MAN what a day. Did a typical CP Irvine thing and just grabbed my roommate/O-Phi-A sister/friend Kelly to do a Starlight night for the heck of it last minute. (She's been twice, once as a toddler and once with a grouchy non-coaster lover. Big fan of Kennywood, but hadn't been on anything bigger than Gemini at our park) Talk about thrilled...getting her first rides on Raptor, Magnum, and Force at the least with an old pro of the park :-) (AHH a giant moth that looks like an egg with wings just divebombed me...)
FIRST OFF...RAPTOR BEANIES! Just about lost it when I saw them and grabbed up one and a Force one. Kelly and I OD'ed on crap from the HB store, desk's loaded now. They're awesome though! I spent an entire night redoing half of room so every square inch is covered in CP stuff, and I needed to add on. So anyway (and this isn't going to be a typical TR from me, I'm tired and also tired of dealing with trying to post the last one, this one will be half-butt), after a frantic drive over the Causeway with me literally standing up and screaming out the moonroof to be back already, I got her on Gemini first for old time's sake, then took her around to CCMR for another warm-up and to say hi to Natalie ::waves:: :-) She wanted to hit C-screw and roam the gift shops a little and then I needed to drag her to Raptor (literally, she was constantly fighting chickening out). We wait out the PACKED queue and she wusses out up on the platform..I grab her by the shirt and drag her into the front line. Get her butt on the ride, she's grasping the assist bars for ALL she is worth and had that death-warmed-over look. I'm slightly worried, so I watch her face...halfway through the loop she's laughing and we come off with her saying "Oh my GOSH, oh my GOSH" and "That was AMAZING!"...so far so good!
Time for Magnum. I was beyond thrilled to finally get her on it, seeing she's heard me talk about it for the past year more times than she probably cared to. She stops for (literally) a ten-minute drink of water from the toilet-water fountains and then we head over to grab a few shots of me by Magnum with my tattoo showing. Wait out the short trip and we're up in the platform. I'm freaking out that she finally gets to ride my beloved Magnum, and she's just plain freaking out. I hear the world's longest-dragged-out "OH MY GOSHHHHH" going down the drop and through the ENTIRE ride. You could literally see the trail of OMG's following behind the train
cont...
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*-CP Irvine-* I know who's fault it is!
*The FewER, The Proud, The Po!nter Girls*
It was oddball being up on the platform for the first time in ::counts:: five years with someone who was not versed in the park or coasters...but Kelly's cool in that she's one of those people who isn't an -enthusiast- but just enjoys the ride for the ride. She could care less who it was made by, what year, and so on..but she loves to ride. We hit the tunnel brakes and she's wild-eyed, yelling "That was amazing!;" my hair's literally standing on end to hear what she had to say and her verdict was that she loved it. Well, duh! But still :-) Make my usual big scene about worshiping Magnum and making giant fool out of myself hugging and kissing assist bars, supports, etc, and split for Force.
Make the mistake of gettin hungry...she's not an eat-on-the-fly'er, so I end up fuming and pacing next to Coasters while she eats, and then gives me a rough time over having ONE SIP of her Orange. This is the same girl who ate half to 3/4 of my dorm food, leaving me ranting and raving, but then harrasses me over ONE SIP OF HER ORANGE. Then, after I raved about how good the Orange is, she turns to me in line for ID and says "You lied, that was bad Orange!" SO THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE GIVEN IT TO ME, SOMEONE WHO COULD RIGHTLY APPRECIATE IT! :-P How dare anyone blaspheme CP Orange?! I love my sister Tri-X, so she's forgiven...
After getting her to not go roaming to buy a shot glass, I weave my way to Force amidst a crowd that left me homicidal (you know, human Dodgems) and potty-mouthed. She hits the can for a pre-Force makeup regime (go figure) and I hit Toot Sweets for a cone (if the line's long at Force, must have snacks to entertain myself with). Order vanilla and I'm told it's soupy, or really hard and won't come out, I couldn't quite tell which. Change to chocolate, and this sweet guy, after finishing the cone to the top, gets the vanilla to work and puts a whole cone's worth of it on TOP of my choc and hands it to me with a smile!
cont...
Time to begin the Force worship ritual (voice goes up several octaves, knees go weak, point and moan "Gravity knows no force....oh my God, Fooooorrrrce"). I thought I was bad enough already with my elaborate Magnum worshiping, but now I have to do it 2X with the birth of the big MF. Kelly, her boyfriend, and everyone at Eastern (including profs) have heard me say "Welcome...to Millennium Force" and "At the turn of the millennium, there were signs..." so many times, I'm TRULY suprised that they have not shot me and shrunk my head by now. I have no shame anymore, I used to hide my Force worshiping but now I realize that Magnumaniacs can safely worship Force without forsaking their baby. Just remember to give your Magnum a hug and remind it it's still your number one...and then go kneel to Force.
Get in line with my hybrid monster cone and start jumping up and down and pointing at the lighting on the lift, as usual, for the next half-hour. Kelly ignores me by striking up a conversation with the people behind us while I howl the words to Lady Marmalade, still psyched from blasting the Force promo video earlier in the day loud as heck and yelling along to all the words. Kelly's messed up, I can tell. She has that crazed look in her eye that I only see when she's up at 4 AM furiously writing the essay she should have written a week ago and only has one word on the paper so far. She survives most of the queue, makes it to the "home stretch" (I just about SCREAMED when I heard a guy behind me say "Hey, the home stretch!" as we hit the ramp), and proceeds to spaz. I make her stand by the fence and watch a train go by and she turns to me after with a deer-in-headlights look. Starts double checking everything on her, and triple checking it, to make sure she doesn't lose her stuff, and over-reacting like crazy. Ramp goes by too fast and all of a sudden we're yanked out of line and thrown directly into 51! Kelly is now spazzing as if she's got a final in a class she never opened the book for. I didn't even get time to worship the announcement. We sit, and she can't get her seat belt plugged in...the announcement says the bit about keeping hands and arms inside and Kelly SCREAMS "NO!!!! WE CAN'T LEAVE YET!!! MY SEAT BELT WON'T WORK!" Starlight ticket: 23 bucks. Shot glass: 4 bucks. Kelly thinking the train would leave without her secured in: Priceless.
Was definitely like riding it for the first time all over again going with her. I was whuping and hollering like the world was ending and Kelly's just downright petrified. (People like her enable me to be my extremely loud, perky, and rah-rah self at the park, I love it) She had her eyes screwed solidly shut until I screamed at her that it would be worse if she did...she's agape all the way up and we reach the crest...I'm thinking, I will be responsible for Kels death, I can see it now, she won't survive this. First drop is one rousing, awe-inspiring "OH MY ****GOSH****" (yes she loves that sentence) out of her mouth. By the time we hit the tunnel I could tell she was loving every second of it but scared enough to warrant a pant-change. I'm in heaven that I had this perfect end to the day, enabling my sometimes very reserved friend to go outside of her normal boundaries and kick some A. We get off and she just keeps yelling "What a rush, what a rush, what a rush!" over and over. In another priceless moment, she says "Wow, Iron Dragon sure seems wussy after Magnum and Force!" :-)
Force was running flat-out tonight and amazing. They have the new banners up (which I would sell my soul for) with a picture of the drop and some magazine quotes surrounding it around the entrance...way too incredibly awesome.
Other highlights: Took Kelly to HB for her to see ("Wow, CP has a hotel! That's cool that they put it within walking distance of the gates!") and let her root up some goodies. We spent a good half hour in the store, and while we're looking she PUTS HER SHOT GLASS INSIDE HER SHIRT POCKET and says "I'll put this in here while I find a good beanie." I just about lost one and started telling her to get it the heck out of her pocket or we'd be spending some time with the cops. She insists that no one will be mad and she will take it out when she gets to the counter. Kelly can be naive at times and thought that was perfectly fine..I sweated the entire time I was in there and let her have it once we left the store.
She thought HB was great and loved the rotunda. Finally did something I had been meaning to for years. If/when I get married, it's going to darn well be on Magnum. Period. I've always wanted to get one of the CP garters to save if it ever happens, so I bought it tonight and made a big deal out of telling Kelly in the rotunda to remember "this moment" that I bought the garter so when I actually put it on when/if the day ever comes, she can remember I bought it on our first trip together.
Took her out to the Boardwalk and ran across some employees who, quite BLUNTly, looked as if they were tired of WEEDing the JOINT and wanted to spend some TOKEn time with the ride hostess hottie, MARY JANE. :-( Ugh...got scared and hid out in a bush with Kelly until the pack of creeps was gone. Took her by the pretzel of Magnum, watched the magic of it sail right over her head.
Last night she was over and while we were talking about the park, she was asking about Demon Drop. I was trying to explain how the ramp worked at the end of the drop, and she said "So, it doesn't just drop and go FOOM, into the ground?" Then today, while hunting for patches (after not listening to me that I had been in *-EVERY GIFT SHOP IN THE PARK, DANGIT-* with Dan in the past two weeks and even THEN didn't see all of them)she said "Wow, I didn't know Demon Drop counted as a coaster!" and I asked her what she meant. She said that everything else that had a patch was a coaster, so DD must be also. Guys! We have a NEW COASTER! That was easier than even Busch with their "Please be patient while we add a new coaster for your convenience"! Kelly pulled another frustrating, but endearing move: Anyone who is my ROOMIE for god's sake knows that my life is basically -BASED- on the park, so that would give that I would know at LEAST general things such as HOW DO I GET TO CP and WHERE IS IT LOCATED, right? (Yes, I use a lot of sarcasm in my TR's) We stop at Rite-Aid IN Sandusky on Perkins, and she asks the clerk, *while I am standing right next to her*, "How far is it from here to Cedar Point?"
This was an awesome trip. I've been through a lot of crap this year; being back large and in charge like usual and showing Kelly a heck of a good time put me really in perspective...really felt like MYSELF for the first time in a long time and had a worry-free, carefree day. I took her by Battery Park to check out the view on the way out and paid my respects for the night to the place that will always be my heart and soul.
"I don't know why I come here, but I know I'll never leave..it's the only place I want to be...yeah, yeah, yeah!"
Guess this turned out to be long after all :-)
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*-CP Irvine-* I know who's fault it is!
*The FewER, The Proud, The Po!nter Girls
OH MY GOSH!! ;) Talk about a massive TR - sounds like you guys had a lot of fun and laughs! I could just imagine someone like your friend freaking out on MF because of seatbelt trouble!
I LMAO at the "quite BLUNTly..." line!
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Steuks!!
Queen of TR's!! :)
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http://www.msu.edu/~armbrus9/cp.html mf laps = 100! No More No Less!!
::winks:: Thanks guys!
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*-CP Irvine-* I know who's fault it is!
*The FewER, The Proud, The Po!nter Girls*
Excellent TR as usual, Ms. Irvine. :)
*waves back!!*
Hope you enjoyed your ride on the Cedar Creek Mine Ride!
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Natalie
Mine Ride '99 (RIDE MINE!)
Thunder Canyon '00 (TC2K RULES, SNAKE DROOLS!)
Mine Ride ATL '01
Thanks Nat. :) Oh, as ALWAYS! I just miss the cuh-clank coming into the Incredible Spiral Helix :-) see you next time I'm around!
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*-CP Irvine-* I know who's fault it is!
*The FewER, The Proud, The Po!nter Girls*