Saturday, December 24, 2011

Santa's Village, Lake Arrowhead - October 1961

I have just a few more Santa's Village images for you before the big day tomorrow!

There's one of the famous giant mushrooms. If you eat one you turn into a Matango (that's "mushroom person"), and then you have to buy a whole new wardrobe. A giant Jack-In-The-Box looms menacingly in the background; whoever built the props for Santa's Village did a better-than-average job. So many parks were crude by comparison.


Blurry! BLURRY? Come on! This is my only slide with a view of my favorite Santa's Village attraction, the lovable Bumblebee Monorail, and it's blurry. I can barely type because of the tears in my eyes.


Did you know that the hamburgers at Santa's Village were made from prime cuts of lean reindeer? Delicious and nutritious. And have you ever seen a live reindeer? You just want to eat them.

6 comments:

  1. bloefeld1:28 AM

    Oh how I longed to ride that bumble bee! Just once. Why, Santa's Village? Why did you have to be closed every time we stopped by?

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  2. That blue egg-shaped house in the second pic was the home of the Easter Bunny. I've seen close up pics of it, but never knew where it was located in the park (it's not on my map!) So now we know that the sign on the stairway of the Crooked Tree House was just pointing over to the E.B.'s house!

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  3. Rusty8:42 AM

    Cool pictures. I never went to this one, but we went every year to the one near Santa Cruz. We'd drive from SF to cut down a Christmas tree then head over to Santa's Village. Wow, seems like another lifetime ago.

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  4. That bumblebee monorail is just super awesome! Blurry or not, the pic sure captures how cool it would be to cruise thru the air amongst the pines.

    Lunch sounds delicious, but the seats don't look all that comfortable.

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  5. Yum! I'll have a Dasher with no onions!

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  6. bloefeld, the Bumblebee Monorail is without question my favorite Santa's Village attraction!

    TM!, I've never understood the Easter connection of eggs and bunnies. And it's weird that the egg isn't on your map.

    Rusty, it's funny, I have relatively few photos of the Santa Cruz version; not sure why, as it seems like it was much closer to big cities.

    Snow White Sanctum, it is that "thru the pines" aspect that is especially appealing to me, and (as far as I know) unique among theme parks.

    Rich T., onions are gross, I agree!

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