Memories of Fantasy Farm

David Bowers: I got to visit Fantasy Farm once while it was operating, under rather bizarre circumstances.  The year was either 1990 or 1991, I can't remember which, and I was going around on the weekends visiting various haunted houses, as it was October, and ran upon an advertisement for a "Haunted Amusement Park"  Well, that was enough to get the curiosity peeked. I'd been to Americana next door several times, but for some reason never stopped by Fantasy Farm before, and hear it is at 7pm on a late October night and I am pulling in with my family to Fantasy Farms parking lot.

My main interest was the Haunted Park, so I bought a ticket for $2.50, And we proceeded down a path that ran next to the dark ride, down a hill coming out by a lake to go through the first part of the haunted tour, a walk through fun house built into the basement of the Dark Ride building, then from there it was through the parks cave, (with 'spooks' hiding around every corner), then the final part of this tour was a ride on the parks Dark Ride with human actors inside.  It was a slightly above average haunted house experience.

We stopped by the main concession which happened to be open for a snack, and while in line for the concession I noticed the parks rides were operating.  Hmm, I never bought an admission ticket anywhere, oh now I see $1.00 per ride. I didn't buy a ticket yet, but walked up and down and looked at the variety of Midway rides, a rather complete midway, but what intrigued me was the Monster Mouse.  But alas that end of the midway did not appear to be open, or was it?

I was just starting to become a coaster enthusiast, and I wanted to find out what this Monster Mouse was all about.  I went down and bought a ride ticket, and walked back up towards it, hoping that in classic park fashion, a ride op would come out of the woodwork when they saw a paying customer. No such luck, I hung around the closed coaster in the dark for 10 minutes, then gave up and decided to ride one of the parks other rides.  But as I was walking down from the hill, an older gentlemen who was clearly an employee of the park was coming up.  I stopped him and asked "Is there any chance of riding the roller-coaster tonight?"   He said "Sure, follow me"    I followed him back up the hill along a deserted part of midway, we went up to the coaster station he turned a couple lights on, collected my ticket, and showed me to a mouse.  Wow, I still have not found a coaster that is quite the same as this one, riding in the dark with no lights on around, that sudden drop made me think I had flown out of the car.  Sudden turns, tight curves, it was amazing.  He sent me around again.  Wow!  Then as we were walking back down towards the open part of the midway, he filled me in on the coasters history, it impressed me that he really seemed to care about the park, and was enthused to share a moment with someone interested enough to flag him down. I wanted to go up the next year to see the rest of the park,  the rest as you know is history, and I never got to see Fantasy Farm again.

See also: Have A Nice Trip - The mysterious ride operator tells his tale.

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