New Look

Hopefully more readable. Tell me what you think?

Wild Rides

Roller coasters. Little train rides on rickety-looking tracks, featuring high-speed plummets, neck-whipping turns, and stomach-twisting loop-de-loops. Invariably they feature names that sound monstrous or death-defying. Names like Oblivion or Phantom's Revenge. I've been on only two in my life, a kiddie-coaster at Funtown, USA, and a grown-up (albeit small) coaster at Palace Playland in OOB. The last one was 20 years ago, and I didn't enjoy it. Only crazy people go on roller coasters.

Crazy people like my brother-in-law's partner Frank. In addition to being crazy, however, Frank is easy going, fun loving, and persuasive. Devilishly persuasive. "You gonna ride the coaster with me?" he asks, referring to Kraken, the big blue mass of twisting steel at Sea World. (Kraken bones, perhaps?) I'm looking up at it rising behind the stadium in which I'm watching the sea lion show. I'm skeptical, and not much of a fan of heights. It looks tall. It is tall!

"It's not that bad." Frank's lived in Florida for 15 years or so, but he's got a strong, if soft-spoken, Brooklyn accent.

"It'll be fun!"

Can you trust a guy who sounds like he should have a name like Frankie the Fish?

"It'll be a good warm up for SheiKra." (Shreik-ra?). SheiKra is the new coaster at Busch Gardens in Tampa. We've bought a two-day pass with the intention of hitting Busch Gardens in a coupld of days (both parks are owned by Anheuser-Busch).

I've seen the pictures. SheiKra's first drop is 200 feet. Straight down. It's the only dive coaster in the USA. I have no intention of going on SheiKra. However, as a compromise I agree to ride Kracken. Frank really wants to ride it, and it's no fun to go alone. Did I mention how persuasive Frank is?

I get strapped in to Kracken, and the car starts the climb. It's going up. Very high. I can see a long way as we climb, and I wonder what I've gotten myself into. Soon I find out - steep drop into a big loop, sharp turns, twists, climbs, dives. It's a quick ride, and I'm a little shaky getting off. It was OK. Actually, I have a big smile on my face from the adreneline.

Another compromise. I'll ride one or two coasters at Busch Gardens, but I won't ride SheiKra.

We arrive at Busch Gardens two days later. It's Halloween. It's a Tuesday, and the park is very quiet. The first coaster that we arrive at is Gwazi (sounds like a jungle beast), a long, fast twin wooden coaster. Frank doesn't like it bacause it bangs you around a lot, but I kind of want to give it a try, because it's a novelty. My nephew Jason wants to go, so we get in line together. The first disappointment is that only one of the two cars is running. This means that we won't go screaming by a bunch of other people travelling 60 mph in the opposite direction. It also means that there is a long line, exacerbated by the fact that this is the coaster closest to the entrance.

The long line allows us to take a good look at the undercarriage of this huge structure. Eh, kind of rickety looking, though I'm told that it's only a few years old (I'm also told that it will be torn down in the near future). This adds to the excitement. As we wait in line, we can also see SheiKra in the distance. Cars climb slowly to the top, go around a sharp 180-degree corner, then approach the precipice. Slowly they reach the edge of the 200-foot plummet. Then the car stops as the riders look straight down, 200 feet. SheiKra lets them consider this for about five seconds. And then they are gone.

It's a long line on Gwazi, and we see this scene repeated over and over. I'm not riding SheiKra. Finally we get on board, and Gwazi takes up to 60 miles an hour in it's first plummet, removing the gravity from below our seats. I can't see the track in front of us. There are no loop-de-loops on this one, but it makes up for them with fast twists and turns, and the potential that something is going to break from underneath. It's another good ride, more fun for me then Kracken was, making up a bit for the 45-minute wait.

We catch up with the others at the hospitality tent, having a beer. I have a quick drink (they are complementary), then we head off to the birds. As we continue our trek around the park, we approach SheiKra. It doesn't look any more pleasant up close (see left).

"You gotta do it once, just to say you did it."

Frankie the Fish has spoken, and soon he, Jason and I are quickly walking up the stairs. Unlike Gwazi, there is no line for SheiKra (nor will there be any for the rest of the day, this being off season and mid-week). This isn't necessarily a good thing. There's no time to reconsider, and no justification ("the line is too long") for turning back. Soon we are climbing. Waaay up. Soon we are on thes thin little rails curling around a corner 200 feet in the air. It doesn't seem very sturdy to me. I'm openly questioning my own sanity. Then a jolt, and we slowly inch over the edge. There are only three rows in this car, and we're in the last one. I'm actually not looking straight down - I can't see the bottom of the drop from back here. This is good.

For a couple of seconds (that seem like about a minute). Before I know it, we are plummeting straight down. It happens so fast that I don't have time to soil myself. Soon we are in a big loop.

WhooooooOOOOOOOOaaaaaaaaaaaaa! A couple more twists an then we climb again and .....

What? Another 90-degree dive? Nobody told me about this!

The second dive is not as long, then it comes up into a nice twist and a plummet into a pool, allowing the car to splash water on unsuspecting passers-by. Then we are done.

(Here is a video showing the whole ride. Hang on!)

At this point I am hooked. Since there is no line, and since we didn't actually get to look straight down, we make the quick climb back to ride again. This time we are in the second row (the line for the first row is a little longer). The ride continues to be frightening, but exhilerating.

Afterwards, I ride three more coasters. Scorpion is smaller but it's tight loop-de-loop generates some serious G-forces. Montu is an inverted coaster that whips you around the outside of the curves. Both good rides. But for my money, the best coaster at Busch Gardens is Kumba, with 130-foot drops, 60-mph turns, and a world-class corkscrew. It is an incredible rush.

The twists of Kumba.

So now I am a crazy person, and I can't wait to get back to Busch Gardens and ride the coasters again. It brings a entirely new world of possibilities for future vacations.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Phew!

I'm on the train, riding home from Boston, and thus ending a two-month stretch in which I:

• Drove to Vermont
• Flew to DC
• Flew to Dallas
• Drove to Vermont
• Flew to Florida
• Rode the Downeaster to Boston

Except for the Florida trip, all have been for business. Ordinarily I welcome the business travel, if only for the opportunity to write for my blogs. As many of you are aware, I have not been doing that. I have usually been travelling with others, leading to an inordinate amount of evening activity. Furthermore, I've just had no time to catch my breath, and have been too tired to put a lot of thought into writing.



Not that all has been bad. My trip to Montpelier and Vergennes in October was past the peak foliage season and most of the leaves were either brown or on the ground. This doesn't stop the hotels from being packed with tourists, and because I'm not the greatest organizer in the world, I was too late to get into my go-to hotel in Montpelier, which was sold out for the nights I was in town. I still enjoy the leaves at this time of year, despite their lack of peak color. The varying shades of brown and sienna are starkly beautiful, and one can look deep into the understory of the leaf-matted woods and see the serene emptiness. It is still early enough in the year that one can safely take the north route through the mountains without fear of sliding off the road into a snowbank. The White Mountains of New Hampshire loom large and muscular on a clear day, and the extensive stand of white birches of Shelburne are spectacular in the morning sunshine.



I am also happy to report that I was pleased to find some nice restaurants in Vergennes, a pretty little town about 15 miles south of Burlington. I have a friend in the area, and she took me to Park Squeeze, a warm little hole-in-the-wall that features local, organic food and drink, including the wonderful organic Wolaver brews from the local Otter Creek Brewery. With help, I've been more successful at sniffing out good places to eat in outlying Vermont towns than I was a few months ago.



Though scenic, driving between Maine and Vermont is no picnic. It takes me four hours to go between Brunswick and Montpelier regardless if I take the scenic route or the Interstate. Still, driving is a pleasure when compared to flying just about anywhere. In the past six weeks, I've seen the inside of the following airports: Portland, ME; NY - Laguardia; NY - JFK; Philadelphia; Washington National; Dallas; Tampa; and Sarasota. I've seen security ranging from the quick shoes/carryon xray zipthrough in quiet Sarasota (where I received my first-ever Homeland Security patdown - I passed), to the mysterious air-puff scanner in DC. I've had flights delayed due to weather-related air traffic backup, and due to the unwillingness for a plane to start up at 6:00 on a cold Tuesday morning. And I've seen everything from surly, not-gonna-discuss-it ticket agents (DC again - not directed at me), to the ultra-friendly, ultra-fashionable staff at Jet Blue.



Jet Blue - now there's an airline! This discount carrier arrived in Portland a few months ago, and their service and attitude are unlike any other airline that I've flown. Reservations are easy, as was the cancellation of one of our party's flight. Jet Blue boasts self-checkin kiosks, at which we received more prompt and courteous human assistance than most "agented" ticket counters. On board the seats have plenty of legroom and your own personal satellite television screen. Ordinarily I like to read on the plane, but who can resist watching the 1978 battle between college football titans USC and Alabama on ESPN Classic? And the icing on the Jet Blue cake is their stylishly-painted tails, which feature blue patterns ranging from pinstripes to harlequin patterns and often match the suits and accents of the in-flight crew.



Even a terrific airline like Jet Blue is a pain in the ass to fly, however. For a short flight on the eastern seaboard, one might spend more time at the airport (including taxiing time) than in the air. And it's depressing to approach security and see the box full of potentially lethal half-used jars of lotion or tubes of toothpaste. These containers exceed the acceptable 3.5 ounces of capacity that might render them harmless. Sometimes they are in a plastic baggy that is too big to be safe. And as silly as all this seems, perhaps the most depressing thing about air travel is witnessing how obsessively connected American society needs to be these days.



This is more evident in airports than any other place I've seen. In Dallas I watched a woman conduct a business meeting using her laptop (and $10 wireless internet connection!) and cell phone. After boarding a plane in DC, a woman in front of me was working on an email on her laptop while the young man next to me was furiously sending text messages with both his cell phone and his blackberry until about two minutes after we were asked to turn off electronic devices. After the flight attendant (link) informed us that we would be delayed for a while at the gate and electronic devices could be used in the meantime, the cell phone, blackberry and laptop were all whipped out again. When it came time to once again turn off the electronics, laptop lady again kept desperately typing away at an email, even giving the flight attendant a head fake, "I'm closing the screen, see?" then resuming after the attendant continued down the aisle.



Perhaps it appears hypocrical of me to pass judgment on these people as I sit here on the train, pecking away at my keyboard. It feels different to me, however, as I am at the moment not connected to the outside world. This is my first trip on the Downeaster, and it's been a to ride. For one thing, there is ample leg room - much more than on the Boston - Portland bus. I can actually sit comfortably with my laptop on the tray in front of me. The seats are wider, too, and today it's much less crowded than the bus (having several passenger cars will do that). It's a little more expensive than the bus, and takes about 1/2 hour longer due to the additional stops, but the comfort and the cafe car (Booze for sale! Whoo hoo!) more than compensate. I'll still take the bus if I'm going someplace near South Station, but in going to North Station (my training was across the street), nothing beats the train. At $44/person, it doesn't seem all that economical compared to driving when two or more are travelling unless one is going to park for a couple of days, but sometimes the worry-free comfort is worth the extra expense.



And so I've reached the end of my ride, and the end of my travels for a little while. I look forward being able to relax, perhaps catch up on my sleep and excercise, and get back to a normal diet. I also hope to find more time to reflect on the elections, add to the summer/fall book review series, do some off-season baseball analysis, write about my golf exploits, and reflect on my new-found passion for roller coasters.



But first, I think I need a nap.