Busy times around here...

...but it hasn't all been work.

PARENTHETICAL A-LOT-OF-IT-ACTUALLY-HAS-BEEN-WORK THOUGHT: D. has had lots of piano clients sending in jobs lately, some of which I've been able to help a bit with. That has eaten up a lot of time. So has chasing down an errant check for an article recently completed, and starting in on yet another piece for the same client. Another addition has been doing some pipe-organ service for a local church. It's been a while since I've done much of that, but a hasty repair -- which saw D. and me toiling down there at 11:00 one recent Saturday night to get the poor old thing ready for a Sunday service -- was followed by a request for some more ambitious renovation which was completed last week. More seems sure to come. Won't make me rich (so far, nothing has, doggone it), but it's work I enjoy and D. likes to help with it, which she does very skillfully.

What was I going to write about before I so rudely interrupted myself? Oh, yeah: it hasn't all been work, and yesterday saw us heading off -- with D's mother and daughter -- to the semi-wilds of New Hampshire for a day at an amusement park.

Canobie Lake Park has been in operation since 1902. Of course its operators have taken note of all the major competitors, so now it's a kind of junior-grade Disneyland, with dashes of Knott's Berry Farm, Universal's whatever-they-call-it, Six Flags and all the rest. But Canobie Lake comes off rather nicely by comparison, not because it has any rides that deviate from standard fare (they don't), or because much of the original has survived (the carousel is old, and a couple of repurposed buildings date back to the 1930s or 40s), but because it all somehow seems more human and, well, friendly.

The rides we went on were fun, but equally enjoyable for me was just looking which, as usual, meant snapping a few photos:

One of several roller coasters at Canobie Lake

This one's called "Da Vinci's Dream," and I'm hoping ol' Leo had a fairly strong stomach if he dreamed of riding this....

One of my favorite styles of architecture: no need for a sign to tell you what's sold here!

Ditto for this structure. Didn't seem to be doing much business, though....

Somehow, it seemed as if the people who designed the park had a good time imagining what was to go in and what it was to look like. A vast majority of the customers seemed to be enjoying the place, too. The water-park sections (and a ride called "the Boston Tea Party," which anywhere else would have been the usual kind of log-in-a-flume ride but was given a local historical theme here) were quite popular, since almost everyone loves a good soaking on a hot day.

Me? I'm ready to go back again, ready to ride more rides and take more pictures. For my taste, Canobie Lake is right up there with Castle Park (in Riverside County, California) as an amusement park I consider worth going to. Part of that was the company, of course, but these two places lack the soulless and calculated feel of the major parks. It's like choosing a particularly well-stocked, competitively priced and clean mom-and-pop store over Wal-Mart.

But enough of this "amusement" stuff. Work calls....