Wild West City Scenario

Tucked into a a dark building on the main street of the outstanding old-timey Western attraction Wild West City in Netcong, New Jersey, this mechanical wonder depicts in gruesome, twitching detail the travails of frontier life.

Giant Slide at Smith Memorial Playground

Deeply tucked into Philadelphia's Fairmont Park there is a forty five foot long waxed wooden slide. Built in 1904, the slide is the last remnant of the old attractions at the recently revamped playground next to the Smith Memorial Playhouse.

People have probably broken a lot of bones on this thing. Riding down it on your burlap sack is like sliding down a bowling alley with children at the bottom instead of pins.

Bushkill Falls

Bushkill Falls postcard showing catwalks

Bushkill Falls (the Niagara of Pennsylvania) (not to be confused with the Niagara of New Jersey)was crawling with people on an August Sunday. Crowded like no roadside attraction has a right to be.

The eight waterfalls of that make up the Bushkill Falls attraction are scaffolded with catwalks. Encased in trails. Stairs disappear into impossible gorges. Streams are spanned by bridges that dead end into walls of rock. No vantage point or vista is unreachable from this elaborate set of rustic, log hewn walkways. A family, lost on the labyrinthine trails for "over an hour" asks me for directions but I can see in their eyes that they have lost all hope of finding the exit ramp.

Contained, edited, sublime. This is nature perfected by man.