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 Before the rain started, it was an awesome day. My only complaint was that they only had one train going on Mamba, Patriot, and Boomerang. Also, Timber Wolf was closed until late afternoon with workers on its first turnaround. But that's a good sign.
Anyway, when I got into the park, my friend Hannah and I headed for RipCord and waited for them to get everything ready. It was her first time, so it was a lot of fun to watch her.
Then, of course, we walked up to Patriot, which was, like I said, running only one train. I suppose it goes without saying that I like two-train operation better. But the lines were still minimal (never out of the station). We got on that twice (once in the back, once in the second-to-last row) and promised that we would come back and ride it more later (which we never did). But the ride itself was running very well. When we sat in the back row, a woman I've never met turned to me and told me it was great and a lot smoother than it looked. Yay! Fans!
When we saw that Timber Wolf was closed, we walked over to Thunderhawk (for some reason I almost typed "Renegade"... go figure), which was very rough. But the water was off, so that's nice.
We then continued on the usual loop and hit Detonator. OMG. Detonator was running better than I've ever seen it run in my life. We got at least three seconds of violent airtime at the top, which was AWESOME. But then, we got another second or so of violent airtime the second time we went up. I wasn't expecting that.
Mamba was also running very well, even though it was a one-train operation. We got in the first row of the back car. I keep forgetting to go to the third row. Gah. But the drop was the best I've ever had on Mamba. I don't know if I was in a weird position or if I was looking at something that I've never looked at during the drop or what. It was crazy. The second hill wasn't quite as good as it usually is, though. Later in the day, we saw a train *almost* roll back from the first bunny hop. I was laughing my head off, of course. It would be the most awesome thing ever if a CF coaster vallied because the brakes were too high. My friends thought I was insane. Oh well.
After that, we had an expensive lunch at Coasters and took the loop all the way to Fjord Fjarlane (which I can never pronounce - but who can?). When we got on, we must have waited at least ten minutes for the ride to start. Seriously, the operator kept letting people in when they came up. The last batch of people could have been getting on anyway if she'd started the ride in a timely manner.
After lunch, we had a check-in at Le Carrousel (this was a church trip). We decided to stay with my pregnant-and-therefore-unable-to-ride-anything Youth Director and her two kids (one going into 5th grade, one going into 1st grade). We thought the train would probably be the only thing she could ride. Apparently, they don't let pregnant people ride the train either. She did anyway. It doesn't have anything that could really hurt a fetus or an embryo. And she really isn't very pregnant yet. Of course, we happened to sit right by the loudspeaker.
The first grader wanted to go to Camp Snoopy, so we trekked there. I didn't really feel the need to ride Wacky Worm for the fourth time, so I made my friend ride with her. We walked around Camp Snoopy for a while and she rode stuff. Eventually she got back to Woodstock's Airmail, which I sort of wanted to ride. It was okay, but it was a little awkward to sit in the one "big people" seat. We waited for her to ride Camp Bus, and then went into Peanuts Playground. I think it’s idiotic that they don't let you in without a child, because everyone has the same amount of fun once they get in. I'd never been inside one of these before, and it was awesome. Find yourself a kid and play around in here for a while.
It was getting very cloudy at this point and I had noticed that Mamba hadn't sent out any trains for a while. We walked to Detonator and saw that it was closed. Employees were telling guests that there was a Tornado Watch for this area until 10:00 pm. I called my dad, who was watching people across from The Flying Dutchman. We went there and walked under the roof. Then the rain started.
First it was sprinkling. Then it was raining normally. Then it was pouring. And then it was dumping sheets and sheets of water. And then it stopped just as suddenly as it has started. But that was just the first wave. There were three more to come. Between waves, we got three rides on Le Taxi Tour, two rides on The Flying Dutchman, and one ride on Le Carrousel.
My Youth Director got a call from her husband, who was at home watching the weather that the last wave appeared to have gone. My friend, my Youth Director's fifth grader, and I decided to see what was open. It was like a ghost town. It was one of the creepiest feelings I've ever experienced. There must have been about 400 people in the entire park. Basically, the only things that were open were in Scandinavia. The fifth grader got me on Finnish Fling, which was a big mistake. So I was very dizzy and disoriented when we got in line for Octopus. About thirty seconds into our ride, it started raining. A few seconds later, they shut it down for inclement weather, which I thought was a little weird since it was only sprinkling. Now I'm very glad they shut it down when they did.
We got under the shelter by Sunset Strips just in time. This wave was WAY more powerful than any of the others. These weren't just sheets of water; this was like full comforters of water. It was like that for a few minutes, and the shelter got very crowded. And then it started to hail. Everyone in the shelter was pretty amazed. Then an employee ran down the stairs to us and yelled, "EVERYBODY LISTEN! THIS IS A TAKE COVER SITUATION! YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW ME!" So my friend, the fifth grader, and I were freaking out a little as we ran with the crowd up the stairs and to Tivoli Music Hall. It must have been locked, because they didn't let us in. That was odd. The shelter by Sunset Strips was way more protected. It turned out that we only had to take cover because of the hail, but it was still considerably frightening. All three of us were full of adrenaline now and calling people like crazy. I called my mom at home to tell her what happened, and then I called my dad, who was with the Youth Director. Now it was about 7:00 pm. We weren't scheduled to leave until 9:00, when the park closed. But the Youth Director said that they had opened the bus and that we were leaving early. That was a little relieving. My gut instincts were telling me that the best thing to do would be to get out of the park before the next gigantic wave. It was still pouring, but the hail had slowed, so we seized the chance and ran like madmen. In retrospect, we probably didn't need to run. We were already soaking wet. It wouldn't have made much difference. But I think we were all so full of energy at that point that we needed to run around a little bit.
When we got to the bus, our wonderful bus driver had paper towels and a warm heater. That made up for the fact that he missed the exit to Worlds of Fun at the beginning of the day. When everyone was accounted for - all equally soaked and equally adrenalized - we popped in Finding Nemo (because we were all wet) and headed to a McDonald's in Kearny. We hadn't planned to do that, but it was a nice stop. It was a good chance to exchange stories and talk about the less exciting parts of the day (like RipCord). I had already eaten - I had a delicious "Oh Boy" pizza - so I just got a McFlurry.
It's a three hour drive from Kansas City to Des Moines. We left at 7:30, but, because of the rain, we didn't get back until 11:00.
This was by FAR the most action-packed and memorable day I've ever had at Worlds of Fun. |
