In my last blog on the defunct amusement park, we had just taken the Apache Whirlwind and Canoes for a ride.
In this episode of my blog we will explore the wilderness of Frontier Village. There were many ways of getting out there. The best was by the train. You could catch the train at where else, the train station at the front of the park. The train would travel out of the town area and head toward the real train tracks along Monterey Highway. Once beyond the main part of the park and clearing the lake it would make the turn back into what was called on the maps as "The Badlands". It was landscaped enough where you couldn't see much of the park beyond the lake. It felt like you had actually gone into the wilderness of the frontier.
There was a creaky old tunnel that the train would go through. In reality it was the garage for the train at nights and off season. But the story us tourists were told that there was some TNT lost in that tunnel from when they were digging. We had to go very slow so we didn't blow off the TNT by accident.
After the tunnel, would be the dangerous area where train robbers were known to have been active recently. Sure enough, I was always unlucky because my train was always robbed somehow. How's that for odds, I guess that makes my modern adult life somewhat safer since we got "robbed" so many times when we were kids.
Another way to get back in to the badlands was to take the stage coach. I cannot tell you how much fun the bumpy dusty stage coach ride was for a little kid. We sometimes got to sit on the seating on the roof of the stage. Funny how things happened, stage coach bandits would be out in the badlands to rob the stage too.
The Frontier Village Sheriff and his deputies were very busy people. No wonder there were so many gun fights on Main Street.
One last way to get back to the badlands was to go on the slow burro pack train. It was fun for a small kid who only traveled by 1965 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon.
I can't believe how much fun this series of blogs has been. The words just keep jumping off my keyboard as memories come back. I promise this tour into local history (hence my username here at activerain Historytours) will have a real estate tie in later.
Part 1 http://activerain.com/blogsview/717285/Frontier-Village-Part-1
Part 2 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718430/Frontier-Village-Part-2
Part 3 http://activerain.com/blogsview/718484/Frontier-Village-Part-3
Part 4 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721314/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part
Part 5 http://activerain.com/blogsview/721431/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part
Part 6 http://activerain.com/blogsview/723682/Frontier-Village-Memories-Part
Part 7 http://activerain.com/blogsview/732184/Frontier-Village-Part-7
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