Wally World!

If all goes according to plan, this will be a relatively short update. Then again, things rarely go according to plan so I’m not making any guarantees (well, maybe a UPS-style guarantee). The reason for a potentially short update is that today was a non-travel day and I essentially didn’t do much. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did quite a bit but it was all at one place.

As mentioned in yesterday’s update, today would be spent at a local attraction (or at least a somewhat local attraction). The attraction was Six Flags Magic Mountain. The current centre of the universe for roller coasters. Apparently Magic Mountain and Cedar Point (in Ohio) go back and forth as being the King of the Coasters. I went to Cedar Point once – a LONG time ago. At the time, it was great but It’s my understanding that Magic Mountain is currently the reigning King of Coasters.

The thought of going to Magic Mountain had never really occurred to me. To be honest, I’m not really sure I even knew about it, other than by name. I certainly didn’t know where it was. But now I do. It’s near Santa Clarita and it was about 100 km from Ken’s place so, no, we didn’t cycle there. Two of Ken’s friends also came along for the adventure.

The park is on shortened hours now that peak season is over which in one regard meant less time to ride the coasters. On the flip side, the crowds were relatively small which meant more time to ride the coasters. Either way, we ended up getting onto nine coasters by the end of the day. They were all pretty great and each had their own gimmick – speed, suspended, inverted, loops, steep drops, stand up, wooden, hybrid, etc …

While they were all great … some were “more great” than others. It worked out particularly well (and perhaps not by chance) that the last coaster of the day ended up being my favourite – although we were somewhat fortunate to get on it. It was nearing the end of the day and we were literally the next people to board the coaster when they had technical difficulties. After about ten minutes it seemed more and more unlikely that they would get it fixed before the end of the day. But they did. And there was much applause from the remaining passengers when the ride started moving again.

The ride was X2 and it’s quite a feat of engineering. Not only does the the track lead you down a 90 degree drop, with the usual collection of loops, turns, twists, but while the track is leading your ride, and your seat is rotating as well. Simple put, it was very disorienting and a LOT of fun.

Batman: The Ride and Apocalypse get honourable mentions as my next favourites. These two coasters are completely different from each other. Batman: The Ride is a suspended coaster so your feet are free to fly all over the place during the ride. And they do! Let me just say that it’s a very difficult to take photos during the ride. Very difficult. On the other hand, Apocalypse is your traditional wooden roller coaster. It rattles. It shakes. It tosses you around with reckless abandon. It may not be as fast as the other more modern coasters but in some ways it feels faster – that’s the beauty of the old wooden roller coasters.

The other coaster that deserves mention (well, they all deserve mention but they’re not all going to get it) is Twisted Colossus. This is a hybrid coaster. It runs on steel track but it’s built on the frame of an old wooden roller coaster. Before it was converted to it’s current state, it was the wooden coaster which was used in the original National Lampoon’s Vacation movie. If that’s not reason enough to love the ride, then I don’t know what is.

Just to be clear, there are more than nine roller coasters at Magic Mountain, but time only allowed us to ride nine of them. With Ken being a veteran of the park, he did a great job selecting the coasters.

The day ended up with a quick stop at Jack In The Box for a delicious, yet artery-clogging, burger and fries. It seemed like a fitting place to end the day.

As for this being a short update, well … I tried.