Morgan B

Birth of a Roller Coaster Obsession

“You’re going to have to do it one day.” My mom was becoming very irritated just because I wouldn’t ride Space Mountain.

            “I don’t see what the big deal is. I just don’t want to ride it.” I crossed my arms in a defiant way to show her that she was wrong.

            “Morgan, look at all of the little kids getting off, it isn’t going to hurt you,” she replied as if she knew exactly why I wouldn’t ride, and that was why.

            I never said it would hurt me; I just don’t want to ride it. I wouldn’t say my thought out loud, but I would think it every time she brought that up. Just because I didn’t want to ride something didn’t mean I was terrified. We were in the Space Mountain Gift shop in Orlando’s Disney World in summer 2011. We were waiting for my dad and brother, Alex, to come out of the ride’s exit so my mom could have a turn. My mom was trying to talk me into riding Space Mountain instead of sitting around and waiting.

            The gift shop was filled with flashing lights, t-shirts, toys, arcade games, and things that could serve as souvenirs. The music was very loud, but it sounded awesome. It was kind of spooky, but also the kind that you would here in Star Wars. It was futuristic, but modern at the same time. I could hear the arcade games in the background. The ching of the coins as they entered the machines, the cheers of the kids that had won, the parents calling to their children that it was time to leave.

              Finally, my dad and brother came out of the ride, and my brother returned to it with my mom. My dad took me over to the arcade. He wouldn’t admit it, but it was for him, not me. He just got me some tokens to use. We had a long talk about how I didn’t want to ride Space Mountain while we played air hockey. Nobody in my family seemed to understand that I just didn’t want to. I was twelve, and I wasn’t afraid of some silly roller coaster. We kept playing and shopping until my mom and Alex came back.

            When they did, Alex started to try and talk me into it. I realized that I could bribe him but not my parents, so I went for it.

            “Okay, okay, I’ll ride it. But only if you do whatever I say for the rest of summer.” He groaned, but finally agreed to do it and all four of us got in line. The long corridor had few lights and the same music that they had in the gift shop. Every now and then, there would be a video game to play while you wait, but it was always crowded and nobody in my family could figure it out. When we got to the Loading Dock, it split into lines Alpha and Omega. We turned into the Alpha line.

            When we got to the end of the line, I started to hyperventilate. I had never been on a roller coaster before, and I was freaking out. When the car came, my mom got in the front, then Alex, me, and my dad in the back seat. We buckled up and took off.

            Right before the car went in, we stopped, and all I saw in front of us was pitch black darkness. Then, we plowed straight ahead and turned into a tunnel of flashing colors. We made a sharp turn and climbed up a big hill; we could look to one side and see another car doing the same thing. We could look to the other side and see mannequins that looked like NASA scientists preparing for a shuttle launch in a room with a bright, red light, the only light source in the room. We reached the top and fell.

            The room was filled with joyful screams, the sound of cars running on tracks, and little white dots to represent stars. There were flashes of red every once and awhile.  At every turn, we jerked quickly and abruptly in that direction. Nobody knew what would happen next because other than the stars and the spastic red flashes, it was pitch black. It lasted for about three minutes and then we turned into another tunnel of flashing lights, signaling that the ride was over and we needed to prepare to exit.

            We got off and I begged to ride again and again. My parents said that they had told me that I would love it and let me ride about five more times that day, twice with my mom and three times with my dad. I rode Space Mountain about ten times every day of that vacation. On one of the days on that vacation, I rode what I like to call “The Big Three.” This consisted of the rides Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Space Mountain. I made it my goal on that trip to ride all three in a row.  Naturally, I did what I wanted and proceeded with my plan, riding The Big Three all in a row.

            My Great-Uncle works at the Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. Every year, he sends his sister, who is also my grandmother, free tickets for the whole family to take a little trip to the Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. We had planned earlier that in summer of 2011, my family would take a trip to Disney World and then go to the Williamsburg Busch Gardens a few weeks after we got home. I had made a plan that I would ride as many roller coasters as I could handle while on the Busch Gardens trip.

When we got there, it seemed a little harder than I had thought it would’ve been. My dad had to almost drag me onto Apollo’s Chariot, the most easy-going coaster in the park that year. I freaked out on that ride almost as badly as I had on Space Mountain. Of course, after I got off, I was in love with it. That was the only coaster that I rode that year because it had turned out that it was the only one without loops in it. I was completely terrified of doing loops on a roller coaster.

Finally, about two years later in the summer of 2013, I decided it was finally time to ride a coaster with a loop in it. I made my dad agree to take me on the Loch Ness Monster. It was probably the best roller coaster for someone that was just starting out with loops, or at least I hoped. I towed my father behind me as I headed for the entrance to the ride. It was already a sweltering day, so it was easy to hide my sweat that revealed how nervous I was. I told myself that I would go into this ride confident and without having any form of breakdown, minor or major.

As we neared the loading area, I began to lose it. I started to try and talk my dad into taking me back to everybody else in the family. We could ride something else. Maybe even try that new coaster Verbolten that I knew for a fact had no loops. All he did was tell me that it was too late to turn back and that it was going to be fine. We sat down in our seats and my dad helped me strap in. It felt like the seat was crushing me between itself and the over-the-head harness. I began to hyperventilate again, and I started to panic. I was yelling at my dad to get me off, I had changed my mind. But it was too late. The woman attending the station hit the go button on the panel and we shot away.

We turned and started to climb the hill that would then send us plummeting back to Earth. I knew that the hill was really less than one-thousand feet high, but the higher we went, the harder it was for me to breathe even though everyone else seemed to have no problem. In fact, I was the only one not cheering for our upcoming descent. I started to talk spit-fire at my dad, and none of it made sense. It was basically a bunch of random memories or thoughts that took my mind off what was happening around me. I hadn’t even noticed that we had reached the top until the cool breeze attacked my face.

The view of the park was breath-taking, literally. I only saw bits of the park as I peeked through my eyelids as the car plummeted back to ground and with the wind hitting my face sucking the air out of me. The closer I got to the loops in the ride, the more I started to talk randomly to my dad. I could tell he was getting annoyed with me, and so was everyone else that was close enough to hear me, but I didn’t care. Talking distracted me. When the ride was finally over, I hopped out of my seat excitedly. I had successfully ridden a roller coaster with not one, but two loops in it. I rode it at least one more time with my dad before it was time to go home for summer.

            I will be returning to Busch Gardens in summer 2014, and I will ride all of the other roller coasters that they offer. I already know that I’m going to freak out before each one and that I will talk gibberish to my dad while on the ride. But I also know that I am going to get off each one totally excited and ready to ride a few more times before moving on to the next one. It’s something that I am looking forward to this summer. Trying new rides, even though I know how it’s going to happen.