Sunday, June 13, 2010

Happy Hollow

Saturday, I went to Happy Hollow for the first time. We have had a membership for a few years (half of which it was closed), but I had never made it out there. My soon knew that the 25 bus went out there, but it was actually quicker to take the 522 to the 73 bus.

I was not sure exactly where it was, but managed to get off the bus at the right place. There was a nice sign on the corner saying that Happy Hollow was open. We coul see some of the rides behind the fence. So, we thought it would be a quick walk in.

Nope.

We had to walk a long ways down the road to get to the parking lot. This must almost be it. (After all, they were charging $10 to park there.)

Nope.

After that there was a long walk down a path to finally get to the entrance. At least they had bike racks right next to the entrance. (Though there wasn't a bike present.)

Free entrances are one of the things that I loved about Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo. You can stroll along the lakefront, meander through the zoo, then stroll out for a donut at the Sushi/donut shop.

Even the Santa Cruz Boardwalk has the charm of free access. You can "enter" from multiple places, even stroll in from the beach. You do have to pay for rides separately, but the food vendors are fine with taking money from 'non-riders'.

The $12 admission at Happy Hollow does give you free rides, as well as access to the zoo. We visited the bathroom, road the merry-go-round, saw some monkeys, lemurs and a few birds and other assorted animals, dug in a "dinosaur bone" sandbox and used the bathroom again before we left. The 73 bus came first, so we ended up taking that home - though we ended up on an accordion 22 instead of a 522. (For some odd reason, the 22 was waiting for long periods of time at the downtown San Jose stops. However, once a 522 passed, it sped right along. Perhaps they have some schedule issues - the bus driver wanted to do all his waiting at once.)

It was a nice trip for a hot day, but I think we'll try bikes next time.

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