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August 16, 2008
Nursing an Adrenaline Hangover
I'm way behind with posting right now because I haven't written anything about "Into the Corn", the little road trip I took this past week. I will write about that at some point but today's post is about yesterday's trip to Valleyfair, the Twin Cities amusement park in Shakopee. I was going to write this up as an email and send it to my friend Aimee in New York because she's a roller coaster junkie, but then I decided to just post it here.
Yesterday's excursion has been in the works for a long time (with logistics handled by my sister-in-law, Sara) and though I originally didn't think I'd be able to make it, I'm glad I was. I hadn't been to Valleyfair for over ten years so there were a lot of rides that I had never even seen, much less ridden. Of course all the old rides like the Corkscrew, High Roller (which we always called the "White Roller Coaster" and the one that I was afraid of for many years as a kid because I actually shed blood while riding it) and Excalibur.
Most of the new rides built in the last ten years were great. Wild Thing is just your standard roller coaster but it's pretty good. It doesn't quite compare to Apollo's Chariot at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg (which I have been to in the past ten years), but it's high and fast nonetheless. The other new coaster is an old school wooden one called Renegade which has a twisting drop on the first hill. It's a bit rough and my vision was actually blurred for the entirety of the ride because of the vibrations, but the ride is great and has lots of stomach turning twists and drops. We would've ridden it more often if the line hadn't been so long.
My favorite of the new coasters was Steel Venom, which opened in 2003. It's not a roller coaster in the traditional sense because it simply goes back and forth along a track. Riders are first launched at 55 mph up a 90-degree, twisting track, then fall back down and go up the back side of the ride. This ride was especially good because both times I rode, I was sitting in the front car with feet dangling and nothing to obstruct the forward view. When going up the twisting, forward portion of the ride, it actually feels like the train is going to fly off the track, and the view from the front is nearly all sky. The coaster is similar to Kingda Ka at Great Adventure in New Jersey but is a junior version because it only goes half as fast and one third as high. However, it's still a great ride, especially from the front and especially when riding with my brother, John who was a bit scared that there was nothing in front of us.
The other new-to-me rides which I was impressed by were the Xtreme Swing and Power Tower. Xtreme Swing is just that, a giant swing that goes 60 mph in both directions. We must have ridden this half a dozen times and it never got old. At the peak of the ride rider's literally face the ground and then swing around to face the sky on the other side. It also sounds like its powered by steam and it makes cool swooshing noises. I may have to do some research to find out how it actually works.
Power Tower, next to the swing, also appears to be steam powered and is actually two rides in one. It consists of three columns, two which drop riders from 250 feet, and the other which shoots upwards 250 feet. Shooting up in the air was good, but doing the drop portion of the ride was even better for two reasons. First, I am a bit afraid of heights. Roller coasters don't bother me because there is structure underneath, but when I feel like there is nothing under me I get a bit freaked out. On Power Tower, riders are basically sitting in a chair 250 feet off the ground with no floor. Secondly, once up in the air, the ride pauses for nearly ten seconds (building up steam?) before it drops, with no warning, to the ground. So, as if a long delay up in the air with nothing under my feet wasn't scary enough, the drop to ground intensifies the feeling. I especially liked the ride because it scared me so much, leading to a great thrill and much yelling when riding it, which we did twice.
Overall, the rides at Valleyfair may not be as high or fast as the ones in other theme parks around the country, but it's much less crowded which means shorter lines for the rides and more bang for the buck. This year's trip will most likely become a yearly tradition and I'm already looking forward to going back and screaming my head off some more.
Posted on August 16, 2008 at 11:51 AM
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