It's so hot today that it reminds of the time I visited Wet 'n' Wild Las Vegas (which has since closed) during the summer. The water slides and rides were great, but walking barefoot on the blisteringly hot pavement--this is the desert after all--was searing the bottoms of my feet. In retrospect, it was kind of funny watching sizzle-footed visitors waddle with weird gaits around the park and hearing them exclaim every few seconds, "Ouch, ouch, OUCH, ouch, OUCH!"
To help get our minds off of the extreme heat, let's turn our attention to the ambassador of cold fun, Santa Claus, shall we? For many years, the jolly, red-suited gent had a summer hangout in the Chicago area at Santa's Village, a Christmas-themed park that closed in 2005. (A smaller hybrid zoo/amusement park, Santa's Village AZoosment Park, opened on its grounds in 2010.) Behind all of the innocent holiday cheer, however, it turns out that the mostly teenage employees who worked at the park were raising holy hell. Some of them shared their coming-of-age stories in the book, "Santa's Village Gone Wild!"
As its name implies, the book's anecdotes can get a bit risqu� (after-hours clothing-optional dips in the water park, for example). Many of them are pretty funny. It provides an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the operations of a regional theme park and should be of particular interest to people who visited the Illinois park. You can learn more about the book and order a copy by visiting the "Santa's Village Gone Wild!" site.
By the way, the original Santa's Village, which is located amid New Hampshire's White Mountains, continues to delight guests with its note-perfect park. My guess is that there is considerably less questionable backstage behavior going on at the NH park than allegedly happened at the defunct IL park.
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