For my birthday this year I asked T if he’d take me to ride roller coasters. It has always been one of my favorite things to do…ok well not always….
There used to be this theme park outside Windsor, Ontario called Boblo Island. It wasn’t top of the line roller coasters or anything, but it was a pretty big deal for anyone under the age of 10. Once per summer my parents would load our cousins and us up and off we’d go. I would stand and watch my male cousins ride the roller coasters while I drove the bumper boats or rode the train. One day and I remember this clearly my dad decided I was old enough to go on the pirate ship – you know it looks exactly like a pirate ship and just rocks back and forth higher and higher – like this:
Not a big deal right? You wouldn’t think there would be much harm in taking me on this? This is where my father, everyone on the ride, and probably most of southern Ontario found out that I cannot go on rides that go backwards. I am perfectly fine if I am moving in a forward direction at any speed, but the moment I go backwards my world comes to an end. My vision starts to blur, I become dizzy, and my stomach feels like it is going to evacuate my body and it’s anybody’s guess out of which orifice it will use. I remember my dad trying to calm me while screams that even I didn’t know I could produce came from me while crying and trying not to puke all over everyone. Now I had never seen this happen, nor have I seen it happen since – but the ride conductor stopped the ride, let my dad and I off, and then started the ride again. I am sure this was one of my dad’s prouder moments.
I didn’t go near a roller coaster again until high school when friends of my sister and I took us to Canada’s Wonderland. They were boys and attempting to act macho and by doing so we had to be cool and all of a sudden I was on the front seat of the largest roller coaster in the park…..and I enjoyed it, and got hooked. For years after that reintroduction to roller coasters I made the trip to Cedar Point to ride the big coasters – but I still can’t go backwards.
In the last 6 years I had been to Cedar Point twice where one roller coaster was ruled off limits by me. It’s called Top Thrill Dragster, and the ride only lasts 17 seconds – so how scary can it be? Well it starts from taking you from 0 – 193.1 km’s in 4 seconds only to then launch you straight up 420 feet, then straight back down again to a grinding halt. Here see for yourself:
I have sat and watched the ride take off, or seen the reactions of the people once they are off the ride, but I could not bring myself to do it. One year T went on it with a friend as I wouldn’t go. But this year, this is the year I had to defy gravity – so time to bite the bullet.
T & I were allowed into the park an hour before the general public as we had stayed at the resort the night before. Who needs caffeine in the morning when you can be riding a roller coaster by 9am?! T wanted to head to Top Thrill Dragster right off the get-go – me not so much. I needed to warm up to that kind of scariness, so we hop on I’d say the two scariest leading up to it – The Maverick, and Millennium Force. Those two were a piece of cake, and with no lines we had accomplished both in about 25 minutes, so off to Top Thrill Dragster we go where the wait was about 10 minutes. During those 10 minutes you read all of these interesting facts about how it cost Cedar Point 25 Million to build Top Thrill Dragster, and there are signs repeatedly telling you to look forward and hold on when the ride begins. Every train that returns you watch as people curse, and laugh, and attempt to put themselves back together as the ride does a number on your hair and some articles of clothing.
I tell myself that if those people can do it, I can do it. No problem. Well not until I read a sign that says occasionally the train does not make it up and over the top and not to worry that it will just reverse back down the track to the starting position. Wait? WHAT? They put this sign where there is no point of turning back. There is no exit door for those people who can’t go backwards and weren’t warned that this was a possibility. All courage I had to ride this ride went right into the crapper. Pirate Ship fears resurface.
We reach the platform and I’m in shear panic, but not trying to reveal this to the teenagers who are also second guessing why they are in fact going to ride it also, when someone asks T if we’d like to go ahead of them so they can ride on the same train as their friends. T accepts and we are second from the front in the train. This is the closest T has ever come to ‘death via j9’. We get on and pull the restraints over and I double, and then triple check the security of it as I’m repeating very loudly “I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do this”, which once we move to the starting position turns to very loudly “f#ck this, f#ck this”. And then you see lights flash but don’t want to believe its happening and you are gone. The only good thing about the force off the take off is that it pushes you into your seat so you feel safe as you are not pressing against the restraints – that is until you drop over the top and your ass is no longer in your seat and you are clinging to the restraints for life. Then just like that it is over and you realize you are not dead, but you may indeed want to check your pants.
Would I recommend this ride to you? Well if you are healthy, haven’t recently had heart surgery, have low blood pressure, don’t suffer from irritable bowel, are not pregnant….(I’m beginning to sound like those drug commercials). Then do it. But don’t say I didn’t warn you :)
Oh that sounds AWESOME. I love rollercoasters. Forwards, backwards, upsidedown, topsy turvy, whatever. Love them. Glad you survived.
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