Never was I so happy to have gravity reintroduce itself to me, as after a recent encounter with a particularly neck-battering roller coaster. I think I am still having flashbacks.
The thing is, I’m actually quite sad about this. I used to love roller coasters. My dad and I had a thing about going on scary rides together, by which we meant roller coasters (rather than ghost trains). I even wrote a bit about that earlier this month.
I am out of touch with roller coasters, it seems. The ones of my youth were all outdoors.
It made a difference. You could suss out the ride in advance (usually in anticipation, as far as I was concerned).
You could see the drop ahead of you, and occasionally you couldn’t see the drop behind you as you pulled up a steep banked area, while suddenly knowing that you were due to fly backwards the way you had come.
Roller coasters have narrative. That I kind of knew before. It was usually in the name – things like The Cobra, one I remember riding maybe fifteen years ago. The name gave way to the shape of the ride. That was expected.
What I didn’t expect was the way the narrative has to wrap itself round the queueing area, along the ride, and out through the gift shop on the other side. But then, these are rides relating to films, and some of the queues take a while, and why not give the punters something to look at?
Quite nice of the makers, you would think. Queueing under cover too – a helpful touch. I’ve never been to a fun fair on a pouring day, but I can see that even a bit of light drizzle could helpfully be avoided if necessary.
But then more has changed than I expected. Roller coasters now seem to hide themselves inside more, too. That may be weather proofing, avoiding rusting of equipment. I think it may also be about surprising the traveller.
But what it came to mean was that the ‘scary’ rides were mostly indoors, in the dark. Some bits you got to see some light, but much of it was in the dark.
So yes. You couldn’t see the loop the loop coming. Nor the corkscrew. I did go forwards all the way through the ride, but that was all you could be sure of.
And on one of the rides, they advised me to take off my glasses. I sat through the whole ride, concerned about either dropping them from my hand OR crushing them if I got overly scared.
Thankfully neither possibility happened. But the item I didn’t want to find was the reappearance of dizziness that I’ve been trying to shake for the last couple of years, ever since an inner ear infection.
The signpost at the ride would no doubt tut at me. Hadn’t it warned me that going on the ride could be problematic? Yes and no. I was not pregnant, I did not have a heart condition, nor the various other elements that the sign pointed out.
I think the truth of the matter was too many rides in too short a time. You could argue that five roller coasters in two days is not that much, and not too long ago, I would have agreed with you.
This time, I found giddiness, and longed for gravity. Gravity of a kind that would just allow my feet to be on the ground, my neck to be at its usual angle, and my eyes to see where I was going.
Maybe I will give it time, and try again. But this time, I need to be outdoors. Full disclosure on roller coasters, I’ve decided is the way forward. (And round. And possibly upside down.)