Knoebels

One of our favorite amusement parks is Knoebels located in central Pennsylvania. The 75 year old park has a wide variety of rides and attractions. Our family's favorite rides include the 1912 merry-go-round that provides and opportunity to "grab the brass ring".and the "death defying" flyer that lets you pick the altitude you fly at. We also like the very nice Twister and Phoenix wooden roller coasters and the giant swiming pool with high dives and water slides.

You can learn more abut the park at their web site

The park offers free live entertainment in the show hall, seems to be usually magic, acts in the bandshell and street performers.

The Knoebels campground ajoins the park making it easy for families to travle to and from their lodging. The campground is crowded but very convenient. We have also stayed in their remote campground (about 5 miles away). It has more scenic and spreadout arrangement that offsets the need for driving to the park for some folks

Carousel
This is only carousel that I have ever seen where kids and adults race to get on. My kids have been to a lot of parks and this is still one of their favorite rides.  Have you ever wondered why the horses on the outside ring of old merry-go-rounds are fixed and do not go up and down? These pictures will show you why! The ring dispenser extends out towards the riders after the ride has spun up to full speed. The arm stays out until the ride is about to start slowing down again. Then the riders toss the rings back into a bin as they go by. The rider that gets the brass ring gets a free ride on the carousel.

Note the fixed foot rest on the right side of the horse that allows the rider to lean off the side to go for the rings. Rides often grab up to 10 rings in a single trip.

This carousel was built in 1912. It has idyllic pictures around the crown of the carosel and other ??? pictures with captions around the center of the merry-go-round. Knoebels sold the caurosel and then bought it back something like 20 years later.to put back in their park. There is a full sized organ that plays the music for the ride that sits behind the photographer. (I'll try and get a picture of it in the future) Knoebels mentions this on their site

Flyer
This is another ride that my kids love. It is basicly a rotary swing that lets the rider control the altitude via a large rudder on the front of the car. Skillful use of the rudder can bring the car close enough to the trees for a good thrill. The ride is directly powered by an old (auto?) gas engine that is directly coupled the drive train of the ride. The rudder will only hold the car up for a short time. Experienced riders tend to use it to do big climbs and fast dives.

This next picture shows how the rudder is controlled by the rider. You can see by the angle that this rider is driving the car down towards the ground. It is a lot steeper dive than it lookms in the picture.

Shooting Gallery

Knoebels includes several shooting galleries. There is an electronic ticket dispensing one in the arcade and an electronic country themed one out in the park. Both of these can't hold a candle to the old time metal target shooting gallery that stands near the back of the park by the food court.

I'm not actually sure how many of these old shooting galleries even exist any more. I haven't seen one like it since Disney World took down the frontier shooting gallery over 20 years ago.

The gallery combines four of the "Shooting Star" or "Shoot out the Star" gas powered automatic guns with moving and static metal targets. The labels on the guns said they were made in NJ. (How times change!) I wasn't able to read the name of the gallery manufacturer from 20 feet a way under several layers of paint.

The next picture shows the "shooting Star" (made in NJ) gun with a couple buckets of shot tubes. Each shot tube holds about 100 shots. The gun can shoot that in about 15 seconds if the trigger is held down. I found that shooting with very short pulls of the trigger would let a person knock down up to 30 targets on a single ticket.

The boats in the water and the animal targets on the sides on the wall are all knock down targets. The two rows of targets above the wite plates are moving targets that fall over when hit. (You want to shoot at the top of the targets since it takes fewer BBs to knock them over that way). The parachuter targets in the middle rotate around the hub and shake when you hit them.

Sorry about the quality but I hadn't realized I'd be building this page when I took the pictures.