halfway up wasn't so bad

[spatch]

The first day of coastering at Busch Gardens was a lot of fun. I am back in the hotel now exhausted as all hell, but very pleased with how it all turned out. I had planned to spend the busy Saturday taking pictures during my backstage coaster tour and then ride a lot on Sunday, but my shiny camera died while I was taking the slow elevator up Griffon's 210-foot lift hill. Oh. Well, then.

Turns out the batteries were at fault, but by the time I went "Wait, weren't those new batteries from the same pack that died in the TV remote? What if I just got some new ones?" I was too busy riding and having fun. I rode a lot today.

But here is the neat maintenance elevator that we rode to the top of the lift hill:



And here's what part of the ride looks like from halfway up (and then the camera died):



Busch Gardens is a beautiful park and there are lots of great places to take neat pictures of tangled tracks and foliage and trains and stuff. I'll visit them tomorrow with fresh batteries, and write a full trip story later on.

Comments

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

I also was afraid to go on coasters as a kid, with the addition that I lived 8 hours away from the nearest amusement park (Canada's Wonderland), so I only went there 2 or 3 times while growing up, all before I was really old enough to get over my fear.

So the first time I actually rode a rollercoaster was at 21, when my roommates and I took a trip to Williamsburg. The first coaster I ever rode was that one Fabio got hit by the bird on. It kind of spoiled me.

"Queebeck Land" is ridiculous, as is their idea of Canadian ethnic food.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Clearly the history of Busch Gardens will forever be divided into Before Fabio and Anno Fabio eras.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The amusement park I went to the most times as a kid was Kings Dominion. But I've never ridden a roller coaster there, due to being chicken.

I was going to say that this may have been wise, as a kid died on the Galaxie in 1983--but, considering as he stood up and got decapitated, this does not sound like a fate that could have befallen me. Kings Dominion seems to have had bad luck over the years with what amount to self-inflicted ride deaths.

[spatch]

Somehow I don't think they'd take "Where Darwin's Proven Right" as a park slogan. So I won't write to them.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Kings Dominion is in Virginia, with easy driving distance of where I spent my adolescence; I can confidently say that that's all the explanation one really needs.

[spatch]

I love Apollo's Chariot. I have informally named the front row far right seat The Fabio Seat in his, uh, honor. Saw no waterfowl near the ride today, but there was one cool water snake near the Loch Ness Monster.

The "New France" land they have is a cop out, no doubt about it, but at some point during the 1970s and 80s I think Federal law mandated that every theme park have some kind of Frontier Land. Not Busch's brightest moment, but they do have some very good barbecue there.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Without a Frontier Land, where do you put the log flume? QED.

[spatch]

Eggs-ackly.

Unless you're Tipsdrill Park in Germany, in which case you stick the flume in a castle and put guests in bathtubs.