FOOTAGE OF FORGOTTEN WATER PARK PERFECTLY CAPTURES UNABASHED CALIFORNIA CULTURE THAT IS LONG GONE

New York Post

 

Forgotten waterpark footage perfectly captures ‘unabashed California culture that is long gone’

By Aurielle Weiss

Published Aug. 17, 2026, 2:32 p.m. ET

 

Say hello to cowabunga culture.

 

Nearly 65 years ago, America’s first water park was created and home to over 250 acres deep in the Mojave desert. Right off I-15, its remote location proved to be a spot where kids across California drove hundreds of miles for a chance to drift down one of 10 waterslides.

 

The Lake Dolores Waterpark was recently brought back to life after an X post shared footage of the now-long gone swimming spot.

 

The poster — Brian Roemmele — dropped the video and commented, “It was another time and it was another place. Unabashed California culture that is long gone.” The video was from an old news program showing the place in all its glory.

 

The footage features tons of swimmers on zip lines, hurling themselves on the slides and lying around the lake. The video shows an interview of the then-owner walking the team around the park — which he ran with his entire family.

 

Fans from all over raced to try eight of the identical 150-foot slides from the man–made hill or conquer the two V–shaped waterslides — also about 150 feet — where thrill seekers would ride the slide standing up.

 

The waterpark was built by Bob Byers — a local in Newberry Springs and named after his wife. The man-made playground used underground springs fed by the Mojave Aquifer, pumping water to fill the lake and its attractions.

 

The park also featured a zip–cord ride, where folks hung from a hand–held device attached to a guide wire — getting flung from the cord at approximately 200 feet above the water on a 30–degree downward angle.

 

Parkgoers could lie in the lazy river, drive around in bumper boats or even catch a race around the Go-Kart track.

 

For the less adventurous, there were also diving boards and a lake to swim in and watch the daredevils.

 

Even the news anchor got in on the fun as the clip shows him trying to master the stand up slide and hanging on for dear life when using the zip line.

 

Users flocked to the post and shared in on the nostalgia from years ago.

 

“We need [to] bring back this type of California energy,” one wrote.

 

Another said, “Holy smokes I remember this place!! My teenage years were spent in Barstow.”

 

Folks who drive by the famed spot where kids once splashed and screamed will now see an abandoned site. The California park was deserted back in 2004 after three failed attempts to revive it.

 

According to Realtor.com, the sunken swimming attraction is covered in graffiti and dirt where overgrown trees rule the barren stretches of land. Folks can see a slew of barbed wire and chain link fence protecting the area as it’s in desperate need of repair.

 

The park had tons of legal and other financial troubles which ultimately led to its closing back in 1980s. Lake Dolores rebranded almost 20 years later, and reopened in 1998 under the new name “Rock-a-Hoola.”

 

Shortly after opening, an employee was paralyzed after an accident resulted in a $4.4 million judgment against the park, forcing the investors into bankruptcy, according to Jam Press. But the park was resilient, in 2002, it was again trying its luck with a new name — Discovery Waterpark.

 

The move was short-lived as it was only around for two years after closing for a third time in 2004. Reports show that slides were sold off to other major parks and the once-climbed structures were left to rubble.

 

Realtor reports revealed it was last listed in 2023, at a whopping $11 million and was later removed just almost 180 days after.

SOME DOGS CAN LEARN WORDS BY EAVESDROPPING, ACCORDING TO STUDY

PEOPLE

 

Some Dogs Can Learn Words by Eavesdropping, According to New Study

By Becca Longmire  Published on January 9, 2026 12:47PM EST

 

Some dogs have the ability to learn words by eavesdropping on their owners' interactions, similar to how a toddler would pick up on things from their parents, a new study has found.

 

Researchers made the discovery after working with a group of "Gifted Word Learner (GWL) Dogs," per a piece published by the journal Science on Thursday, Jan. 8. The study suggested that the group of pups pick up on certain words just like a 1.5-year-old toddler would.

 

An abstract read, "Children as young as 18 months can acquire novel words by overhearing third-party interactions," adding, "Demonstrating similar learning processes in nonhuman species would indicate that the social-cognitive skills supporting this process are not exclusively human but may have evolved, or can develop, in other species, offering valuable insights into the origins of language-related cognition."

 

"In this study, we demonstrated that a small group of Gifted Word Learner dogs, which possess an extensive vocabulary of object labels, can learn new labels by overhearing their owners’ interactions," it continued.

 

"Moreover, we show that these dogs can acquire novel object-label mappings even when the labels and objects are not presented simultaneously. Taken together, these results suggest that Gifted Word Learner dogs possess sociocognitive skills functionally parallel to those of 18-month-old children," the message shared.

 

Per a press release obtained by PEOPLE, the research team tested 10 of the dogs in two experiments. The first test saw owners introduce two new toys and repeatedly label them while interacting directly with the dog, before the dogs then passively watched as their owners spoke to another person about the toys, without addressing the dog at all, in a second situation.

 

"Overall, in each condition, the dogs heard the name of each new toy for a total of only eight minutes, distributed across several brief exposure sessions. To test whether the dogs had learned the new labels, the toys were placed in a different room, and the owners asked the dogs to retrieve each toy by name," the release noted, adding that "in both conditions, seven out of 10 dogs learned the new labels."

 

The study found that the "dog’s performance was very accurate already at the first trials of the test, with 80% correct choices in the addressed condition and 100% in the overhearing condition," per the release, which added that the findings mirrored those from infant studies.

 

A second experiment then saw owners first show the dogs the toys, before placing them inside a bucket, naming them only when they were out of the pups’ sight.

 

"This created a temporal separation between seeing the object and hearing its name. Despite this discontinuity, most of the Gifted dogs successfully learned the new labels," the release stated.

 

Lead scientist Dr. Shany Dror, from the University for Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, said, “Our findings show that the socio-cognitive processes enabling word learning from overheard speech are not uniquely human,” adding, “Under the right conditions, some dogs present behaviors strikingly similar to those of young children,” per the release.

 

Dror added, “These dogs provide an exceptional model for exploring some of the cognitive abilities that enabled humans to develop language,” insisting, “But we do not suggest that all dogs learn in this way - far from it.”

 

The release noted that GWL dogs are "extremely rare" and "their remarkable abilities likely reflect a combination of individual predispositions and unique life experiences."

THE REAL REASON KFC CHANGED ITS NAME FROM KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN

New York Post

 

Here’s the real reason KFC stopped going by Kentucky Fried Chicken nearly four decades ago

By Teresa Mull, Fox News

Published July 18, 2026, 5:41 p.m. ET

Originally Published by: Fox News

 

Kentucky Fried Chicken officially shortened its name to KFC in 1991, and the reason behind the rebranding has fueled rumors ever since.

 

One persistent myth falsely claims the Commonwealth of Kentucky trademarked the state’s name and forced the company to pay licensing fees.

 

Another urban legend alleged KFC was breeding extra-large, “genetically modified organisms” with extra legs, so they couldn’t technically call their signature dish “chicken” anymore.

 

The mutant chicken rumors resulted in Chinese courts finding several companies liable for spreading false claims that damaged KFC’s reputation. KFC China won a defamation lawsuit that resulted in three tech firms being fined for damaging KFC’s brand, Reuters reported in 2016.

 

Another theory is that the updated name was intended to distance the restaurant chain from unhealthy connotations with fried food, according to The Takeout.

 

Kentucky Fried Chicken was “struggling with declining earnings, higher prices and an evil word in its name — fried” when it changed its name, reported the Lexington Herald Leader. Around the same period, the chain also introduced skinless fried chicken, first called “Lite’n Crispy,” and later sold as “Skinfree Crispy.”

 

“Fried chicken on the bone is not growing as fast as the entire poultry segment,” Kyle T. Craig, president of Kentucky Fried Chicken USA, said in a 1991 interview with United Press International.

 

“We want to position KFC to a more contemporary image,” he said, adding, “Fried is not a contemporary image.”

 

KFC’s website includes company history that says its founder, Harland Sanders, opened a roadside service station in 1930 and began serving his southern-style chicken.

 

Colonel Sanders’ original establishment was called Sanders Court & Cafe, according to the Sanders Cafe and Museum, located in Corbin, “the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

 

“Originally established in 1937 as a gas station along U.S. Route 25, Sanders Court eventually expanded to include a motel and café where the Colonel offered guests a hot meal and a place to rest along their journey,” the museum website says.

 

KFC website’s timeline does not extend beyond 1980, but notes its founder’s legacy “lives on through his Original Recipe chicken, and the company logo adapts over the years, with the Colonel’s face remaining at the forefront of the design.”

 

KFC’s name change happened in an era when other big companies were taking branding and logos very seriously, Ken Albala, professor of history at the University of the Pacific, told Fox News Digital. It was around that time that Coca-Cola increasingly marketed itself as Coke, he said.

 

“Many companies were redesigning logos and having a deep think into how the character of the font face and the logo and the actual name of the company would attract younger audiences and be immediately recognizable, even to people who didn’t know English,” Albala said.

 

KFC was trying to save space in advertising and make a bigger impression on people, Albala suggested.

 

“‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ takes up a whole lot of space on a sign and with a logo, and especially online,” he said.

 

“If you see an ad, and you have to read through it, it takes you that millisecond longer than just lettering. [KFC is] trying to get people [from off] the highway and in a city among all sorts of other urban noise. And if you can recognize those letters, you’ve got a customer.”

 

According to the company website, KFC has “the widest global footprint of any quick-service restaurant brand with 30,000-plus restaurants in 150 countries and is one of the world’s fastest-growing retail brands.”

 

The chain is rolling out a brand overhaul that includes an expanded menu and restaurant design, Fox News Digital previously reported.

 

The brand’s recognizable bucket will be “refreshed with new energy alongside a subtle evolution of the Colonel himself, ensuring the brand’s legacy remains front and center,” KFC said.

 

Fox News Digital reached out to KFC for comment.

MYSTERY OF THE MARY CELESTE GHOST SHIP SOLVED

Daily Mail

 

Mystery of the Mary Celeste 'ghost ship' is SOLVED: Study reveals how an explosion of ethanol vapor may have caused the crew to jump ship in panic

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Published: 08:04 EDT, 18 May 2026 | Updated: 09:17 EDT, 18 May 2026

 

On December 5, 1872, a British ship sailing through the North Atlantic stumbled upon a merchant vessel, the Mary Celeste, drifting through the ocean without a soul aboard.

 

The cargo and the crew's belongings were untouched without a hint of a struggle, as if all 10 people on board had simply vanished into thin air.

 

Now, over 150 years later, scientists have finally solved the mystery of the most famous 'ghost ship' in nautical history.

 

And they say the real reason for the crew's sinister disappearance was an explosion of flammable ethanol vapour.

 

Dr Jack Rowbotham, a chemist from the University of Manchester, told the Daily Mail: 'One thing that has always been suspicious to us as chemists is that their only cargo was almost pure ethanol.'

 

In fact, the Mary Celeste was filled with over 1,700 barrels of pure alcohol, but when investigators came on board, nine of these barrels were mysteriously empty.

 

Scientists think that up to 1,100 litres of ethanol leaked into the hold and vaporised, creating the perfect conditions for a terrifying fireball.

 

'It basically spooked the crew into abandoning ship very quickly without leaving any trace,' says Dr Rowbotham.

 

Even at the time the Mary Celeste was found, the merchant ship's boozy cargo was the topic of intense speculation.

 

Given the missing crew and empty barrels, many assumed that some alcohol–fuelled disaster drove the crew to drunkenly flee the ship.

 

In an ironic twist, the crew were actually teetotal, having been hired by Captain Benjamin Briggs specifically for that reason.

 

But Dr Rowbotham says that alcohol was still the likely source of their downfall, just not in the way many suspected.

 

'There is a key temperature which is very important for ethanol, and that is 13°C (55°F),' says Dr Rowbotham.

 

'That point, called its flash point, is the minimum temperature at which the vapour from ethanol will ignite.'

 

Critically, the Mary Celeste took on its cargo of ethanol from New York in the middle of winter, where temperatures were well below the flash point.

 

But as the ship travelled eastwards into the Azores, the temperatures started climbing to somewhere above 20°C (68°F).

 

To make matters worse, the ship's logs show that the Mary Celeste had hit bad weather en route, leading them to batten down the hatches.

 

That created a sealed chamber below the deck, which slowly filled with increasingly dangerous ethanol fumes.

 

When the weather finally got better, the crew threw open the hatches, allowing oxygen to rush in and create an extremely flammable mixture.

 

While researchers will never know exactly what started the fire, it would have only taken a tiny spark to trigger an enormous explosion.

 

'They are basically sitting on a bomb, and they're hanging around smoking pipes,' says Dr Rowbotham.

 

To see what that would have looked like, Dr Rowbotham and fellow University of Manchester chemist Dr Frank Mair created a scale experiment as part of a new Channel 5 documentary.

 

Dr Rowbotham and Dr Mair built a one–to–18 scale model of the ship, and filled the hold with a proportional amount of ethanol vapour.

 

When the ship was cooled to New York temperatures, even a spark from an electrical cable didn't produce a fire.

 

However, once the scientists simulated temperatures closer to the Azores, that same spark triggered a violent explosion.

 

Dr Rowbotham says: 'An example of an ethanol fire that people might be familiar with is a Christmas pudding. Imagine that on something the size of a ship.'

 

The fire produced a roaring flash of blue flame that instantly engulfed the hold and ship, as well as a 'phenomenal' bang from the resulting shockwave.

 

Dr Rowbotham says that the fire in the scale model was so powerful it blew the hatches clean off the ship and threw them across the room.

 

That blast would have terrified the crew and may have scared them into abandoning ship as soon as they could.

 

However, despite being suggested as soon as the ship's cargo was revealed, the ethanol fire theory has long been rejected because of the ship's pristine condition.

 

None of the other barrels of ethanol caught fire, and the wood in the cargo bay was not so much as singed.

 

But these scale model experiments reveal that this is exactly what would happen in the case of a real alcohol explosion.

 

Despite the fire reaching around 2,000°C (3,632°F), none of the wood in the scale model had any trace of burns.

 

Dr Rowbotham says: 'If we hadn't filmed it, you wouldn't have been able to see that there had been an explosion on the ship.'

 

Ethanol and oxygen are such an efficient fuel mix that the flame flashes and vanishes in a matter of seconds, without leaving any soot or other signs of a fire.

 

While wood can burn well, it actually takes a long period of sustained heat to catch on fire.

 

This explains how there could have been an explosion big enough to startle the crew, which still left the Mary Celeste looking as pristine as the day it left port.

 

Dr Rowbotham adds: 'There are so many crazy conspiracy theories about what happened, but we wanted to show what you could learn from doing an experiment, and how valuable that is.'

 

The Mary Celeste: History's most famous ghost ship

 

On December 5, 1872, a British brigantine named Dei Gratia was sailing near the Portuguese islands of the Azores when the crew spotted a ship adrift on choppy seas.

 

To Captain David Morehouse's shock, that ship was the Mary Celeste, an American merchant vessel named the Mary Celeste, which had left New York just eight days before him.

 

The Mary Celeste was supposed to be travelling from New York to Genoa, Italy, with a cargo full of almost pure ethanol. This was to be used as part of a trade agreement, in which the US provided raw alcohol for Italy to make cheap fortified wines.

 

However, when Captain Morehouse came aboard to offer assistance, he discovered that the Mary Celeste was abandoned.

 

The cargo was intact, and there was still a six-month supply of food and water, but no one was left on board.

 

The mystery was further deepened by the fact that there was no sign of an apparent struggle or any reason that the crew would have needed to flee so fast.

 

After spotting the Mary Celeste, the crew of the Dei Gratia sailed around 800 miles to Gibraltar, to attend a salvage hearing that would determine whether they were entitled to payment from the ship's insurers.

 

The attorney general in charge of the inquiry, Frederick Solly-Flood, suspected foul play and launched a full investigation.

 

However, despite the court investigating the issue, no explanation was ever found for why the Mary Celeste would have been abandoned.