I had to do a double take. You can call it the big kid in me, but it irresistibly drew my glance. Yes, that really was a flume ride seat in someone’s driveway! You don’t see one of those every day—or any day except today, come to think of it.

Seeing that made me wonder about the story behind it. From the street, all I could read on the front was “Wonderland.” Where did it come from? Can I sit in it? To get these burning questions answered (well, at least the first one), I sped home faster than usual from my morning walk.

Because we live in Orlando, Florida, I assumed that it had to be from an old amusement park in the area with the word “Wonderland” in its name. Research revealed that the closest one was Tropical Wonderland (formerly Florida Wonderland), which operated in Titusville, FL from 1959 to 1973. However, old photos of their flume ride that I dug up didn’t quite match what I’d seen.

Thankfully, I had taken a photo of the flume ride seat, so I was able to zoom in on my phone to get a closer look than what I could see from the street. The black paint had all but disappeared from the word etched in front of “Wonderland,” but you can make out that it is “Dutch.” Aha!

A new search revealed that Dutch Wonderland is located all the way up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It opened in 1963 and changed hands a few times, but it still operates. Based on current photos of their Double Splash Flume ride, what I saw in an Orlando driveway is probably a retired earlier model.

But how did these folks come to own it? What’s it doing 969 miles away from where it originated? Why is it sitting in their driveway? Do they ever use it? It has wheels and could be decorated and slowly pulled behind a car, like what’s done with floats in parades. And yet again, can I sit in it?

I suppose that to get these questions answered, I’d need to muster enough courage to knock on their door. . . . Perhaps a future post will hold some answers.