Jaco’s Random Writings

So I had an eventful weekend. I had driven down to Delaware to meet up with Ian and Brandon. We spent the day on Saturday hanging out and chilling, and spent the Sunday down at Kings Dominion down in Virginia. Kings Dominion was fun. We opened the day with bumper cars and then moseyed on over to the water park.

After harassing each other on the lazy river, we took to the slides. Not that eventful, fun, but for the most part what you would explain from slides. Wave pool was fun; did our best impression of zombies in a wave pool. Pity the Big Wave pool was closed… since I was really in the mood for some body surfing. So we figured, “Hey, let’s take the group inner tube.” Sounds safe, right. Except the weight limit is 1000 lbs. We were fine. Between Ian, Crista (Ian’s significant other), Brandon, and I, we totaled ~800 lbs. Now, while Crista is a featherweight, Ian and I are pretty hefty and Brandon is definitely not what you would consider “slight of build”. We got on that inner tube a little worried*. It started out fine. But after we cleared the first bend, things went from thrilling to “Holy crap I just lost 10 years off of my life”. At every turn, Brandon ended at the top of the turn for some odd reason, and I was sitting across from him. But because we’re somewhat heavier than most others, we nearly flipped over on each and every turn. In fact, we were informed by a witness that we actually left the slide on those bends. I’ll believe it. I was staring up at Brandon. A little more and we would have flipped over with him coming down on me. Needless to say, Brandon and I came off of that white in the face. After a ride through the coils of the Power Plunge, we were done with that and off to the rides.

We dried up and had lunch at the Alpine Deli, which was actually fairly decently priced (pretty much what you would pay at Applebee’s or some other place like that) taking in consideration that this is in fact an amusement park. From there, we went to the Scuby Doo Haunted House… because it’s Scooby Doo and we were in a mood to be amused. I took up 2 seats because somewhere in the distant branches of my family tree resides a giraffe (this will actually be a detriment, but more on that later). It meant that I also got 2 laser guns. Awesome. Went through shooting different targets with two guns. More Awesome. I enjoyed that.

From there we went to Volcano. Keep in mind that I have never been on an inverted coaster before**. So I thought, “Hey, I might actually fit on this ride.” I was right. I am now very much in love with inverted coasters. They accommodate tall people. So just to give people an idea of what the coaster looks like:

This is the coaster. You come shooting out of the top of the volcano after doing 0-80 in 2 seconds.

Now, this isn’t one of those traditional coasters that slowly drag you up a hill and then goes “Whoop! It’s in your hands now, gravity!” No. It uses a Linear Induction Motor to shoot you forward, around a curve, into another Linear Induction motor and then vertically out of the volcano. By the way, you come out of that volcano upside down. Just thought you would want to know that.

And now you're upside down.

Once clear of the volcano, the track twists, momentarily flipping the train upside-down. Fortunately, it’s swift enough that you won’t have blood rushing to your head. But that’s not the only twist in the track. You have one here:

And you're about to be upside down again

And here:

That was the last time you get flipped upside down.

The ride is over pretty quickly. After that last twist, you go around the bend and down an incline. Brakes go up and you are finished. I like that ride. I rode it twice. I’m definitely going to ride it again.

Unfortunately, that was the only ride I fit on… I didn’t fit on the Flight of Fear, The Backlot Stunt Coaster, or the Anaconda. Yeah, being 6’5″ with long legs means that most other coasters… not a good fit. And after the excruciating pain I went through squeezing myself into the Sooper Dooper Looper at Hershey, I wasn’t going to subject myself to that again. So when it became clear that I was not fitting into the cars on Anaconda, I thought, “Screw this, I’m getting myself some ice-cream.” My heart was broken and it needed consoling.

So after Ian and his dad hit the Dominator***, we decided to finish the night with the bumper cars, which was a pretty good choice. Years of MarioKart finally paid off. I looked up at the moon and snapped this with my cell phone.

Yeah, this is very interesting and all... but not what I saw.

OK, cellphone cameras, like digital video cameras, don’t have a very high contrast ratio, which means that much of the pretty that I saw didn’t appear. But with the magic of software retouching, you get this:

Throw in some curve editing and creative masking.

There, that’s a bit closer to what I saw when I looked up. The moral of this is: It’s not what the camera picks up that’s important, but how we remember it.

Footnotes

* Pretty much every inner-tube slide I have ever been on has resulted in me nearly flipping over at the bends. I had actually been airborne. Must be my odd body proportions and weird distribution of weight… I’m not very fond of inner-tube rides…
** I had a chance with Great Bear at Hershey, but there was a 2 hour wait for that… and I wasn’t in the mood for that. I was already in too much pain from Sooper Dooper Looper. And not because it was scary or anything. It wasn’t. Just cramped. So very cramped… My hip joints still ache at the memory of that ride.
*** I actually would have fit on the Dominator. It’s a floor-less design, which means it’s pretty an inverted coaster that’s been made to be not inverted. But after that near-death experience at the Zoom Flume, I decided that I was really not in the mood for steep drops.