Drachenfire
Jan. 19th, 2004 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I found out just a few days ago that my favorite roller coaster at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg was quietly shut down and dismantled several years back because people were complaining of neck injuries. That sounds plausible to me. Probably it was for the best.
I get the urge to ride on roller coasters about once every ten years, and I ride on them several times, and that's enough for that decade. Which is good because otherwise I might be this guy. A definite theme starts to dominate his narrative around part 3.
Update: Aha... he has a picture of the defunct coaster in question here, as well as some of the ones they put up later. Sounds like he had a better time that day.
Hey... I guess this means I've ridden a roller coaster that he hasn't!! Ha ha! Ow, my liver!
I get the urge to ride on roller coasters about once every ten years, and I ride on them several times, and that's enough for that decade. Which is good because otherwise I might be this guy. A definite theme starts to dominate his narrative around part 3.
Update: Aha... he has a picture of the defunct coaster in question here, as well as some of the ones they put up later. Sounds like he had a better time that day.
Hey... I guess this means I've ridden a roller coaster that he hasn't!! Ha ha! Ow, my liver!
no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 12:18 am (UTC)BG does a good job of covering the spread of coasters, with the classic Loch Ness Monster, the suspended-car Big Bad Wolf, and the standing-while-hanging Alpengeist, as well as, somewhere in the back, a rattletrap buggy number that looked too jerky for me to ride.
Digressing: When I was last there about 5 years ago, I was finally old enough for the brewery tour. (The monorail, Eagle One, is not piloted by Martin Landau.) There's actually some good stuff there these days-- A-B's diversified its Michelob and Bud lines a little to emulate the widely available microbrews (well, let's call them small-batch brews). Not to say I drink the stuff when I'm at home (this is Seattle, where people brew as many beers as coffees!), but not a bit of it was bad drinking on a hot Virginia-Summer day.
Out here in the Pacific Northwest, there are literally no theme parks, only permanent and semi-perm fair-type places with rides of varying complexity and mobility. That includes a couple of rollercoasters, one of them at Seattle Center. But as much as I love a coaster, I feel no attraction to go on it-- all turns and you never drop more than 4-5 stories, right into a turn at that. Owmyneck, I say. I haven't ridden it once in the 10 years I've lived here, even though I live mere blocks away.
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Date: 2004-01-20 12:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 04:34 am (UTC)P.S. Go check out J_Brew's journal. Big coaster nut there
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Date: 2004-01-20 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 06:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 02:22 pm (UTC)I was thinking about this last night. Part of it is that when a roller coaster has you inverted, there are usually G forces holding you in, and the long drops typically aren't completely vertical, because the coaster and its passengers are supposed to be held down by inertial forces most of the time.
With really modern coasters that's not necessarily 100% true, I suppose. But even then, the emphasis is different from the other rides; you're strapped into a crazy vehicle and the thrill is in the question of where the crazy vehicle is going. Whereas with some non-coaster rides the thrill is in the implicit, if idle, threat that your seat might drop out from under you entirely or drop you out into space. That puts even really wild coasters just barely on the right side of my limit, whereas the swinging boat is not. Roller coasters make me scream but they don't make me nauseated.
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Date: 2004-01-20 03:54 pm (UTC)And I can tell you that Kings Dominion's "Berzerker," (I think) which is a swinging boat ride that does, in fact, stay inverted (SFX: lots of coins falling) for a few seconds in the on a couple of occasions during the ride, is going way too far for me. However, I do like Busch Garden's "Battering Ram," which is a less X-treme and more traditional swinging boat ride. I also get nauseated by "Da Vinci's Cradle," which is a kind of boat ride that moves up, down, fore and after on a pair of circular arms. It stays level the whole time, but it tends to be nauseating for me. (SFX: coins sliding and sheet metal, then falling)
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Date: 2004-01-20 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 06:03 am (UTC)The last time I was there, I had just moved to Norfolk from Bremerton, WA, and about 4 months later, my next-door neighbor from Bremerton made the same move, to down the street. (This isn't as weird as it sounds-- in both cases we were living on major naval bases, and our fathers both got transfers.) We drove up one day to Kings Dominion and who did we run into in line for the Anaconda but another guy who lived 2 houses down from us in Bremerton-- his dad was transfered to the Pentagon and he and his sister had driven down for a day of coasters. Yaay.
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Date: 2004-01-20 05:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 06:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-20 06:36 am (UTC)