Cedar Point this year was tackled with an almost unworkably large group (8!), one of which refused to go upside down (though she did ride the Magnum, which is a pretty tough ride) and another of which got banged up so bad on the Mean Streak that she’s probably sterile (as she is my girlfriend, I am sort of keeping my fingers crossed actually).
We rode everything while we were there, over two days. On Friday, it poured like the Mother of All Whores in the morning, prompting a quick pouting session from me. Luckily, it cleared up, making for an oppressively muggy day with like nobody in the park. We made a beeline to Maverick, which is one of the most tightly-wound, violent rides I have ever been on – but in a smooth way. Little bunnyhop drops and all types of tight-ass inversions, plus a 95-degree first drop (!) made it the best – and most original – ride I have been on in a very long time.
From there, we watched as Mean Streak made mincemeat of our women. Mean Streak is fucking brutal, and I think it’s actually gotten moreso since last time I rode it (2000). The fact that I zalways sit in the back complicates matters [ED: like the "zalways"]. It’s a fantastic ride, all smooth curves and big drops, and it makes me want to track down and ride more Dinn coasters (I can’t use the word “woodies” comfortably any more than I can say “hoodies” instead of “hooded sweatshirts,” because I am a civilized human being with an education and a sense of dignity). Actually, I’ve ridden Psyclone before, and I remember it being fucking totally awesome. It’s just a really goddamned big Cyclone, with the same goofball turn-drops that try and throw you out of the car.
But, as always, I digress. Following Mean Streak, we all sort of took a breather. At some point, Bones opted to pay out the ass for a 30 oz. container of beer shaped like a horse’s head. It was worth the money, because it was full of Molson. Molson quickly became the only acceptable drink on the trip. It’s pretty good (it’s from the land where ice was born).
We got on Top Thrill Dragster with what could have been a minimal wait (about 30 minutes in line), except the fucker broke down with us on it, trapped right by the part where magnets lurk, waiting to hurl you to a death by cardiac arrest at 400 ft. We sat in the sun for like 20 minutes, then they took us off the car, then they put us on the car, then we launched. At no point after it broke down or before we got back on did they run a test car, which was scary and awesome. The ride itself is pretty stupid. You go real fast, then you come down, then it ends. The best part was me air guitaring and yelling at Wendell in front of me to look back at me air guitaring. I totally shredded my throat doing so. Also, I like going so fast that you can’t even see what is going on. That’s a pretty good feeling.
The best thing I rode on Friday (and I rode it twice) was Skyhawk. Skyhawk is a gigantic pneumatic swing with minimal restraints. It is hilariously fast, taller than it looks, and pretty much an exercise in freefall. If your friends are sitting nearby, they can watch you laugh and give them all the finger for being haters. It’s probably one of the best rides in the park – that and MaxAIR.
MaxAIR is one of those Huss Giant Frisbees – basically, a huge swing that spins. It goes really high, really fast. Like Skyhawk, it’s really just a bunch of airtime and going fast to get to more airtime. If you don’t have fun on it, you’re dead inside.
The other really notable ride was Disaster Transport, which most would argue is never notable – except that almost all the lights were off, lending this glorified Rolling Thunder an air of true terror. I have sort of a reverse claustrophobia that isn’t quite agoraphobia- I am freaked out by the notion of being in a gigantic enclosed space in the dark. Maybe this is from reading House of Leaves. I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff that can hide in a great big dark area, and a lot of stuff that can go wrong, especially on a roller coaster that isn’t exactly on a track. It was fun.
When we got off, they hit us with a smoke machine and like half the group got their eyes all jacked up by it. I didn’t, which was awesome.
That night, me and Bones and Greg wound up in a weird, smoky hotel room with a bunch of paranoid frat kids from Erie, PA, playing beer pong. It was disgusting. We told them that we were cops, that we were from Canada (why else would we be drinking Molson, eh?), that we were from Chicago, that we were not cops, and that we were cops. We alternated between going to college and having never been to school and/or dropping out. When we said that Greg had gone to a lot of school, the future MENSA member smoking menthols in the corner asked if he “like, did a lot of homework.” We lost by beer pong by as much as possible and slunk back outside in shame (to the parking lot, where we told them we slept), preferring to pound our Molsons in the cold solitude of a rainstorm.
On day 2, we went to the water park, but there is nothing special about the water park, except that I found a dollar in the lazy river (actually, a lifeguard did – he pointed it out to me). Greg got sunburned real bad and went straight to Bitch School at the end of the night, all yelling about how bad the aloe hurt. I heard he dry heaved later when he tried to drink a Molson. I had properly applied sunblock, and as such escaped most of the really bad sunburn. Bones was burnt super bad, too. That night, we watched To Catch a Predator (they were in or around Boca Raton and one dad brought his young sun with, which was obviously very depressing) and then more Molsons in the parking lot. The hotel wasn’t much for entertainment. The game room had the Simpsons game, Super Off-Road and 1941, but it wasn’t open at like 1 AM for some dumb reason that didn’t make sense to us.