Sunday, September 28, 2008

my life is like a r*ller coaster

I feel like I'm hungover, even though I'm very not. Turns out I was high on life - and on roller coasters. Yesterday we went to Cedar Point, which is the only awesome thing Ohio has to offer (except for a few choice people that live there - you know who you are!).

I haven't been on a roller coaster in probably about 4 years, and I learned / remembered the following things:

I love roller coasters, but I don't like the kind that are regular sit-down, with just a bar going over your lap. (This includes the old wooden ones.) I like shoulder braces. They make me feel much more secure, like I'm not going to fall to my death. And, I generally get banged around less with shoulder braces. Notice I said less, as I still have a few injuries that prove it's not "not at all." Also, for some reason, the initial hill in sit-down coasters freaks me the hell out. I can handle it fine on the other kinds. But that slow, slow ascent. I can't handle it. Part of that is probably when I look over the side, it is just fall. There is not even a couple of inches' worth of platform to save me if I go careening over. And to make it slightly more terrifying, Cedar Point is right on Lake Erie. So when I look over, I see just lake. I'm not afraid of heights - I'm afraid of falling. They are 2 different fears, which longtime readers may remember me covering in this blog before.

My fave kind of coaster is the kind where your feet dangle freely. There are shoulder braces to hold you in tight (yay!) but your feet and legs rise and fall and sway with the momentum and g-forces. We went on one like this yesterday, the Raptor, and it was ever so much fun. We even bought a souvenir video of it - there was a camera positioned directly in front of us, so you can see our faces during the whole ride. I will post this as soon as I get it converted from DVD to youtube- compatible.

Also, I'm very clingy. I'm not the chick that raises her arms and rides hands-free the whole time. I'm the chick holding on to the handles. The sit down ones don't have convenient handles - they are on the lap belt. That makes me feel like I'm going to be flung out. Shoulder braces usually have handles on the actual braces, so I can almost give myself a hug during the ride. Everyone knows that hugs are the most secure things ever.

So anyway, I've got a large bruise on my knee, and my shoulder is jacked up from sometime when I jammed it. And we slept a lot last night - even though we left the park before closing (and before our friends) we had a 3-hour drive ahead of us. We came home, hit the bed, and slept for like 12 hours. Exactly what you'd expect from a long day where we woke up early, spent several hours on our feet, and got the crap kicked out of us.

5 comments:

mdog said...

CEDAR POINT!!!

i am so glad you got to experience cedar point. two things i realized on my last trip:

1) i am never riding the mean streak ever again, and

2) i could have ridden millenium force all day long.

vive le coasters!

super des said...

I was warned very strongly against the Mean Streak. The Millenium Force is the one that I think somehow hurt my shoulder, but I liked it more than the Magnum.
:)

LittlePea said...

You would think since I live just a few hours from Orlando/Tampa that I would have all kinds of roller coaster experience but I don't. I'm not quite sure I could handle a feet dangling one but I agree with you about the shoulder braces. It's just more comfy.

super des said...

the only thing about the feet danglers is that you have to make sure your shoes are on tight!

Suzanne said...

Wow, we are a complete 180 when it comes to roller coasters.

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