I went on a family trip to California for a weekend this month. We stayed at a KOA, went to Knott’s Berry Farm, and went to a beach.

I had the most pleasure riding the Calico Mine Ride [YouTube], [O.C. History].

Me & the gang.

We were in the back of the train, so we couldn’t hear the conductor telling us all about the miners &c, but I had fun nonetheless. It made me wonder how close this ride comes to the Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland [yesterland.com], which was replaced by Big Thunder Mountain Railroad [wikipedia] in 1979.

Turns out, with a little imagination you can still ride the rails that roll through Rainbow Ridge, courtesy of a rare full-ride audio track on Sorcerer’s Workshop (http://sorcerersworkshop.org).

There are still bits of the ride serving as theming at Disneyland to this day. Here’s a photo I took a few years back:

Click for full-size.

Feel free to use it for your desktop picture, all the cool kids are doing it.