Collect much?

We occasionally hear from folks who collect Santa Claus Land memorabilia.

Mrs. Koch is always interested to find out what's out there, and has even been known to place a bid or two on eBay.

The one thing that galls her, though, is having to buy back something that was never for sale.

Case in point: the plates from the Christmas Dinning Room (seriously, next time you see her -- don't bring it up!).

This is a wonderful article about SCL memorabilia, but I think maybe the photo of the plates may be of some of the ... um, contraband.

The campground next door

Lots of folks assume we own Lake Rudolph Campground & RV Resort.

We don't.

But we're kin.

Will's younger brother Philip owns and operates Lake Rudolph, which just won a big award.

The National Association of RV Parks & Campgrounds name Lake Rudolph Campground & RV Resort the 2008/09 "National RV Park of the Year."


There's Philip in the middle, holding the award. That's Dave (marketing guy) on the left and Wayne (GM guy) on the right. They're flanked by the association president and chair.

This is also the 50th anniversary of the campground. Philip and Will's dad, Bill, got it all started half a century ago.

Here's a trip down memory lane, starting with a shot no doubt taken from Santa's sleigh:


See Santa waving hello (or good-bye) by the sign?


I love this guy ... who parked right next to the "no parking" sign.


...and my personal favorite (no, that's not Philip and Will):

Face it

Received a lovely compliment the other day during a podcast recording. (I'll post the podcast link here when it goes live late next week.)

The editor of an industry magazine said something kind about how on-top-of the latest social-media technology we are.

I choked down a laugh-snort combination and tried to be gracious in saying thank you and protesting that my personal knowledge is of the enough-to-be-dangerous category. We've got a smart and talented IT team, but for some reason I want to figure this out myself. (Plus, you wouldn't believe the amount of work they have to get the HoliWatch system launched.)

And here we go again. This time it's Facebook.

Quite honestly, I'm of the generation that used phones that actually plugged into the wall and required dialing. Televisions which you had to actually get up off the couch and touch to change from ABC to NBC to CBS. (That's it kids. Just three networks.) And remember rolling car windows up and down? I recall seeing my first fax machine. Heck, I remember seeing my first color television.

That said, here is our first humble tip-toe into Facebook.

I know there are plenty of HoliBlog readers who will be generous (and gentle) with comments and advice.

Fire away.

"Who dat?"

Kevin emailed us with this darling story earlier this week:

Earlier this evening my 18-month-old grandson and I were looking at the computer.

I opened the Holiblog page, and Owen pointed and recognized the picture of "Ha-d-dawg" and "Sorry Sam" (we will work on the "f" sound before next summer's trip).

He then pointed to the character on the left and asked, "Who dat?"

(Here's a photo of the little cutie.)


When Papaw couldn't remember, he asked again, and again, and again.

I am pretty good with my facts and stats on the park and love to annoy my family and friends with park trivia every time we visit, but for the life of me, I cannot remember the name of that big eagle. Can you please help so that Ha-d-dawg and Sorry Sam's friend will have a name the next time we visit the site?

Ah, Kevin. There's a story to this.

The eagle joined the Holiday World lineup long enough ago that Will's wife, Lori, was still our Director of Entertainment (she "retired" in 2000). So it was during the prior century...

Anyway, for some reason, the poor bird was not named.

If memory serves, this lasted for several years. Drove me nuts. (Have you seen the Jimmy Stewart movie Shenandoah? The mother dies in childbirth and the son is forever after called "Boy." Ruins the entire flick for me.)

Everyone needs a name. And not some generic "the eagle" moniker.

I brought up the concern at several meetings: "Um, what's the eagle's name?"

Some smart aleck always piped up, "The eagle." Everyone had a good chuckle and then we moved on to more pressing matters.

Well, one time, Will shrugged in reply and then challenged me to come up with a list of suggestions.

So I did. (He is my boss, after all...)

My favorite was a reflection of my Irish heritage: Bill O'Rights.

But a far simpler nod to the Father of Our Country was chosen instead: George.

And so, dear Owen, now you know.


Come to think of it, a fellow named George was also the Father of Our Company. The original parent company of Santa Claus Land was George Koch Sons (our founder, Louis J. Koch, was one of George Koch's sons). So George the Eagle may have done without a name for a few years, but he ended up carrying the proud name of two great men: George Washington and George Koch.

"Sorry Sam." Gosh, that's cute.

A new high

In all my years as the publicity-getter for Holiday World, never did I dream we'd be in Elevator World.

That is, never did I dream there even was a magazine called Elevator World.

(Not that I'm one to disparage niche publications. As the former Big Cheese, er...editor, of Pizza Today, I totally get the power of the trade press.)

Un, deux, trois, quatre...

En Français, s'il vous plait.

Fun on a gloomy day

Take a look and see if you can make heads or tails out of this.

Here's the answer key. Sort of.

Excuse me while I alert Eric that the Admissions crew may see an influx of "empty bank Pepsi" at the ticket booths in the coming season.

Someone snapped in the meeting

Can you call photos "snapshots" anymore?

Seems old-fashioned.

Obsolete even.

But I still like to say I snapped some pictures, so unless instructed otherwise by the lexicon police, we shall continue.

As promised, here is the photo (snapped during Friday's meeting) of the design for the Pilgrims Plunge station.


There were all sorts of plans and documents spread out on our almost-too-large-for-the-room conference table.



Here's Sandor from Intamin, pointing out something important.


Either that, or he's squishing a bug.

(Wait. We got rid of that fruit fly months ago.)

After the main session, some caucuses were held.

Tori dashed over to talk to Sandor about queuing and staffing.


...either that or they're in the midst of a scintillating game of tic-tac-toe.

Just in time for Veterans Day

It's not exactly an Iwo Jima reenactment, but something about these photos stirs the heart.


That's Bryan, on top of The Voyage's lift hill, sending up Old Glory.


You can see the spotlight already in place; it's really pretty at night.



The stars and stripes soar above all the other flags on the coaster's lift.


Here's Sean on the other side of the coaster tracks, with a second American flag.


Good thing they waited for a day with no wind. Wouldn't want that flag pole fighting back.

...although there might be a fight once Pilgrims Plunge construction moves along. Rumor has it Tony was fussing the other day that the giant lift for the new ride better not block his beautiful star-spangled banners.

Das Boot

That's a little (very little) German for you to start off your weekend with some multi-culturalism.

Das Boot ("the boat") is being constructed in Germany.

Five "Boots," actually.


I'm not sure what the photographer had for breakfast, but he must have been hanging from the rafters to take this one.


At first I kept hitting the little button that turns the photo 90 degrees, trying to figure out the intended angle. After five or six clicks I started getting dizzy.

This here's what you call a long boat

Hold on, there...

If you followed this morning's tweets about our meeting with Sandor from IntaRide, you'll know I promised to get my mitts on some photos showing the progress on the boats for Pilgrims Plunge.

Direct from the factory in Germany, here's a shot of one of the boats.


We've received many emails asking about the restraint system. The black bar contraption is it.

It's similar to our coasters in that it's an individual lap bar. It's similar to Liberty Launch in that it's hydraulic (no click-click-click). It opens overhead to give riders more room as they board the ride and, soaked, step out of the boat after the boat returns to the station.

During the meeting, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing drain holes. It seems on most shoot the chute rides (and log flumes), the boats drain easily out the back as they head up the lift hill.

Pilgrims Plunge, as you may remember, has that crazy elevator. No angle of ascent. Straight up.

So the draining will take place back in the station. Some sort of flaps will open. Sandor said the guests probably won't even notice them.

Next season, the ride ops at Pilgrims Plunge will recognize our blog readers. They'll be the ones asking, "Where are the drainage flappy things?"