Magic Forest

We pull into the parking lot of Magic Forest, uncertain as what to expect with a giant Santa and Uncle Sam and not much else visible in the parking lot.  We walked into the ticket booth made to look like a story book cottage and paid.  We walked in and saw a handful of rides.  We both admitted later that we didn't think there was much there but that we were GOING to make the best of this after our detour.  Kids hopped onto this boat ride right away.

And the ladybug ride next to it.  Off to a good start.  Can you see Adam's big grin?

After this first couple of rides, we started walking around and it was clear we stuck in the land time forgot.  We want into a room with old Christmas scenes set up with a giant snowman in the middle of the room.  Adam was sold.  NEITHER kid was thrilled with the crooked barn meant to give you an old time fun house thrill I guess.

And there were storybook and cultural characters everywhere.  But they were mostly from the 60's and 70's.  Only YOU can prevent forest fires!!

And in the middle of all this?  A chapel.  Abbey had to run up and down the aisle, of course.  There were some farm animals here and there in cages, which we had to keep Abbey from stick her hands in. And there were empty cages from long-gone displays filled with paper mache or other "scenes".  This place was something else and we loved the lost in time feeling.  It was all for little kids like ours and they all loved it.  And Abbey could run around a bit without us having to worry what happened to her.

The official train ride full of "scenes".

...scenes like this!  My favorite were the "hostile" Indians.  Seriously.  Adam loved it and Abbey was impatient, of course.

The train after we got off.  This place was sparsely staffed, often with one employee running two-four rides, just taking turns.

Next ride...Adam went for the fire truck

...Miss Abbey for the shiny purple car.  They were just having a blast!

Adam spotted this astronaut from that last ride.  STAR WARS MOM!  DARTH VADAR!  OK, kind of :)

The roller coaster.  Abbey started to flip out and the attendant thought she was scared.  Nope.  She was mad because she was being forced to sit with her Dad.  She wants ALL independence ALL the time.  She really liked it and Adam did at first, but after a couple of rounds, he started ducking down, which isn't safe.  Not sure why.

So Adam was just too happy to see Humpty Dumpty.  He kept pressing the button where the nursery rhyme was recorded and then added his own parts of the story.  They had these all over and most of them worked.  When one didn't, Adam informed me that Daddy would fix it later.

Time for lunch.  Adam loved this pig by the shack.  We got the basics, with the kids just eating the fries.  Food was tolerable, nothing special

And then we saw Santa.  Abbey was NOT interested and Adam was a bit scared.  He was not interested in meeting Santa it seemed but you could tell he was curious, too.  I know him and it could take a while to for him to warm up!  Since then, he's talked about Santa's Place quite a bit, so between meeting Santa and the paper mache Santa in the parking lot, I guess that's what he assumes :)

Abbey loved this Mother Goose ride.

Look close.  This is the main attraction of Magic Forest.  The world's ONLY DIVING HORSE!  Such a throwback. Todd and I both liked it and were a bit disturbed by it.

It started to rain and there was a handful of rides at the bottom of a hill near where you wait to go on "safari".  Abbey loved this elephant.

And they rode in the "helicopters" together.

And back in the elephant.  There was a tilt a whirl, too, that we all went on several times which was probably Abbey's FAVORITE.  She's was spinning the wheel herself for goodness sake to make it go faster!

We took the "safari" ride which was similar to the train ride, but with more "animals". Adam was so cute with his "see him! see him!".  Abbey was...impatient.  She wanted off and back on the tilt a whirl. Near the exit, there was this smaller version of a tilt a whirl (it was from Coney Island, said so on the cars...how cool!) that she also loved.  Ah, my thrill seeker.

Adam was very tired.  We left, with Abbey crying as we dragged her out the door.  They were BOTH asleep in the car within five minutes. It took us three and a half hours to get home with a traffic jam, so three hours on a regular day.  So they had the time of their life and we are trying to go back at the end of the month.  It was perfect for them and it was kind of empty, so who knows if it will still be around next year.  Never seen anything like it sine I was a very little kid.  So even with our "detour", it turned out for the best!