Beaver Tooth Baptism – This ride recreates that September afternoon when the air hit a hundred degrees and you watched Courtney balance across the fallen tree that bridged her neighborhood to the acres of wetland behind it. It recreates her light-up sneakers skating off the bark and her body breaking through peat to vanish before she resurfaced through the wavering portal. You had been escaping from the paintballs Kylie’s brother kept in the freezer. The amount of detail that has gone into the (wet bark, mosquitoes, dead sneakers, moss) is why your parents have purchased the season pass.
Litchfield Dunes – Here is a sandy crescent lined with die-cast plastic conch shells that recreates where Courtney’s grandmother lived out her final days, worshiping Laura Ingram from within a hive of Myrtle Beach condos. Instead of air freshener, Courtney’s grandmother covered the aftermath of her bowel movements with Chanel No.5. After dark you and Courtney would sneak out into the cool air, toward the PRIVATE side of the beach owned by people from the city. You buried artifacts in the sand for the children of day trader’s to unearth. Guests at the park can do the same and are each given a toy shovel and an allotment of objects repurposed from the park’s Lost & Found to plant. The sand is doused with perfume the park keeps in large Tupperware bins.
Harbor Highway – Two cement beams span a perfect recreation of the I-32 overpass by your family’s old apartment complex. Structural cracks are disguised by graffiti that’s been carefully applied using a stencil. The graffiti says: Jans Sport, FUCKN, HW RIP. An aluminum board allows guests to spring off into a heated swimming pool. A drainage tunnel is painted black to appear hollow.
Sean’s Surfer Pad – This is a decorative wishing well where guests are treated to an exact replica of the 1995-1997 Z-series inflatable FunPool in the backyard of the guy Courtney sold her sister’s Percocet script to for homecoming dress money. Here the grass grows into wheat tipped fronds at the edges of algal runoff hoarding hundreds of arcade tokens and state quarters. Every day at one fifteen pm, an actor wearing Adidas sandals complains about losing weekend custody of his daughter. A PA system plays the distant hum of a dishwasher.
Lancaster Springs – This log flume is based on the log flume of a Dutch themed Pennsylvanian amusement park where your seventh grade class spent their annual field trip despite looming thunderstorm warnings. It replicates the first time Courtney revealed her Playboy bunny shaped clip-on navel ring in response to Brian Avery’s tuft of stomach hair split by a pearly appendix scar. The low pH content of the rapids, which circulate through a faux-rock river, help dissolve any meats accidentally dropped by guests. Cleaning out the filter is not a desirable job and is often delegated to first-year employees. An attendant once found a perfectly preserved cubic zirconia diamond in the flume’s filter. A PA repeats the recording of a timpani drum.
Dale Donahue Falls – This ride is modeled after a swimming hole located deep within your hometown’s state forest. Next to a crumpled pair of gym shorts there is a NO TRESPASSING POLICE TAKE NOTICE sign posted stapled to a plaster maple tree. This ride is named after your fifth grade math teacher who suffered a heart attack, collapsed and perished in the waterfall’s swirling eddy of trout nests. The rooster tail fishing tackle hanging from the plaster maple’s branch serves as a tribute to his life.
Mint Moccasin Bay – As the largest in the park, this ride recreates the aquatic recreation area at the campground where you and Kylie worked as counselors. A PA system plays the trilling of treefrogs over a gently strummed acoustic guitar. Guests are welcome to explore the pond from inside rented canoes. Year after year, the park’s imported lily pads become more invasive, and paths have to be cut through by an aquatic weed cutter. It is rumored that the paths are in the shape of some sort of map.
Splash Heaven – This ride is based upon Courtney’s family’s timeshare in the Vineyard, where her stepmother Nance forced everyone into prayer circles on the public beach. Her dad kept his eyes open during contrition, which you only knew because you kept yours open too. The timeshare’s towels smelled like dog. Sleeping bags dragged from the timeshare’s attic shook out with (earwigs, pine needles). In the park, this ride is adjacent to the bathrooms, where a fountain dispels melted blue raspberry Freezer Pops designed to force a coughing sensation from guests. Every day at two and five p.m. an egret flies overhead with a writhing fish in its mouth and if you stand in the right place, you’ll feel some wet stuff fall directly against the topmost knob of your neck.
Airbnb Cow Pond – Rounding the bend into the tree-lined hollow, guests are greeted with a mural of a tin-roofed cabin adorned by a vigil of red Adirondack chairs. The mural has been painted on a wooden board where you’ll find the signature of a famous children’s book artist in the lower right corner. To establish a 3D effect, the attendants arrange real Adirondack chairs near the mural. No matter what time of day it is, a PA system loops cricket noises from a cassette tape decaying with specks of black mold. The bottom of the pond is a malleable material made to replicate mud. The ride has a 90/10 chlorine ratio. Somewhere in the water there is rumored to be a catfish the size of a Honda engine
Hall of Jacuzzis – This ride is fenced-in by unruly evergreen arborvitae that has grown feral for six years. To promote realism for when the Jacuzzi water enters the mouths of guests, every morning the attendants will pour boiled deer urine into a master pump. Hot tub 28B had a near death in it. If you Google this article, there is a 1-900 number at the end of the article that has since been disconnected. The area of the park has the highest frequency of breast sightings.
Dunkin’ Seven Seas – Here a steel basin is fed by water dyed cerulean blue to appear arctic. This recreates the February when Courtney chugged two Dunkin’ caramel lattes and leapt from her mom’s she-shed into the soft slush of their above-ground pool. People in town thought it was more of a fall than a jump. Courtney’s younger sister found her surrounded by so much (syrup, dried bagel garlic, coffee brewed with fluoride tap water) with her foot perfectly unhinged at the ankle. Guests are caught by polyethylene foam where they will find themselves swaddled in the pool tarp, breathless, warm and laughing a little.
Marina of Living Rooms – Here the park has recreated the killer hippos from the scene in the 1997 film adaptation of James Crichton’s Congo as well as the couch where Kylie’s brother claims to have finger blasted the new exchange student from Hungary during movie night. A NuvaRing found under a cushion by Kylie’s dog is referenced in the ‘O’ of the ride’s logo. Every morning, attendants spray the couch with Old Spice Fresh Captain deodorant. Above a cardboard Plasma screen there is a sepia photo of Kylie’s entire family wearing old western garb. Kylie’s mother is holding a musket.
Haunted Hayride Lagoon – This ride is open between September 2nd and October 31st. The pool water must be heated to sixty-eight degrees to accommodate a toothless genus of alligator. These reptiles have been bred using the same agricultural technique that produces seedless watermelon. The shallow end of the wave pool is comprised of an artificial reef made from sunken jet skis. Both your uncle and college girlfriend get kind of emotional here.
St. Dakota Wild High – A steel slide careens into water rated at 92/8, the exact chlorine ratio of your high school gym’s pool. On the wall are several sun bleached championship banners. The live lobsters that Kylie’s brother released into the pool have been reimagined as lobster-esque sculptures at the base of a diving board. A PA system plays reverb-drenched recordings of referee whistles. On Marie Curie’s birthday, the park will place a witches-hair wig on the lumberjack statue kept at the ride’s entrance.
Sagamore Sea – This ride seesaws between the Lobster Slaw and the Captain Charles Inn. As guests cannot exit their seats, they become stuck in the endless pull of an estuary with a 20/80 chlorine ratio. During the holidays, the entrance is draped by icicle lights.
Captain Carl’s Cove – Hundreds of square feet of thatched Astroturf recreates the miniature golf course where Kylie told you she was pregnant. September’s warm drizzle is manufactured by overhead sprinklers. Hole seven is filled with water. This forces the golf balls to skim out almost every time. A meticulously cultivated assortment of common hyacinth and milfoil leech green from the eyes of a ceramic skull on hole ten. One of the pirate figurines resembles Jake Gyllenhaal.
Pemberwick Shores – This ride is based on the backyard pool and ThermoSpa from Courtney’s boyfriend’s parent’s mansion. Guests are challenged to switch between them without triggering a motion activated porch light. A Snow Patrol song plays from an iHome.
La Calder-A-Rama – This ride is based on the spa and adjoining lake resort where Kylie fell in love with a lifeguard whose eyes were not eyes but polarized Oakley lenses. The fossilized remains of a prehistoric horse are rumored to exist beneath a pier, but the park cannot confirm this. The park’s premier sit-down dining restaurant is conveniently located near the exit.
Olivia’s Garden – This ride consists of a single memorial bench marked with a copper plaque against which guests rest while enjoying Munchie Harbour’s food and beverage offerings. The plaque is engraved with: Olivia St. Konisberg 1993 – 2008. The bench is in a corner of the park that doesn’t get a lot of sun. The mosquitoes are worse here.
Sparkle Heaven Car Wash – This ride is under construction with an expected opening date of May 2024.
Pensacola Wild Plunge – This coaster replicates the lagoon behind the hotel at the Florida plastics convention where you and Renee from accounts receivable removed your shoes and held them above your head as you waded through a swamp to a speakeasy-chic bar for platinum Ramada cardholders. Here the hotel staff rimmed highball glasses in lavender flavored sugar. This ride has a 70/30 chlorine ratio. TripAdvisor reviews mention: detached teenage attendants. a strange smell of fresh baked peanut butter cookies. patches of cigarette butts flourishing at the exit. a feeling of algae between your toes that is familiar in some way.
Shipwreck Springs – This ride recreates the swimming pool of the Newark Holiday Inn where you stayed during the trial separation. This ride is located near parking lot B, defeating the need for artificial traffic noise. To attract ants, the cracks in the patio cement are lined with Fun Dip. A chain-link fence has been zip-tied to keep teenagers from sneaking in after hours.
Silver Mine Rapids – The park’s premier white water rafting experience is based on that camping trip to Black Canyon where you tried reconnecting with your college roommates. A raft traverses two miles of bear infested forests, former silver mining cabins, and a dark underpass where the river guide tried to sell you angel dust. You remember a sun-warped tattoo of an osprey smoking a cigarette on the bicep that bulged from his XS life vest. The attendant applies a similar, albeit temporary, tattoo before each shift using a damp sponge.
Lazy Lou’s Louisiana River – This rubber band-shaped canal meanders around the St. Dakota Wild Slide. Its 10/90 chlorine ratio leaves the water thick with (defanged water snakes, dragonfly husks repurposed from middle school insect collections, slime made using cornstarch and green food coloring). Every winter, the park deep freezes the canal, allowing guests to skate infinitely in circles. Observing the grime and growth suspended in animation imparts a tangible sensation of nostalgia among guests. This ride has the highest reported number of marriage proposals.
Dracula Beach – This coaster perfectly recreates driving to the jagged Mystic shoreline to photograph the sunrise after waking up at five a.m. with your photographer boyfriend, Bryce, who had six hundred and fifty-three Instagram followers. None of his posts included you but there was one of his former girlfriends at the very beginning of his account. She also had Bryce’s orange ringlet hair, so maybe that was his sister. In the car, Bryce recounted the plot of a vampire movie where the humans lived at night and the vampires lived during the day. This coaster is lined with fog machines that emit a rotting marsh smell. This sticks to the clothing of guests, like a chewed little voice reminding you of each new thing that ever slipped away. Seagull calls are repeated through a PA system as the rail brings guests past a miniature lighthouse propped on a peninsula of Astroturf. Here you can either talk about Courtney’s dead sister, try to sleep, or you can kind of just wait for everything to be over.