Your eyebones do not deceive you, friends... there is only one photo today. BUT... it is one photo of the fabulous Flying Saucers, so I don't feel too bad!
There's not a lot to say about it, other than the usual wishes that I'd had a chance to experience the attraction; it's such a cool idea, scooting around on a cushion of air, in your own little UFO! When I win the lottery, I am going to build an exact duplicate of this ride in my east living room (not the west living room, that would be ridiculous).
While the riders in the foreground are leaning and torquing their bodies around as if their lives depended on it, you can see two girls boarding their "trapped" saucers on the other side of that boom. Looks like there's quite a long queue in the background - I've heard that the ride capacity was pretty low.
As that teeny bit of silhouette I see part of the Matterhorn? Perhaps in the future beyond our time, Disney will go a third round with the hovering disk ride. Nice image today. Thanks, Major.
ReplyDeleteK. Martinez, yes, I believe that is a tiny piece of the Matterhorn! The "Flying Tires" was so huge and slow compared to the original saucers; I'm sure a lot of the changes were in the name of safety, but it didn't look like much fun.
ReplyDeleteI love the "Dutch angle" on this one. It really gives the photo a sense of motion...and the feeling like it's just behind the Riddler's lair.
ReplyDeleteNever got to experience either giant air hockey ride, but I did see Esmeralda's Cottage once (see my late comments from yesterday). Not sure I got the better end of the deal...
Chuck, I never know whether I should correct wonky angles, or just leave the photo in its original state. Since you like it this way, I'm glad I left it alone! I tried to find photos of Esmeralda's (I always thought it was EsmerElda?!) cottage - didn't find any of those, but lots of pictures of pretty Esmeraldas!
ReplyDeleteThere always seemed to be a long line for the Saucers. Then again, it was a low capacity attraction. And don't forget the breakdowns which would only make the lines longer when it was back in operation. For me, it was always worth the wait. Wish I could do it one more time. KS
ReplyDeleteOoh, nice one.
ReplyDeleteFun Flying Saucers trivia: the control handles were originally functional. They rotated a valve to gently spin the saucer either right or left. They were eventually replaced with fixed non-operating knobs.
Major - I always misspelled it, too, until late yesterday. :-)
ReplyDeleteWheeeee! hopefully someday they will work the bugs out of the technology.
ReplyDeleteI, too, always thought it was "Esmerelda" until I heard an Englishman pronounce it "Esmeraahlda," which made me look it up.
KS, maybe it is just the angle, but in many of my old photos, it doesn’t look like the line is that long. But it seems like it *should* be long… who wouldn’t want to ride it??
ReplyDeletePatrick Devlin, I assume that the valve just redirected some of the air that was coming up from below? I wonder why they changed them?
Chuck, I am glad to have learned something new, although the next time I need to know how to spell “Esmeralda”, I probably will get it wrong again.
Melissa, it took them 46 years to tackle the problem again, and they still didn’t get it right!
that would be me.....the one stuck in the corner. :-D
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