Up until last year, I had always been rather hesitant about amusement park rides. Things that threw your body into unnatural positions or had you upside down for any period of time were on my list of things to avoid. I didn’t hate roller coasters, I would just stick to the ones that were more old-fashioned; traditional. Come to think of it, these ones tend to be pretty old and wood and probably the less safe ones, but at the time in made sense in my mind. Last year however, a few of my friends decided to break me of this fear and said I had to ride at least one.
It had been a really hot day last April when I had gone to Kings Dominion with two friends and my sister. After the first few hours of wandering around and going on Suzi-proof rides, they decided they wanted to ride the Volcano. The volcano: a roller coaster involving fire, shooting out of a volcano, and being upside down at several points. Uhm…no.
I offered to sit out and just watch, but they were persistent, using supporting points like I was practically an adult and could handle it, they’d have an odd number without me and someone would have to ride alone, the rides are tested all of the time, people don’t die on roller coasters…often…
After a while I decided I had to do it. To fight my reasoning and fears for once. I was sixteen years old, I was supposed to love doing stupid things, and at that time, this was a stupid thing to me.
We got in line and waited for about an hour before we actually got to the ride. By then I had waited so long that I absolutely could not back out; you don’t pay money to go to an amusement park and stand around.
To be honest, I can’t remember much of the ride. I didn’t pass out or anything, it all just happened so fast. I remember starting out slow of the loading area and then all of a sudden we shot off; much faster than I had expected. When we shot out of the volcano I could feel my body jerking against the over the shoulder restraint lock; suspended in the area for brief seconds every now and then. Flash! There was the parking lot. Flash! There was some tree! Flash! That was the ground…above me. Flash! We were done.
I absolutely loved it.
I felt a huge sense of accomplishment as the attendant unlocked my seat and signaled for us to exit the loading area. I walked off astounded but then realized I was walking alone. I turned around to see the rest of my group staring at me skeptically.
“So…did you like it?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Well good…because that was like one of the worst upside down rides in the park and now all the others will be no problem!”
I hated them. I loved them. I hit them. I was laughing.
I went on two more roller coasters involving upside-down-ness that day: the Dominator and The Flight of Fear. Both of them were amazing to me and I finally understood why people would wait in lines for so long to ride them.
At this year’s Staunton Spring Carnival I even went on some questionable rides. In a way I feel these are worse than amusement park rides because at parks, even though the rides are bigger, they are stationary and regularly maitenanced. With carnival rides, the machines are moved around every week. What if one bolt wasn’t retightened quite enough? Or what if a piece wasn’t locked in properly during the move?
One ride was a room that spun so fast that the force would push you against a wall, and eventually lift you off the floor: Fun.
However, it didn’t have anything strapping you to the wall and the panels move purely by centrifugal force: Questionable.
We also rode a Ferris wheel sort of ride: Fun.
However, the carts could spin upside down and would leave you facing straight up or straight down for extend periods while people were loading and unloading: Questionable.
I fought through the sketchy aspects and ended up having a great time. I’d even recommend those rides…for anyone who is not easily nauseated.
I am not some sort of adrenaline junkie now, but I do plan to expand my acceptable rides list. I’m scheduled to go on another trip to Kings Dominion this week with some of the same people and this time I intend to do no waiting (except for maybe the Berserker, but you never know…).
Suzi Foltz is an AugustaFreePress.com intern and a senior at Wilson Memorial High School.
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