When Deer Park was a park
Look closely at the trees in the background. There are a lot of picnic tables under them, unattended, with picnic supplies. Photo from Timber-Rider at CoasterBuzz.
My girlfriend and I went to the Del Mar fair yesterday. It was fun, but the only ride I really enjoyed was the Tilt-a-Whirl and Alien Abduction. I have never enjoyed the “high-thrill” rides at amusement parks. When I was younger we used to go to a place called Deer Park. I avoided the roller-coasters and pretty much spent all day on a ride called The Spider. The Spider was slightly higher-thrill than the Tilt-a-Whirl, which I considered a wimpy ride at the time.
Thinking of The Spider reminded me of how we used to picnic at Deer Park back in the seventies. If you know it by its current name of Michigan Adventure, you probably don’t know about the picnic tables under the trees. Deer Park used to look a lot like a forest. We would arrive in the morning, grab a picnic table, leave our stuff at the picnic table, and then go on rides until lunchtime. Then leave our stuff at the picnic table to go on rides until we left.
The Spider doesn’t appear to be a popular ride any more. The closest I could find is The Octopus. But I did find some seventies photos of Deer Park from CoasterBuzz poster Timber-Rider.
Besides The Spider there is a photo of one of the kiddie rides next to the picnic area. You can just barely see the unattended picnic tables loaded down with treats for Yogi Bear or his less couth human cousins.
Probably not something you could do nowadays even if it still had a picnic area.
In response to 2012 in photos: For photos and perhaps other quick notes sent from my mobile device or written on the fly during 2012.
- Deer Park Funland Photos from 1979. - CoasterBuzz at Roller Coasters, Amusement Parks - CoasterBuzz
- My mom decided to clean out some old boxes she had in storage, and we came across a few shoe boxes filled with old family photos, and in among those photos were pictures from a family trip to Deer Park, from May of 1979, the year of the debut of the Deer Park Corkscrew.
- Roller Coasters, Amusement Parks - CoasterBuzz
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Love this! Did you tag Dillon in your post on FB? I've tried explaining what it looked like back in the day...a far cry from what he sees every day now.
MaryD at 2:13 p.m. July 5th, 2012
R/1Sw
Completely forgot that he works there. When he said he worked at Michigan Adventure, I had no idea MA used to be Deer Park.
Was just reading Wikipedia, apparently the Spider that we used to ride was sold to Michael Jackson when they got rid of it. Too bad I missed his foreclosure auction, I’ll bet I could have picked it up cheap.
Jerry in San Diego at 2:45 p.m. July 5th, 2012
3eqBR
Yikes!! We had Julie's birthday party there when she turned 9 (or maybe 10--it was the year she got a Cabbage Patch doll from Hesperia Variety) and one of her little friends puked all over the Spider. Kept going like a trooper though, and rode more rides!
Auntie Em in St. Louis MO at 9:29 p.m. July 8th, 2012
Rh9/H
Jerry, I thought it was common knowledge that MJ bought the Spider. too bad you didn't buy it on auction. Not sure where you'd put it though.
Auntie Em, I think a LOT of kids puked on the Spider. Seems like it was always getting shut down to be cleaned up.
Yuck.
MaryD at 12:19 a.m. July 21st, 2012
AILBN