At the end of the last sketchcrawl we met up at the Carousel in the middle of Central Park, Davis, to look at each others’ sketchbooks. Some people drew the carousel, but I revealed that I had chickened out, because it’s pretty complicated. Of course whenever I say that it’s a sure-fire sign that I will be back to try and draw it as soon as I can, so I cycled down to Central Park the next day and stood there drawing as much as I could. The carousel is called “The Flying Carousel of the Delta Breeze”, which is a bit of a mouthful, and I’ve never heard anyone actually call it that. Honestly I thought that was an album by a psychedelic late-sixties California hippy band that still play local events across the region at farmer’s markets and brewfests (I am making that up but it might be true, sounds like it would be true). It’s not in use at the moment clearly, because of COVID-19, but when it was it was a fun thing for the local little kids to ride on, and helps fund the Davis Schools Foundation. It is human-powered, that is, there’ll be a high-school kid who sits and cycles to make it go. Kids can ride on the hand-carved animals such as the Frederick frog, Seymour the seal, Pickles the pig, and Terri the Tomato. I know a tomato isn’t an animal, and don’t get started on the fruit/vegetable debate. The tomato fruit/vegetable debate is so contentious now that they have to mute the microphones when the other is speaking, and the vegetable side just refuses to take part and goes off and has a big rally with lots of other vegetables so they can chant about locking up the apples. Anyway back to the carousel. It was opened in 1995. That was the same year I went strawberry picking in Denmark; strawberries are definitely a fruit, but I don’t eat them any more after that summer (yet I still love strawberry flavour things, like milkshakes). I’ve never been on it (it’s not really meant for me) but I think my son rode it when he was very small. It’s a nice thing to have in the middle of Davis.