Sesame Place June 1993 (Part 1 of 2)

I am very blessed and very thankful to have grown up in the family I have grown up in. There has always been excitement and adventures in my life and my family’s yearly visits to theme parks and amusement parks cemented the necessity of that fun and excitement into my mind forever and ever since have always been my favorite places to go. I can’t thank them enough for everything they have given me.

We will begin with 3 pictures a day and as much story as I can write about what I remember and what I know about what is shown in the pictures. Each set of pictures will consist of 3 images unless a fourth will close out the set. Tomorrow four images will be posted.

Today, on our first day, we start off with a 3 year old me visiting Sesame Place in 1993. The park had just begun its large transition from educational playground to water park and 3-acre park to what today is a sprawling 14-acres.

As a child of the early 90’s, Sesame Street was a way of life. I learned to read, write, and count from the show and learned early on that race, shape, size, and color shouldn’t matter.

Being a child of the early 90’s meant that a stop at Sesame Place was a dream come true. You literally were on Sesame Street!

Here I am standing outside the water (wearing the day’s prize, a Sesame Place t-shirt) of the Teeny Tidal Wave Pool. This area of the park was themed (you will learn that I love themed areas) to the Twiddlebugs of Sesame Street who reside in the flowerboxes of the street’s various inhabitants. Ernie’s flowerbox was often featured in these segments and here he is peering over us in this miniature, oversized land. That green tube behind the tiny wave pool is meant to be a hose, which you will see better in the picture below.

Above is the hose handle (marked H20 in Ernie’s scribbled handwriting) and one of the many taped up portions of the hose. At these taped up sections, water sprayed out, signifying Ernie’s somewhat shoddy attempts at hose repair. Perhaps he should have had his OCD roommate Bert do it for him instead!

The wall in the above photo is the wall that blocks the wave pool section of the Teeny Tidal Wave Pool from the smaller, wave-free section of the pool.

This attraction is still at Sesame Place today, oversized Ernie, hose, and all.

The sendoff picture for today is of my Dad and I enjoying a nice, relaxing ride on Big Bird’s Rambling River, Sesame Place’s version of the lazy river. My Mom is standing on the bridge that crosses over to what I believe to be Captain Ernie’s Café (later Captain Ernie’s Grill and now Captain Ernie’s Bistro) on Sesame Beach.

At the time, this attraction was as old as I was and was thus fairly new to the park. Big Bird’s Rambling River is still rambling on today, 19 years later and 22 years after opening.