What's it like in the Tunnel of Love?

October 12, 2008 2:17 AM

You know the old Tunnel of Love fairground ride? What did one of those look like on the inside?

Wikipedia is low on specifics, and google just gets me song lyrics and pr0n. Is there anyone out there who actually experienced one and can describe it to me? Or can anyone share any links to photos or descriptions of the interior?

Thanks

posted by happyturtle to Society & Culture (7 answers total)

The one in my hometown was a rickety wood structure over a stone base. The only lights were the cracks in the wood... just enough to see the general disrepair. Overall, it was very dark... sort of like taking a ride through a roughly-put-together crate or building pallet. It wasn't that it had been decorated once and had gone downhill... it was always bare. It was designed to be completely dark in there, no need to make it look pretty.

The water was extremely polluted, with trash floating through (lots of condoms and food-vendor trash) and a vague reek of dead fish. There were lots of spider webs, the occasional mouse or rat. Mildew, mold and moss climbed up the stone. Vandals had scrawled graffiti on the walls; sometimes, the most profane of these would have received a slapdash coat of primer.

The boats were pulled along by a mechanism that made a repetitive clicking... and then you'd take a slight dip down into the water and it would go eerily silent. No noise except for the occasional thumping of your gondola against the stone. You'd bump along in what seemed like slo-mo, unable to see the literal light at the end of the tunnel just yet. With everything so aged and uncared-for, there was always an element of danger... never knowing if the ride would break down, never knowing what critter would jump on you.

Eventually, you'd see daylight, the clicking/pulling would set in again, and you'd be hauled up a small ramp, pulled around a roller-coaster-style gentle bend, and take a small downhill splash into the water before coming back to the boarding point.

Hope that helped!
posted by Gianna at 5:07 AM on October 12, 2008 [8 favorites]

Dark and smelly.
posted by bjgeiger at 9:13 AM on October 12, 2008

Dark, to facilitate kissing and making out, hence the name.
posted by amyms at 10:21 AM on October 12, 2008

There is a classic tunnel of love ride a at the Iowa State Fair called Ye Old Mill. It is dark, very dark. It twists and turns around in the dark so you have no idea where you are. When I was a kid, you would pass by these very odd lit dioramas that held scenes that had nothing to do with anything at all. You would occasionally see a little sliver of daylight through the tunnel roof. The tunnel itself is very small and I doubt you could stand up in the boat without hitting your head. It was very quiet inside. There is a giant mill wheel in the front of the ride that drives a strong current through the cement trough the boats ride in. There isn't much else driving the boats forward while they are in the tunnel.

They remodeled Ye Old Mill and sealed the tunnel better, which was good. They also replaced the dioramas with posters depicting the history of the fair done in a classic turn of the century hand-bill style. While the posters are awesome, I miss the dioramas.
posted by Foam Pants at 1:47 PM on October 12, 2008

There are Ye Old Mils at a couple of other midwest state fairs. Here is the inside of the one in Kansas. Not half as classy as the one in Iowa but very similar construction.
posted by Foam Pants at 1:52 PM on October 12, 2008

There's a Tunnel of Love in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. [video]

It probably wasn't anywhere near standard that they would also lead to an unsupervised, unlighted make-out island, but you get the general idea.
posted by dhartung at 2:41 PM on October 12, 2008

As a Minnesotan it blows my mind that there are other Ye Old Mills. The one at our state fair still has random dioramas. Some have fake Disney style scenes, some are simply indecipherable.
posted by advicepig at 7:31 PM on October 12, 2008