<\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nThen we went home. Heather finished college, we got married, had 3 kids, I began and ended my first career and embarked on a new one. Then we went back to Kennywood:<\/p>\n
 <\/td><\/tr><\/table><\/p>\nTurns out my last visit was in 1995, not 1994. Still. Nineteen is a lot of years. Those years were very good for my brain, but exceedingly unkind to my body. And despite the supposed growth in maturity that comes with age, I still managed to eat more overpriced junk than was smart or reasonable. Again.<\/p>\n It was fun, in a hurry-up-and-have-fun<\/em> kind of way. The day ended like this:<\/p>\n But that’s how they always end, isn’t it? Even when you’re young. Walking and standing on asphalt for eight hours, only stopping for brief periods to sit on a bench and eat sugar-infused starch fried in lard is not something humans have been bred forNot yet, anyway. We’re certainly working on it.<\/span>. And it shows.<\/p>\n But we can’t start at the end of the day. That doesn’t make any sense. The first ride of the day was this:<\/p>\n I stole that shot from Google Image search. The coaster is tucked in behind some games and walls, making shots like this hard to get.<\/p>\n Are there other coasters like the racer? I’ve never heard of one, but then it’s been 19 years since my last rollercoaster ride so I can’t pretend to be an expertAccording to Wikipedia<\/a>, there are 14 race-style rollercoasters, which are a sub-type of “Dual Track” style coaster.<\/span>. It seems like an obvious trick: Put a couple of tracks side-by-side. You can get twice as many riders through the coaster, without any of the engineering problems that come with making trains longer. From a pure guests-throughput point of view, it’s basically like having two coasters for the real-estate footprint of one.<\/p>\n The ride was built in 1927. That’s pretty old for something that’s designed to absorb thousands of pounds of force a couple of hundred times a day. And is made of wood.<\/p>\n Calvin Coolidge was president when the Racer welcomed its first batch of riders. The stock market crash was two years away. It had been running for twelve years when World War II finally took off.<\/p>\n My second ride of the day was this thing:<\/p>\n No big deal. Used to ride stuff like this all the time. They’re good for cleansing the palette between coasters. The lines are short and the motion is kind of steady and relaxing. Sure, it turns you a little bit upside-down once it gets going, but it’s smooth and breezy. Cools you off and lifts you up so you can get a high-angle view of the place.<\/p>\n All of that was true in 1995. But something has changed. When I disembarked from this thing on Friday I felt horrible. Not nauseous. Not dizzy. My stomach was fine. But my head was convinced I’d just been in stand-in for General Zod’s face in Man of Steel. I didn’t want to look up. Strange headache. Weakness.<\/p>\n I don’t know what these 19 years of aging has done to me, but apparently they killed the part of my brain that enjoyed spinning rides. In fact, I get mildly uneasy just looking at the picture above. It really was that bad.<\/p>\n At least I can still ride coasters.<\/p>\n |
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