Happy first week of spring! I was delighted to be invited by
to have a fun conversation along with about writing, creative processes, and music over at Songseekers podcast. Give it a listen!My dream writing career is to be the Bill Bryson of theme parks; I say this often in hopes of manifesting this life for myself. Condé Nast, I know you want a dedicated reporter to trek to Sandusky Ohio to rate the thrill rides of Cedar Point! Travel + Leisure, tell me you need someone willing to try every corn dog dipping sauce at Universal Studios!
Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL is about thirty minutes north of where I grew up, so it became a staple of suburban rites of passage: the eighth grade class trip, the day after prom group outing. I was terrified of roller coasters until eighth grade, when I was finally caved in to peer pressure and rode the Demon. By 1993 standards, the Demon was an intimidating steel coaster, decked out with smoke machines, multiple upside down loops, and a 90-ft drop. While waiting in line, my teeth chattered with nerves. I tried to distract myself by focusing on the Looney Tunes cartoons playing on the waiting area TVs, but the sound was drowned out by the terrified screams of passengers soaring over our heads every 3.5 minutes. Like death, our turn was inevitable. A baby-faced ride operator performed the safety check on my harness, which didn’t instill confidence. Once everyone was locked into the machine of our demise (I was positive of it), we rattled forward, inching up the incline one cog at a time. There is that brief moment of hang time at the peak of every coaster, as you transition from pointing upwards to downwards, when your stomach tries to leap out your mouth and your butthole clenches, and you can suddenly see beyond the park limits and the sprawling parking lot and the toll booths for the Indiana Skyway probably, and the scream your soul has been holding in since the moment you were born hurls out of your mouth. Then you fly down that steep drop and realize it’s a metaphor for every hard moment of your life and you’re halfway up into the loop-de-loop before you’ve braced yourself for the next shocking hurdle.
I was instantly hooked on the delicious anticipation of the big drop, when the g-force takes over and your body floats inside the sweat-slick harness that is the only thing preventing you from launching onto the pavement. Once I had a taste, I couldn’t get enough.
There is an entire world of theme park enthusiasts who devote most of their free time and disposable income to checking every major roller coaster off their list. They are collectors of park lore and limited edition enamel pins. I dipped my toe into this world when I joined a few theme park fan groups on Facebook for research purposes. One of the first posts I saw in a Rollercoaster Enthusiast group was from a person considering getting their nipples pierced but was concerned they might hurt on rides with over-the-head harnesses, and has anyone else experienced this? Obviously I had to spend the rest of my afternoon reading every post.
I have traveled specifically to visit amusement parks. In my twenties, I road tripped twice with friends from Chicago to Sandusky, Ohio twice to visit Cedar Point, home to some of the biggest rides in North America. In my mind, parks like Cedar Point, Magic Mountain, Knotts Berry Farm, HersheyPark, and Grand Dominion fall into the category of Amusement Park because of their focus on thrill rides. I’m glad I made these trips in my twenties when my body and brain were still capable of withstanding the g-forces of rides like the Millennium Force, whose 308-ft drop is over 100 ft taller than the biggest coaster in Gurnee. Even more intense was the (now closed) Top Thrill Dragster, a terrifying 40-stories-straight-up track where passengers accelerate from 0 to 120 mph in 3.5 seconds. This is an absolutely bonkers sensation. The entire ride is done in 10 seconds, which I told myself in line in a futile attempt to stop my entire body shaking in flight or fight mode. The rapid launch acceleration makes it feel like your body might turn inside out, then you’re launching 420 feet into the sky like a damn rocket WAIT THOSE EXPLODE ALL THE TIME then you’re over the apex and plummeting towards the earth FACE DOWN. By the time the brakes lock in and you skid to a stop, you’re pretty sure you left your spleen somewhere in the clouds, you might have peed a little bit and HOLY SHIT that was amazing and might be worth standing in a two-hour line a second time.
Then there are theme parks: your Disneys, your Wizarding Worlds of Harry Potter, basically your attractions built around the most lucrative intellectual properties. Since 2019, I have dragged Kurt on a quest to visit all four Disney parks and two Universal Studios parks in Orlando, Florida. Typically, theme parks tend to have a higher number of “dark rides” vs. thrill rides. Dark rides are track-based cars, boats, or trains moving through an indoor space, immersing the riders into a story often filled with familiar characters, plot points, and a nostalgia overload that gently embraces your heart like a thundershirt. It’s impossible to visit a Disney park and not be impressed by the efficiency, cleanliness, and crowd control. The level of detail is astonishing. When Kurt and I ordered cocktails in the France section of Epcot and heard the workers converse with each other in fluent French1, I nearly dropped my creme de brie.
My unabashed love of theme parks may surprise those who think of me as a crunchy camping #vanlife hobo. But as someone who also once lived in Las Vegas by choice, I am intrigued by the concept of manufactured entertainment. Even though I know about the subliminal messages, the fresh cookie scent pumped into the promenades, the multiple focus groups whose brains were picked so the suits know exactly which nostalgic buttons to push, I surrender to it. I was a child of the 80s raised by VHS tapes and basic cable, so if I see an Electric Light Parade with Mickey Mouse leading in the way in all of his earnest glory, I’m gonna tear up a little.
As much as I love roller coasters, as I get older they do not love me back. It’s a bitter truth to accept that I will eventually age out of being able to ride every ride in the park. We can’t all be Tom Cruise taking on eight Gs upon his fifty-nine-year-old body while filming Top Gun: Maverick; my hip and back can’t even handle a bumper car (though to be fair when is the last time any of us enjoyed bumper cars? A ride that’s just a series of traffic collisions is only appealing to those too young to worry about paying for car insurance.) Our trip to Epcot this past January was a test, not just to see how my hip fared on rides, but with walking eight miles in one day and standing on my feet from 9am rope drop to the 9pm fireworks display. Thankfully, it felt great (drinking around the world may have helped.2
Now that we’ve completed the Orlando park circuit, I am looking to the western horizon, like the Lewis and Clark of hypercoasters. I haven’t been to the southern California parks in decades. And after that, there’s an entire world of international parks. Like a Facebook group of obsessed nerds, I can’t get enough. Maybe I’m chasing that feeling of being a kid when summertime thrummed with the sweet freedom from responsibility. Or maybe I’m pushing back on the looming reality of aging and the limitations I’ve started to feel on my body. Either way, I’ve opinions on the corn dog dipping sauces.
Staying in this weekend? Here are some of my favorite movies set in theme parks:
Zombieland (2009): if the world were ending in a zombie apocalypse, I'd also want to go to Six Flags one more time.
Escape from Tomorrow (2013): an independent horror movie shot covertly inside DisneyWorld with no permission whatsoever. The filmmaker Randy Moore was so paranoid he’d be sued by Disney that he edited the final cut in South Korea. I dragged several people to a screening at the Music Box and none of them have forgiven me.
Adventureland (2009): Gah I love this coming-of-age film; it captures the bittersweet feeling of being stuck at home for the summer working a minimum wage alongside a secret crush.
National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983): THEE amusement park movie. Praise Marty Moose! Holy shit!
All Cast Members in the World Showcase section of Epcot are citizens of their represented country, as part of Disney’s International Program.
Also, I bought Hokas and am never turning back. Dad shoes 4 lyfe!
"I was instantly hooked on the delicious anticipation of the big drop, when the g-force takes over and your body floats inside the sweat-slick harness that is the only thing preventing you from launching onto the pavement. " THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I CANNOT RIDE THESE RIDES. You're a hero.
Omg, Escape from Tomorrow! I'm glad that 10 years later, I'm finally not f*cked up for life.
Also, where the shoutout for Back to Back, Belly to Belly! Lol