Photo courtesy of
Tim Melago's Park Photo Pages

I HATE Denver International Airport. Everytime I come here I swear never to return. I could go on and on about why this is the worst airport in America and excuse me, I think I will. The most obvious problem is that it's just plain inconvenient. It's situated out in the middle of nowhere, miles from the nearest rental car, hotel, and the city of Denver. EVERYTHING associated with this airport takes forever. Does anyone find this place correctly the first time? How about putting up ONE sign that tells you where the airport is! Just do away with Pena North and Pena South and just have a sign that says "Inconvenient Airport, thatta way." And why they chose to make it 20 miles from the I-70 turn off is beyond me. Finding the proper terminal is a guessing game - how about listing the airlines for each terminal! Finding the check in counter - signs point you in three different directions. Finding and going through security - a total of three lines, crammed in between a cluster of storage lockers, for an international airport? And finally getting to your gate! Everything is so far away - the train to your gate takes 10 min., all rental car agencies are 10-15 miles from the airport, the nearest hotel is 20 min. away, and the city of Denver takes half an hour to get to. Whether you're arriving or departing, you can count on a good hour and a half just getting through this facility's poorly designed layout. Anything that should be functional at this airport isn't. One escalator (and a split one at that!) is all that's available for the hordes of people deboarding the train at each concourse. Everything requires you to go up or down and everything has been assigned a split escalator, creating huge backups. As you wait at your gate, the row of seats tilts back so that you're forced to lean your head forward to keep from hitting the person sitting behind you! They are the worst designed back to back seats I've ever seen! If you want something good to eat (meaning other than McDonalds) you're expected to get it at the main terminal and carry it with you on your ten minute train ride to the concourse. And if all of that weren't enough, the airport itself is just plain ugly. Its most distinguishing feature, the cartoonish Rocky mountain rooftop, looks like a cross between a circus bigtop and something out of Frostbite Falls. It just looks like something the French would do. Inside the terminal, the look is all 70's sterile. It just amazes me how ugly and bland the decor is. Whoever's responsible for designing this terrible airport should not be allowed to bid on another public facility contract again! And if all that isn't enough to persuade you that Denver International is a colossal pain in the ass, the dominate carrier here is United Airlines, which bases its operations in Denver. United, the number one airline in flight delays and cancellations, makes Denver International Airport an ironically appropriate choice from which to base their operations. I *HATE* Denver International. And so it is all the more remarkable that I continue to come here. And I continue to come here for one reason and one reason only: Lakeside Amusement Park. Lakeside is so incredibly special that it's worth going through traveller's hell just to get there. What makes it so special? Well, that's a bit like asking what makes the Mona Lisa special. It's classic, it's timeless, and most of all, unforgettably beautiful at night. In the daytime, this park is somewhat depressing. But at night it takes on an entirely different look, a different personality, a different era. You walk into Lakeside at night and your jaw simply drops. This traditional amusement park is a stunning visual triumph of art deco architecture and lighting. The amount of design detail in every ride, sign, ticket booth and building is simply amazing! A single building at Lakeside - the College Inn, for example, would be a signature attraction at any other park. At Lakeside, it's just another building. The marble and pewter counter inside the refreshments building takes awhile to be noticed because of all the other little details inside the building. The cupolas on either side of the Hurricane are exquisite! And forget about Hersheypark's Lightning Racer, the Cyclone station has no equal when it comes to beauty. No other park can match the look of this place at night. The amount of neon and flourescent lighting, complimented by all that gorgeous art deco architecture, creates a visual feast that is almost overwhelming! Easily the most beautiful nighttime park I've ever seen! And yet Lakeside does not engender any sort of civic pride or support from the citizens of Denver. The history and beauty of this park seems to go unnoticed or unappreciated, as evidenced by some of the disparaging comments we heard from people during our visit last year. It's a shame as the park is so friendly and the rides are so well maintained. The architecture alone unquestionably deserves national historic status. And yet I can understand why the people of Denver don't like coming here. As pretty as the park is at night, it is equally depressing during the day. In fact this park is clearly struggling to survive. Its wonderful art deco buildings are desperately in need of tender loving care. A coat of paint would do wonders but the budget for any serious repairs would be astronomical. There is very definitely work going on here, though - three separate work projects were underway during our vist - but the amount of deterioration is clearly evident during the day and is surely depressing to those (especially teenagers) used to seeing the glitz and high tech glamour of a Six Flags or Disney park. In many ways Lakeside, like Denver Airport, is frustrating. While many areas of the park are wonderfully landscaped and tended to, other areas are completely ignored. Some things are truly baffling. The grounds surrounding the park's main midway have been meticulously cared for, with beautiful flower beds, well manicured lawns and newly painted benches. And yet the beautiful fountain in the center of it all is surrounded by an overgrown bed of weeds! They went to so much trouble making this area of the park pretty - the benches are painted, the fountain runs flawlessly, and yet the perfectly timed, multi-colored lighting scheme shines down on a three foot tall bed of weeds. One of the worst oversights is a defunct ferris wheel ride, its cars long since removed, sitting in weeds, untouched and deteriorating in the middle of the park. One of the park managers we spoke to told us the ride had long since ceased operating and that over time they just left the ride where it is. "It just wouldn't be the park without it," she said. Well, I disagree. It is an eyesore and nothing more. So are the numerous paint buckets and wood piles strewn all around the Cyclone's track, and the junk piles next to the Cyclone and train rides. There are TONS of debris and old abandoned ride parts laying around everywhere - in fact several areas of the park are more than boneyards, they are garbage dumps. You don't need a budget to remove trash. It would not take much to haul all of this stuff to the junkyard. It makes no sense to me why some of these oversights have gone unnoticed or untouched by management. Fortunately nighttime brings out only the best of this park. In the dark you cannot see the deteriorating buildings, you only see the magnificent architecture. In the dark you cannot see the trash and debris scattered all around the park's perimeter. In the dark you cannot see the Rivieria dance hall and other attractions that have long since been abandoned and uncared for. You don't focus on what you cannot see, you only focus on what's illuminated by the light. And what's illuminated is a dazzling array of art deco shapes whose deteriorating structures are camouflaged by brilliant neon and flourescent. Even the individual ticket booths that have gone unoccupied for years look alive and well. They only look unoccupied at the moment, as if someone were on break and will be back in five! I don't want to make it seem like Lakeside is all smoke and mirrors. It would take a huge amount of revenue to renovate the buildings - more money than I think even a corporate park would spend. But the park does an excellent job of maintaining its rides, and there is definite work going on here! The most promising news is the rapid progress being made on the reconstruction of the Whip. The structure is being completely redone and the foundation, walls and roof (the ride is outdoors for the most part, only the center part of the ride is covered) have been reinforced. At least 5 or 6 workers were busy working while we were there, and by the end of the day we were amazed to see the progress they had made. They had finished laying over half of the floor, and it was obvious they are only days from finishing the floor and beginning the process of assembling the ride! Fortunately Lakeside not only looks great at night, it also has a huge collection of well-maintained classic rides. I would love to see the park get a fun house, a dark ride, put some swan boats in the lake, and some decent food stands. But this park can only do so much with whatever revenue they generate and it's wonderful to see them putting their money into keeping the operating rides running well and looking good. And there are so many flat rides here it's easy to forget just how huge their collection is! I really love their Tilt-a-Whirl, I think more than any other park's. We couldn't pass it without riding it again because it's so good! And I love their "O" planes, Skoota Bumper Boats (best looking ride and station after the Cyclone), Spider and Sports Cars. And the Wild Chipmunk is now my favorite Mad Mouse! I just love all the deep drops that actually produce airtime! It also has two *great* headchoppers - one of them is a tree branch that threatens to take your head off on the way down (Cindy made the mistake of waving to me and caught her hand on it!). And coming up the next hill, you come face to face with the track above you that threatens to finish off what the tree branch started! It also has a very intense helix to finish the ride. I love the comfy bobsled cars, and for such an old ride it's amazingly smooth. I love the Wild Chipmunk! My only two complaints are that I wish the beginning zigzag section was a little faster, and I don't think the sign above the coaster is as cool as the one in front of the ride, and it isn't illuminated - it's the only sign in the park that's not. But those are minor nitpicks - Wild Chipmunk is a fun, fun, ride and I couldn't get enough of it! I also couldn't get enough of their train ride. It is a fantastic steam powered locomotive train that takes passengers all the way around Lake Rhoda for an unforgettable nighttime view of the park. Unfortunately none of the photos Cindy took from the train turned out - apparently the shutter stayed open too long and because the train was moving the lights ending up streaking across the picture. It would be SO COOL to have a nighttime photo of the park from across the lake! Sadly, the Fun House that sent Cindy and I into such fits of glee last year is no longer there. It had a conveyor belt tilted upward at a steep angle that you'd "surf" up on, and a great tunnel slide on the way down to end the ride. The owner of the park, a lady named Rhoda, said they had a number of accidents from people being careless so they took it out as a precautionary measure. Very sad as it was my second favorite ride in the park. Fortunately, the Cyclone is looking great and running even better. There are three big moments of airtime on this ride - one of them didn't show itself until darkness when the train took on a noticeable increase in speed. Sitting on the left is so great - so much of the track is tilted it feels like you're spending half the ride on your side! And I love the face shaver coming up the fourth hill! And the view on the turnaround is a memory maker - you can see the Capitol and a beautiful view of the park lights reflecting off the lake. Finally, I want to say something about the crowd, which was quite large on this day. The city of Denver isn't supporting this park like it should, but the people living near the park clearly are. Lakeside is located in an area heavily populated by Hispanic Americans, and Hispanics made up a huge majority of the crowd on this day. I was not familiar with the stereotypes associated with Hispanics but Cindy told me a few of them and I can say emphatically that none of them were true at Lakeside! I said last year how nice I thought the crowd and the park employees were, and this year was even more noticeable. *Everyone* was so polite! After nearly every ride you could hear at least one or two people saying "thank you" to the ride ops. There was no line cutting, in fact several times people would apologize if they inadvertently moved ahead of us in line. Even the teenagers, while being teenagers, were nice. The ride ops, too, were equally polite and friendly. Pleases and thank yous were definitely the order of the day here, and I really like the Lakeside crowd. I really think Lakeside is special. It is worth anything you have to go through, even Denver International Airport aka Hell, to get there. It is one of a kind, the kind of place that succeeds in taking you away from the real world and into a different place. I'd love to see it restored to it's original beauty one day, but I'm so happy to see the rides being maintained and restoration being done on their wonderful Whip. I wish the owners would clean up some of the unnecessary eyesores that give such a downtrodden appearance to this otherwise beautiful park. I doubt it'll ever be restored to the kind of place it once was back in its heydey, but at least it's still a viable park at night. Lakeside undergoes a magical transformation at night, when the cover of darkness kindly masks the ravages of time, when neon creates a timeless illusion, and every parkgoer gets a taste of remember when. Lakeside at night is the ultimate remember when.