Northwest Carousel Trail Passport and the Carousel at Oaks Amusement Park

A few months ago we heard about a carousel passport, where you could get stamps for visiting. That sounded right up our alley.

We even visited the Jantzen Beach Carousel exhibit at the Oregon Historical Society -- which was supposed to be on the trail -- without locating one. I guess we felt shy because we could not find anything, but we should have asked.

Recently, a small blurb let us know that we could get one at Oaks Park Guest Services and ride the carousel there. Finally!

There are eleven carousels on the trail. It is not an exhaustive list of historic carousels in the Northwest. You may note a star without a number for Spokane in Washington. That surely refers to the Looff Carousel. 

I think the other stars are state capitals, but there does appear to be a carousel at the Boise Zoo, and there is definitely one in Helena. There are five carousels in Montana that aren't listed.

https://www.distinctlymontana.com/wooden-wild-horses-montanas-seven-carousels

We are not sure which ones we will make it to, or when. We have already been to the one in Albany. We nonetheless knew we could get to Oaks Park, and we did!

This is the Herschel-Spillman Noah's Ark Carousel, which may be why some of the animals have two of each, though not necessarily next to each other.

I don't think they are trying too hard to evoke the ark specifically, or there probably wouldn't be a dragon, but we liked the cats.

It's common for carousels to have benches, but this one also had these round booths that I have never seen before. We rode animals, though. Of course.

If we wanted to go back and take additional rides, we could. Riding the carousel is free, like riding the train. That did not end up being temporary.

The carousel is covered under its own pavilion, which seems like a good idea. It was raining on and off that day.

That may have been part of why it was not very crowded, but things were running and we are Oregonians.

And then -- after riding -- we went back to guest services and got our passports stamped.

They did scan one of the passports at the carousel, but they did not do the stamp there. Did they check the scan to make sure we rode? I don't think so. We picked up the passports, rode, and then returned to Guest Services for the stamp. You probably do not need to do it in that order, but obviously we were going to ride.

And we will ride more, at some point.

COVID: This was all outdoors. I did wear a mask at guest services, but even then there was probably enough air circulation that it may not have been necessary.

Accessibility: There is a ramp for mobility devices. It is not left open, so that would require the attendant.

https://www.oakspark.com/

https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df67mj964

https://www.facebook.com/CarouselTrailNW