Knott's Berry Farm Update: Summer Construction Stuff

Knott's Berry Farm, Buena Park, CA

Due to available time for me to devote on update stuff this week, I'm shuffling update orders around from what they might normally be and starting off Monday with a very quick look at some of the in-progress things going on at Knott's Berry Farm.  The normal Disneyland update will come later this week.  Cool?  Cool.

Boomeranged to Pieces

A couple of months ago, on the last day of the Boysenberry Festival, Boomerang ceased operations.  After 27 years of thrilling riders through six inversions of backwards and forwards headbanging, Boomerang was going away, and Knott's wasted little time removing the venerable (or at least old) roller coaster from the site it shared before it with the first looping steel roller coaster in the world, Corkscrew.  Now, the plot lies fallow, and with work walls extending the length of The Boardwalk and encompassing land formerly occupied by similar defunct rides like Riptide and Hammerhead, it will be interesting to see what new presumed roller coaster is announced for the park.  Will it finally be that hyper/giga that's been rumored/clamored about for years?  We'll see...

A wild construction wall appeared!

It used "block!"

It's super effective!!

Wait, no, it isn't quite...

As you can see, the construction site is all dirt now.  It's not even all cleared, but it will be soon enough.

What will take Boomerang's place? We shall see.

The roller coaster was disassembled, not torn down, so it's quite likely going to another park.  Here's what's left of the ride in its current temporary storage.

Boardwalk BBQ Construction

The construction of the Boardwalk BBQ restaurant continues.  Delayed due to the wet weather Southern California had this winter, this diner is scheduled to open in the middle of the summer, and it does look like they're making pretty good progress, since only a couple months ago, there was hardly any steel up.

The last time we were here, we definitely did not see a building over the walls.

So this is nice progress!

The building has gotten to the waterproofing stage.  Mostly.

A glimpse behind the work walls.  Which is easy, since they've cut a bunch of rather large peep holes through the work walls.

On the side facing Xcelerator, they are building some seating shade structures.

Behind the work walls, they're still just steel framing right now.

But some beams are going up, and there are classic mid-century chevron forms starting to become evident.

See?

The finished product will look something like this.

Random Berriness

Summer at Knott's Berry Farm brings a host of special events and entertainment options.  We'll go over the big one--Ghost Town Alive!--later, but there are shows and stuff too.  Summer is a great time to spend at America's first theme park, and even though we at Westcoaster are more partial to autumn at Knott's, the summertime does bring some excellent fun too.

A circus show takes place at the Calico Stage on select evenings throughout the summer.

*sigh*
And unfortunately, since all things trendy must be cashed in on, there's this at the carnival games.

But hey, the Boardwalk is still pretty during golden hour!

From this angle, the ambiance feels convincing, right?

Finally, here's a shot of zooming Xcelerator as a tribute to one Dan took a long time ago.  Except his didn't quite have the camera shake.

And that's the shortest construction update I've ever done.  We'll be back with the usual Disneyland update, plus a look at the newly reopened Tom Sawyer Island as a supplement.  And last but not least and maybe not even last this week, a look at this year's Ghost Town Alive! event at Knott's.  Spoilers: It's still wonderful, so go check it out!