My Love Affair with Roller Coasters

One of the longest and most passionate relationships of my life has been with roller coasters. But not just any roller coasters - the biggest, tallest, twistiest, fastest roller coasters. Growing up in Utah I had no place to get my crazy roller coaster fix - the only amusement park around is Lagoon and the biggest roller coaster there when I was growing up was the quaint Colossus, a mere 89 feet tall. (I just read that Lagoon now has a taller coaster - 110 whole feet! 55 mph!) That simply wouldn't do - I needed roller coasters that go so fast they're like those Japanese cartoons where they're flying around so fast that the landscape disappears and is replaced by whooshing lines.

When I was about ten years old, my family was trying to decide where to go on our summer vacation and I put together a full audio-visual presentation advocating Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California, complete with clips from "National Lampoon's Vacation" (yep, Wally World was actually Magic Mountain) and "Step by Step" (the opening credits are also Magic Mountain). I may have made some pie charts too - I can't remember exactly. I don't know how they could argue against my case - did they not see how much fun those families were having? That could have been us! I can't remember where we went instead, but it was definitely somewhere more educational and less roller coaster-y. (I finally did make it to Magic Mountain in 2003, when I went on a road trip with 4 friends over spring break. The ride called "X" completely changed my life).

Three years ago, when I spent my first summer in Ohio with the Ohio Light Opera company, I began my long-term relationship with Cedar Point. The first time I saw that vista of towering roller coasters as approached the park I knew that I had found true love. Having Snoopy and the Peanuts gang as their mascots is another huge plus. In fact, the Snoopy connection may be the key to my whole attraction to roller coasters: they give me such a pure, childlike sense of fun, excitement, and freedom. I practically skip from ride to ride.

Those of you who have never experienced Cedar Point may not be fully able to grasp its sheer awesomeness, so I'll provide some facts and figures about the place, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Cedar Point is a 364 acre (1.5 km²) amusement park located in Sandusky, Ohio, U.S. on a narrow peninsula jutting into Lake Erie. It currently holds the world record for most roller coasters with 17, one of them being the world's second tallest and second fastest roller coaster, Top Thrill Dragster, which reaches speeds of 120 mph and a height of 420 feet. Cedar Point is also the only amusement park with four roller coasters that are taller than 200 feet (61 m). As of 2008 Cedar Point will be the only park in the world with 75[1] rides, becoming the park with the most rides. The park also has a mile-long white sand beach, two water parks (Soak City and Castaway Bay, an indoor waterpark (which also includes a hotel service), two marinas[2], several hotels, and "Challenge Park" featuring attractions such as go-karts and miniature golf. Known as "America's Roller Coast", Cedar Point has been voted "Best Amusement Park in the World" by Amusement Today for the past ten years.

Over the years my relationship with Cedar Point has only deepened. I returned the following two summers that I spent in Ohio. However, now that I live in Ann Arbor I am actually closer to Cedar Point than I was in Ohio. So when my friend Chalsea organized a Cedar Point trip for yesterday, I was all over it. As incredible as all my previous Cedar Point trips were, this last trip was the best by far. In my estimation there were three factors that made it the perfect day: it was a Tuesday, many public schools are still in session, and there was a somewhat unfavorable weather forecast. Translation: we practically had the place to ourselves. On previous trips I had waited 2 or more hours for certain rides, but yesterday we never waited more than a half hour for anything. By about 6:30 pm we were walking straight onto the rides with no lines whatsoever. And instead of frying in the sun, it was nice and cool and there were refreshing short showers throughout the day.

Our group of 12 friends was another reason why it was so great. They were all from my ward, but I didn't know most of them all that well beforehand. But I often find that I have the most fun at activities where there are combinations of people that I wouldn't have necessarily assembled myself. I got to know them all better and had a really fun time together. Most of the time a group as large as that can be rather unwieldy, and people can't agree on what to do and everyone breaks off into little groups. But we were surprisingly harmonious and stayed together pretty much the whole day. Some of us were seasoned roller coaster enthusiasts and some of us were conquering fears by even going to the park (my friend Amy wrote a great piece about facing her fears), but everyone was game for everything and we did it all and then some.

Sara and I prepare to be shot off at 120 mph. I'd been on this ride maybe 4 times before this, but never in the very front - it completely transformed the experience.

Scot and Phil stand in awe of the Millenium Force. It's my favorite ride at Cedar point - wicked tall and Japanese-cartoon fast, yet smooth like buttah.

After one last ride on the Dragster I found about six bugs smashed on my face, which is a sign of two things: you've had a crazy fun time, but it's time to go home for the day.



P.S. It was my friend Jacob Solomon's birthday, but he didn't say anything about it until we were at Burger King after leaving the park. I hate for birthdays to go unrecognized, so I asked the friendly employees to sing to him. They also gave him a crown - very nice touch, I thought. Would that I could spend my birthday at Cedar Point, but alas, they are not open in March.