A great Sunday 9/26

This was my trip to recover from the three weeks of hell that the beginning of Fall Term is on campus. My coasterbud, Catherine and I were joined by Ian and his GF, Donna who decided on Friday to come with us. This meant a trip to A2 on Saturday morning to pick them up.

On the road by 6:30 am, the plan was to stop at the McDonald's in Oregon for coffee and mcmuffins, but we were rudely surprised to see there was nothing but dirt where Mc Donald's used to be. Must be a trend as the White Castle near our house was also a pile of dirt. I didn't notice whether they were rebuilding or not. Guess we'll figure that one out next year.

We were happy to see TTD testing when we pulled into the parking space near Gemini at 8:45 am, and it was our first stop when the gates opened to JC and hotel guests at 9 am.

We were in the 4th train of the day, green, in the second row, with Ian and Donna in the row behind us. From our pre-launch position, we watched the train before us launch and literally race across the tophat instead of the usual gentle roll over.

Whether that previous fast run was a factor in our launch speed or not, I don't know, but when our train launched and we climbed the tower, the front of the train barely made the first curve of the tophat before we felt the weightlessness of hangtime and erupted into ecstatic cheers as we realized we were going to rollback.

I think it was rather obvious to the ride op that no one was concerned from the cheers and handslapping going on from all of the occupants. The re-launch, though was one of the fastest we've ever been on, and like the train before us, we literally sped over the tophat and had a pretty strong brake at the end.

The disappointment of the day was Catherine discovering the test seatbelt for MF was even shorter than two months ago...and this after she'd lost even more weight. I suspect they shortened the belt on the test seat once again, but even though MF was a walkon, she didn't want to take a chance of trying and being embarassed on the platform. I rode with Ian and Donna, then let them ride again while Catherine and I waited.

It took a ride on Mean Streak where Catherine noticed how much more slack she had in the belt before the sting of MF left. We rode MS twice because we had such a great ride in the gold train the first time.

Some of the other highlights include laughing and reminiscing at the dead ride graveyard...even more so for me since I'd been going to CP since 1966 and remembered most of the "dead" rides.

Most everything was a walk-on. We even got a second ride on TTD in mid afternoon (generally the busiest time of the day) with only a 20 minute wait. It was funny seeing people lined up for Freeway when the lines were so short to begin with.

Catherine and I rode some old favorites we hadn't done at CP in a while, including Scrambler, Tilt-a-Whirl, and she even braved the Giant Wheel. Ian and Donna rode Woodstock Express for the first time and Ian admitted it was more fun that it looked, even for a "kiddie" ride. We wore our sunglasses on Disaster Transport to make it feel even darker and Ian mentioned DT seemed more "out of control" than normal. The "captain" of our boat on the paddlewheel excursion, Hector, delivered the old corny jokes with much enthusiasm, added a few I hadn't heard before, and it was a much more enjoyable ride than the last one we had where the captain was monotone and disinterested. Lively ride ops certainly make it a better experience.

We went through U.R.Dade, Lair of the Vampire and Pharoah's Secret haunted houses, putting Donna first figuring she'd be the funniest to watch getting jumped at, although Catherine got surprised one herself. Lair is better than Toxic was, although none of the houses really frighten me.

Of course, I had to have some moments of craziness to remind Ian how embarassing it can be to go to CP with mom. It helped there were a couple of songs from Rocky Horror Picture show playing on the midways (Rock Lobster and Time Warp) that had routine dance moves that I was familiar with from science fiction convention dances.

We had muffins and iced coffee for breakfast at Donut Time, and Catherine suggested burgers at Famous Dave's. I was impressed by the food and the service, and liked the burger enough to search out a Famous Dave's in our hometown and try the BBQ.

We left around 6:30 because I had to get Ian and Donna back to their dorms in Ann Arbor. I took the turnpike to US-23 and was amazed that people were travelling at 80 mph! I thought the speed limit on the turnpike was 65 mph. I pretty much stuck to the middle lane to avoid the much slower trucks and stay out of the way of the people racing by. There were a lot of "weavers", people cutting in and out of traffic and causing people to hit the brakes because of it.

I can't imagine the turnpike is much safer than Route 2 under those kinds of driving conditions. Sure, I'm not as likely to be hit head on by some a$$ trying to pass on the two lane stretch, but I think I'd rather take my chances on that brief 2 lane road at 60 mph than having someone pull an assinine move at 80 mph. *** Edited 9/27/2004 2:49:46 PM UTC by OldCPer***

I was there the previous day, TTD had problems all day, we got in line to use our freeway and it broke down for 5 hours, got a ride though after the park closed in the front, and had the same situation happen to me, the train launched before ours and cleared it flying, and we didn't even make it to the curve...

the weird thing was after we rolled back they transfered the train we were in off, and transfered the red one on, launched and flew over the top hat, I wasn't even in my seat untill cresting the bottom hill into the brakes.

TTD has something weird going on with it, did it have problems all day Sunday or was it pretty consistant, the mechanics did work on it for a long time when it was down on Saturday.

I was therre sunday to and it was awesome and i didn't have to wait at all for the haunted houses we just walk right in.

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CPLady said:
The disappointment of the day was Catherine discovering the test seatbelt for MF was even shorter than two months ago...and this after she'd lost even more weight. I suspect they shortened the belt on the test seat once again..

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Unfortunately, the seatbelt on MF has not been shortened any from it's length on opening day.

If the discrepancy cannot be attributed to wearing different clothes, you most likely happened upon the seat when the belt was slightly stretched out. Although it is replaced regularly, the 300+ pulls it receives on an average day start to strech the belt out.

We didn't try it on MF itself, only the test seat. Do they replace that one frequently??

Good news McDonalds in Oregon is rebuilding my cousin is a manager there. So, you'll be able to get mcmuffins and coffe next spring.

It was a great trip despite the disappointment with MF's test seat. We'll see what happens Oct 24 when we go back... maybe I'll even be "brave" and risk the humiliation of them chasing me out of the queue. There were other women who looked like my body size/type who were riding, so we shall see...

My post was in reference to the test seat...but also applies to the seats on each train. The only difference being that each seatbelt on the actual trains only receives around 100 pulls a day.

OldCPer said:
...The "captain" of our boat on the paddlewheel excursion, Hector, delivered the old corny jokes with much enthusiasm, added a few I hadn't heard before, and it was a much more enjoyable ride than the last one we had where the captain was monotone and disinterested. Lively ride ops certainly make it a better experience...

Awwww thank you, I try. I absolutely LOVED working on Paddlewheel, and it makes me happy when people enjoyed themselves.