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Sandusky, Ohio
A little less conversation, a little more action please
This past Thursday I had a scheduled flight out of Newark at 2:30pm. It left late (god damn Continental), leaving the gate sometime after 3:30 and taking off sometime after 4pm. The good news was that I was somehow lucky enough to get out of Newark before that damn blackout, the bad news was that my flight was headed to Cleveland.
The plane landed and we got to walk down (and then up) the stairs and into a dark terminal with confused, stranded people everywhere. Traffic lights and computers were down (making the Alamo car rental process somewhat long and memorable). I got one of the last rental cars (with half a tank of gas because the pumps were all down) and faithfully began the hour (or so) drive to Sandusky. I had reservations at the Hotel Breakers (walking distance to the park and on the Point), as I drove there I was the only one headed into the park, massive crowds were fleeing in every other direction. By 7:15pm I was at the hotel (with its long, dark, window free corridors) and waiting in an angry, dark line to check in. At 8pm the lights came on, one of the first areas in Ohio to get back power. Still it was close to another hour before I checked in (the only way to get a key to any room was to wait for the magnetic key computer to start working again), by 9pm I was in my room- the air conditioning blasting away the 90 degree humid air and making me damn glad I wasn't still in Cleveland. Or Newark.
The park itself resumed normal operations by Friday morning, including opening the temperamental and absolutely amazing Top Thrill Dragster coaster. As a reward for reading (or pretending to read) my unnecessarily long story (I am sure that most of you have better blackout stories anyway), I proudly present one of the coolest pictures I've ever mistakenly took. This is at the launch area of Top Thrill Dragster. Eighteen passenger cars move slowly along the track to the right hand of the picture, and then madly accelerate up to 120 miles per hour. In person it doesn't even look real- it looks like a bad ILM computer animation with some frames missing. This completely unaltered picture, taken at dusk with my point and shoot APS sports camera and 200 speed film, shows the exact moment (or moments) as the car goes from happily standing still to going way too fast. As an added bonus, the long exposure created a cool man without a face kind of guy in the foreground.
Top Thrill Dragster is very fast (120 mph) and very high (400 feet). It starts out on a long, straight run and then heads up vertically 400 feet on the right side of the tower. It then gives riders an excellent feeling of weightlessness before it heads straight down, spiraling down very, very fast the entire way. The whole ride is less than a minute.
Lines were not that long, still I only rode it twice (one 45 minute wait, one two hour wait). For comparison purposes, I rode the 300 foot, 92 mph Millennium Force four times that same day with no wait longer than 45 minutes. As I already alluded to, Top Thrill Dragster has been especially temperamental in its inaugural run. When it breaks down you can tell right away- it does not always get enough power to clear the top hill- it will sort of pause for a second and then just fall (damn fast) backwards back to earth. I had seen it break down at least three times that Friday, usually a half hour later things are back to (relative) normal.
I am not sure how to describe the Top Thrill Dragster experience other than saying it's just damn cool. Highly recommended, worth the trip.
This is a view looking straight up the tower, attentive viewers may notice the eighteen passengers hurling towards the earth on their way back to the heavily themed station.
A few more views of Top Thrill Dragster. This is the chaos view, Top Thrill Dragster is in the foreground (its heavily themed station is on the left), while Mantis and Iron Dragon continue their business undaunted by their brash new neighbor.
Another view of the 120 mph launch. On the right is a little grandstand where the squeamish wait, watch and wonder why anyone would be so stupid to ever strap themselves in just to go 120 mph for like 30 seconds.
Top Thrill Dragster breaks down often, at least three times the day I was there. What happens is that the ride shoots people up very, very fast but not fast enough- they soon find themselves unable to clear the hill as they fall backwards to the station. Twenty minutes of testing later they decide to try again, the same people (usually) still strapped in and waiting, hoping this time will be the one.
Meanwhile, underneath the grandstand is the single most dangerous thing in all of Cedar Point- a food stand where I bought a boneless rib barbeque sandwich. To this day I remain unconvinced that the sandwich was boneless or ribs or even barbeque.
A last view of Millennium Force, still my favorite one there. Top Thrill Dragster has speed and height and that terrifying launch, but Millennium Force has character (and 92 mph, down 300 feet at an 80 degree angle). There's this one point where you're quickly ascending the hill, realizing how damn high you're getting when suddenly the coaster picks up speed- you can feel the collective terror run through everyone else as you begin to wish that you still felt such fear towards such an innocent coaster. Then after that unbelievably steep descent you make that first turn and almost black out. Fun.
This picture was taken as I drove out of the park, a last view, at least for a while
Eerily similar to the first slide, (ok, it's the exact same damn thing) rescanned and blown up to show in fuzzy detail that moment when eighteen strangers are caught in time...
