Theme Park Rides

When I was about six years old, my elementary school in (then) West Hollywood, Florida held a little carnival. And somehow , they managed to erect a tiny roller coaster ride as part of it. I vaguely remember riding it once and being completely terrified. That was around the year 1963. In 1973 I went to Walt Disney World and was very proud of myself for undergoing rides of such scariness as Dumbo, Peter Pan, and Eastern Airline's If You Had Wings. But I wasn't going to be one of those fools who rode Space Mountain! In 1986, while visiting Busch Gardens in Tampa with my wife, I pointed casually over at the Python roller coaster and suggested that we ride it. She instead led me over to the Monster Mamba, a twirling kiddie ride that is no longer there. After a few seconds on that ride she had to frantically signal and yell at the conductor to stop the ride and let me off. She spent the next 15 minutes sitting with me on a nearby bench until I stopped shaking. In 2002, my 12 year-old son suggested that we, as a family, visit Wild Adventures theme park in Valdosta, Georgia, where he had recently gone with his school class as an end-of-the-school-year trip. So my wife, my two children (my daughter was almost eight at the time), and I went there on a late August Saturday. And it was there, 39 years after my previous (and only) roller coaster ride, where I faced my fear and rode the little red Ant Farm coaster with my eyes shut and me chanting repeatedly "safe!...safe!...safe!...". From then it was just a matter of facing more formidable fears on later rides on that visit and on subsequent visits there and to other theme parks. The result is: I love theme park rides now! The more they flip me over and the faster they drop me, the better!

Living in Gainesville, Florida puts me within a reasonable driving range of parks like Wild Adventures, Wild Waters (in Silver Springs), Busch Gardens, Cypress Gardens, Universal Studios, Sea World, and Walt Disney World. So far, my favorite coaster rides are Dueling Dragons Fire at Universal Islands of Adventure and Montu at Busch Gardens. My favorite wooden coaster ride is Thunderhead at Dollywood, where we visited last summer. My favorite non-coaster ride is Power Surge, which is at Wild Adventures and Cypress Gardens. My favorite water ride so far is the Tornado at Wild Waters (we went to Blizzard Beach three years ago, but the long lines and bad weather kept us from experiencing most of the rides there, although I did get to go on Slush Gusher and Summit Plummet). Except for Dollywood, my theme park experience is pretty much confined to South Georgia and Central Florida. Maybe we'll try some other places in the future like Cedar Point, Ohio and that park in Muskegon, Michigan with the very long wooden coaster.