These are my favorite moments. Everybody's favorite moments, probably. Sure, you've got memories of good vacations, or class field trips, or concerts, or the things you did that deviated from your day to day life. You've got good stories to tell at parties, good stories for the ears of your closest friends only, sad stories you keep bottled away, the embarrassing stories that shaped your insecurities, and these are all solid memories... but the little happy moments are the best. Sitting on the roof and watching the sun set, just the three of us. Diving into the pool in the pouring rain, fully clothed because we were soaking wet anyway. Rolling down the windows and blasting that Fall Out Boy song to drown out our own terribly belted renditions. Realizing it's four in the morning, we'd really been talking for that long, and, holy crap, I'd made a new good friend. That one time Katie Pfannes made a "that's what she said" joke. Those fleeting, happy moments that stand out in the blur of the years gone by.
For me, most of those memories involve roller coasters. They're my favorite thing in the world. I'm totally obsessed with them. I check amusement park news daily. I read forums discussing rumors about what's gonna be built next at major amusement parks. Is Cedar Point getting a 223 foot tall Bolliger and Mabillard dive machine with a vertical drop and four inversions right next to Raptor and Blue Streak in 2016? Yeah, probably, and you would know that if you were as obsessed with roller coasters as I am. My friends call me a "walking encyclopedia" when it comes to this kind of stuff. We go to amusement parks, and they ask me questions about the roller coasters to try and trip me up. Who built this? What year? Which of these roller coasters is older? How tall is this? How fast does it go? Guys, stop trying, I can even tell you how many people ride the damn thing per hour.
But whenever I do something new, whenever I hit a landmark in my obsession, I have one of these moments. One of these fleeting moments, like hey, this is happening, and I just can't stop smiling.
I remember my first one, age four or five or something at Geagua Lake (back when it was Six Flags Ohio, and Sea World was still a separate park... and the park in general still existed). It was one of those little kid roller coasters that only gets to like 12 feet off the ground and runs the track twice because of how short it is. I'd spent most of the day at the park waiting with my mom while my dad and my oldest sister rode the bigger roller coasters, my other sister going on a couple with them. I remember looking up at them and thinking they were robot monsters. They reminded me of my transformers toys, which I often left mangled in mid-transformation because of how obnoxious they were. But then, hidden away, we found a roller coaster that my tiny brain could process... and I rode it over and over again for the rest of the day, smiling like crazy. I didn't realize, then, that I'd always remember that smile.
For the next couple of years we had season passes to Kings Island. They have slightly bigger "kids' coasters," and for a while Runaway Reptar and Adventure Express fun enough for me. But at age seven something happened. There's this little non-coaster ride that we would go that's right next to this massive, multi-inverting roller coaster called the Vortex. My older sisters and my dad were getting in line for the Vortex, while my cousins and I were supposed to be getting in line for littler, "safer" Shake Rattle Roll, but I absentmindedly followed the former. My mom saw this and raced after me, pulling me from the line and saying, "No, no, no, you don't want to ride that," and pointed up to the twisted metal monster I almost got in line for. Not fully comprehending what she was saying (and still thinking I was getting in line for Shake Rattle Roll) I said, "Yes I do." It took a minute, but I finally realized what I was in line for, and went with my mom to the smaller ride.
Those of you know know me well, though, know that I don't like admitting when I'm wrong. So I stood by my statement. Yes. I want to go on that huge, metal, monster-looking thing that goes upside down one, two, three.... uhhhh six times. And when we got off of Shake Rattle Roll, I went straight for it. My mom pulled me back again, telling me that I wasn't tall enough. Defeated, I moved on with my life.
That night we left Cincinnati, and I read in the park map that I was absolutely, 100%, definitely tall enough to ride the Vortex. It became my goal. We were going back in three weeks, and I would not stop talking about how I was going to ride the Vortex when we did. My dad said to me, "Why don't you go on the website and find out a little more about it?" perhaps believing that seeing actual statistics about how tall it was, or how fast it went would dissuade me from riding it. My parents were scared that I was too young for big roller coasters and that I would get hurt, but they were going to let me make the decision.
Bad idea.
I went on the website to read up on it (148 feet tall, SO COOOL!!) and soon after, I was going back to them telling them about how I was going to ride every roller coaster in the park when we went back. The one that flipped you upside down backwards, the 200 foot tall one, the 300 foot drop tower, the giant disk-pendulum that held you upside down, I was gonna go on evvvverrryything, and I knew every little fact there was to know about every ride at the park.
I was actually terrified, but they didn't need to know that.
That was only until I got to the top of the lift hill though. Riding that drop, flipping through those loops, screaming through the corkscrews... I loved it. I couldn't stop smiling. I got off the ride and got right back in line.
I was hooked.
Cedar Point and Kings Island and Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion and Michigan's Adventure and that roller coaster on the side of the expressway in florida and community fairs with creaky little roller coasters that I was terrified were going to fall apart but I went on anyway and thirteen years later, every time I ride something new I still smile like crazy. And for that reason, I remember my first ride on every roller coaster I've ever been on. All 58 of them. (my goal is 500, and I hope to have 80 by the end of this year).
Fast forward to 2015. I'm in Melbourne. Not Melbourne, Florida, I'm in Australia. A country that isn't exactly known for having great amusement parks (I knew what I was getting into... I looked into before I committed to the trip). In fact, the amusement parks here are all really small. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally going to them (next week, actually), but the week before last I did something better.
Going on a new roller coaster is fun and all, but this time, I went on an old roller coaster. A really old roller coaster. The oldest roller coaster in the world to be exact. The Scenic Railway, at Luna Park Melbourne.
And as I was standing in line for it I was looking around, thinking, holy crap, this is like... the coolest roller coaster related thing I've ever done. This was about to be a landmark for me. As I looked around at the people around me, laughing with each other, shifting back and forth, and just having a normal day at the crappy little amusement park in their neighborhood,
Time stopped for me, I was smiling huge, and I thanked God for that moment, that memory I would have for the rest of my life.
It was pretty fun, by the way. Kind of bumpy, but that was expected. There was even some air time (you know, like when you feel weightless going over a hill?). Not the best roller coaster I've ever been on, but definitely the oldest, and definitely one of the most likely to stand out when I think back on my life.
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