Pennsylvania's Amusement Parks, Part I: Idlewild

"Adventureland" was filmed at Kennywood, an actual amusement park in Pittsburgh, PA. By all accounts, Kennywood is nothing like the run-down, pathetic Adventureland. To find the real Adventureland, just drive east into the mountains until you reach Ligonier, PA, home to Idlewild Park. In the summer of 1994, during an already memorable vacation, I spent a surreal day at Idlewild Park.

I remember the exact date of the trip--September 9, 1994--because we spent the weekend catching local news updates on Flight 427, a plane that had crashed outside of Pittsburgh.

My sister came to Idlewild Park to compete in a Scottish dance tournament. The highly-regulated competition consists of rows of girls dancing over swords to the shrill squawking of The Only Song You Ever Hear On A Bagpipe That's Not Amazing Grace.




I have no memory of watching Sylvia compete, although I'm sure I did. I was more interested in the other eighty percent of the park, completely unstaffed and unmonitored. GK and I* wandered away from the dancing and spent the better part of the day exploring a creepy abandoned amusement park. Edit: It was only closed for the season.

We crossed a river on a train bridge, the tracks disappearing into the forest beyond. As we ventured in, hidden architecture appeared through the trees. We stared at the first structure for a bit before realizing it was the Museum-Go-Round, home of Lady Elaine Fairchilde of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Aha, the trolley rode on these tracks! They passed oversized versions of each landmark from the Land of Make Believe. It felt like a daylit haunted carnival, what with the stillness in the woods and the empty, false facades of the buildings. It may actually be more frightening when the puppets are out in force:




Later, we stumbled upon Confusion Hill--it had no doors or locks to keep people out. Confusion Hill was a decrepit fun-house ride working exactly as it did--minus the bad actors--on normal business days. It was a series of rooms with slanted floors, skewed perspectives, and other optical illusions to "confuse" people. Embedding is disabled on this YouTube video, but you can see Confusion Hill's shenanigans. GK and I even rolled coins down the table in the video. We tried to get Mom to go into the house, but she took one look and immediately became nauseous.

Another look at Confusion Hill, which apparently still exists:




That weekend, we also visited Fallingwater. Western Pennsylvania always reminds me of uniquely designed buildings beckoning in the forest.


*And Scoob and Scrappy.