My day in Paradise.

At 47 years old, I am a roller coaster junkie. Sort of. I don't generally travel the globe in search of the biggest, baddest, steel behemoth that man could churn out. I have been content, up until now, to live down the street from Six Flags, or Great America as it is more fondly known, escorting my younguns around the park with our season passes, getting my fix on Batman, Viper, Vertical Velocity, and the Raging Bull. I went in one time by myself, on a "day off", at 9:45am, so I could be on the first ride of the day on the Bull. I rode it 3 times, and left the park, waving to the stunned worker at the exit when I didn't want my hand stamped at 10:20 in the morning. Now Raging Bull is as good a coaster as it gets in the Midwest. So I thought. That is, until I finally realized a lifelong dream and made the reservations to take the kids to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

Driving up to the park, built on and Island on the shores of Lake Erie, it is a sight to behold. The Millennium Force is so tall, you can't believe that it just doesn't tip over into Sandusky Bay. And it's not even the tallest one. And there are so many coasters that you couldn't possibly ride them all in a single day with the lines we saw, (max wait on the first Saturday of the Fall season 1 hour 20 minutes). And although I soaked up every nanosecond of the plunge down Millennium Force, heart rising into my throat the whole way down, that was not the reason I was there. I had to ride this beast. The tallest roller coaster in the world.

The Top Fuel Dragster
Height------420 feet
Length------2,800'
Ride Time---0 min., 17 sec.
Speed-------0-120 mph in less than four seconds.

And it was AWESOME! You are so high, its un-be-freakin-liev-able. Without a line, I could've ridden it 10 times easy. It was the Crown Jewel of the day, the moment I had actually been thinking about literally for years, wondering what it was like to be that high up on a coaster. And the brooding teens stopped brooding for a day, and actually had fun. The were duly impressed with the rides, and that's not an easy thing to do, impress a teenager. But exhilaration has it's price, and after about 6 coasters we were all in. The tedium of the hour wait every time began to seep in, and before we knew it, we had been there for 7 hours.

But I can't end my tale of adrenaline seeking without mentioning the sights we saw. No, we didn't look for Callahan Auto from the movie Tommy Boy, the sights we saw in line. Some of the freakiest looking people I have ever seen seem to populate the place with their piercings and tattoos and mo-hawks and hair dyes and those ear thingies that look like they're from some tribe in Africa. As you pass by them in line over and over and over again through the mazes, you can't help but take in everything about their appearance. All in all a great trip, a little expensive, but worth it as I am sure we won't ever do anything like it again. Before I know it they will be in college, and seeing how the wife opted out of the trip as she hates coasters as much as I love them, it doesn't look like I will have anyone to go with. Something weird about a man in his fifties going to an amusement park alone.