got a quick lunch at a place called Juan Pollo Chicken just a short walk from the entrance. Decent place, rather garish but cheap and relatively genuine, and I got a big package of cinnamon sopapillas for pocket change that I would snack on for the rest of my week in Los Angeles.

Adventure City is part of a complex with a lot of niche hobby stores, including model trains, cars, and more. Though the stores weren’t doing tremendous business on Dr. King’s birthday, Adventure City was hopping. The audience appeared to be mostly local to Anaheim or surrounding areas, and the park is chiefly targeted at children. However, the presence of a 1955 vintage Miler wild mouse in pristine operating condition only a few blocks from well-established theme parks meant that the question at the ticket booths of whether we were coaster enthusiasts was an automatic prompt as soon as they saw we had no small children in tow. A $15 admission was reflective of the fact that aside from the coaster there really isn’t that much else for adults to do in the small park which takes up barely half a block of neighborhood, although aside from the Racers we would eek out another couple of worthwhile divertissements before heading back to Buena Park.

One of these was the Bumper-to-Bumper Freeway Coaster. A fairly basic 90’s-built Miler children’s coaster in the center of the park, it is not dissimilar to the multitudes of identical models found in small parks and FECs across the country. There is one novelty to the Freeway Coaster, which is a camelback hill built over a low-hanging branch from a nearby California Pepper Tree. I’ve been on several coasters that go through the trees, but this the first and only roller coaster I can think of that goes through the tree. A case in which the thematic setting suggested by the name is pleasantly at odds with the actual scenery, the figure-eight layout ducking in and around plenty of trees, shrubs, flowers and rocks made this slightly more than just a credit grab, never minding the fact that it’s the second largest ride in the park anyway. The ten minute wait was still pushing my tolerance for a ride of its scale, so it was a good thing they sent us around multiple laps as I wouldn’t have been very keen to wait it out for a second go, which might actually have been worthwhile under lighter crowd conditions.

Adventure City is not much geographically larger than an average FEC, but it has a much higher attraction density and the emphasis on rides and well maintained midways and landscaping plants it firmly in the category of amusement park. The small, economical scale makes me think that businesses similar to it would be successful at many more locations across the country, but for whatever reason the small, compact neighborhood family park is a rarity compared to the oversized Chuck E. Cheeses that dot the landscape. Perhaps it’s due to the absence of any recognizable national brands for small children’s parks. Most of the basics are covered, and there were few cases of a part of the park that felt thrown together or second class. There’s a miniature railroad that loops around the perimeter of the park (originally part of Hobby City), a landscaped convoy ride, a 1946 carousel, a couple of spinning children’s flat rides, a Crazy Bus, show, arcade, petting zoo, the two coasters and a 2005-built junior drop tower. The area with the Tree Top Racer and drop tower felt the most sterile as it butts up against the parkway in a former parking lot, the only expansion to the park since it opened in 1994.

Among these attractions, it was only the Adventure City Express Train that we decided to try in addition to the coasters. This train was originally built in 1938, and while the tiny locomotive looks like something a particularly dedicated modeler could build on his lawn, the rivets, chrome boiler and genuine steam piston drive showed this to be the real deal. The station was cute, too, full of railroad paraphernalia and with luggage and suitcases left along the side. The charms of a small park. The layout is worth the journey alone, weaving through narrow passageways behind buildings, under rides, and through a couple of tunnels, including one inside the banquet hall.

Before riding the Tree Top Racers for the first time I had to make certain my aunt Chris knew what to expect from the experience. If my memories from my first encounter with a Miler wild mouse were anything to go by (the Wild Chipmunk at Denver’s Lakeside Park, almost a decade ago), we would be getting a fairly brutal treatment on a contraption that does not feel altogether safe, and with a couple of close calls that if you put your hands up the ride gets to keep them. Thankfully, although it had been several years since she last rode one, she enjoys roller coasters quite a bit and was equally appreciative of the vintage aspect as I. (The 1955-built Tree Top Racers were bought from an Australian showman and installed in 1999). Between the thick padding inside the customized, soapbox airplane cars, and the fresh paint all over the spindly steel structure and tree house station, I shouldn’t have worried as much, as Adventure City knows how to take care of their historic rides. The resultant experience, while predictably unpredictable, was never anything other than a smooth, joyous ride that ran exactly as Carl Miler intended more than half a century ago. Highlights include the upper level of switchbacks which due to the design of the vehicle’s chassis, really feel like you’re going to fall off the edge, the set of steep drops in the middle section, and a final helix with a square-ish entry. We both loved it, and rode three times each before I was back for part two of Knott’s Berry Farm.