In my seemingly neverending quest to visit every crappy amusement park within driving distance of my house, today the family went to visit Bonfante Gardens, a theme park is located in the metropolis of Gilroy.

Oh? You non-Californians haven't heard of Gilroy? It's one of those towns so desperate for commerce that they have an annual festival celebrating a product that happens to be monetized within their city limits. It's like San Francisco's Sperm Week or Colma's Death Days. Gilroy's crack marketing team latched onto the concept of alliteration during the festival development and narrowed the festival choices down to Gilroy's Garbage Festival or the Gilroy Garlic Festival. It was a close vote.

Anyway, now Gilroy has another international sensation, Bonfante Gardens.

Obviously I entered the park with my mocking sensors turned way up. Crappy amusements parks are blogging gold. Gilroy is blogging platinum. Together? Blogging riches beyond my wildest dreams!

As it turns out, Bonfante Gardens is a pretty nice place. :(

The rides and attractions are mostly geared towards little kids, and given that I was toting a timid six year-old around, that's pretty much perfect. And there are trees and shade almost everywhere in the park. The place is landscaped beautifully. Large and graceful were spread throughout the park in a way that even Disney could learn from. The South Bay Area gets pretty hot during the summer, but I suspect this was one of the most pleasant places to spend a summer afternoon. Also, although everything was overpriced, the place is non-profit, so the money will go back into the park rather than stockholder's pockets (I never make money off the stock market. No reason anyone else should).

Finally, if you could have seen the glee on Daisy's face when she splashed in their little water play area, you would have lost a little cynicism too.

Maybe I really am out of things to complain about. Gah!