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Mason, Ohio
The waiting is the hardest part
It takes three hours by train to travel between London and Brussels, to walk twelve miles (at a reasonable pace), to drive from my house to Baltimore (that is if I'm driving) or to fly from Newark to, I don't know, let's say Denver. Or you could spend those same three hours waiting with several thousand anxious coaster fans in the woods of southern Ohio. It's all a matter of priorities.
This is "Son of Beast" at Kings Island, just north of Cincinnati. The world's first ever looping wooden roller coaster. There were no shoulder harnesses, only a lap bar. The ride itself felt as rough as you could imagine.
I only rode this one time (the slow moving line proved somewhat prohibitive).
Can you find the loop?
Next up this is the legendary first drop on Millennium Force (at Cedar Point, on the lake in Sandusky, Ohio) where I plummeted from 310 feet down to 10 feet at a relatively intense 80 degrees. 92 mph never felt so good.
The chaos that is Cedar Point (“America’s Roller Coast!”) as seen from the Millennium Force line (the trains on Millennium Force are moving away then to the right, almost back to the station). On the left is Mantis (a pretty intense stand up coaster), with the Iron Dragon (an ok suspended car coaster) behind. In the center is the Power Tower freefall up/down ride. And I rode them all, as often as I could.
Meanwhile in Washington DC, the Washington Monument is being restored. Normally this would be a bad time to be there, but instead there is this amazing scaffolding up around it designed by architect Michael Graves, one of the (if not the) most inspired design he’s ever done. Just beautiful. You almost hate to see it come down.
I’ve never flown on TWA (only Pan Am, Eastern, Virgin Atlantic, American, Air Canada, Northwest, Hawaiian, Continental and Virgin Express, so far). So I’ve never flown out of the amazing TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport, which is always worth a visit.
I was at JFK anyway picking up some family, and I have read that this building is potentially going to close down, so I made sure to get inside while the getting was still good. The building (designed by Eero Saarinen) is just spectacular. Hopefully it somehow stays operational with TWA, or whoever ends up buying TWA in the future.
