I lied. I told ang and Cynthia that I wasn't going
to do an adventures post... I'm a bad, bad orc.

What a great weekend for awesome 733t fun
stuff! Dave & BG do theme parks in Orlando,
famous meets Canadian Rinkies, and I got to
combine the two and topped off my weekend
by seeing the Matrix Reloaded! w00t!

Several weeks ago ang sent me a memo
proposing that I meet her and Cynthia at
King's Island amusement park on Memorial
Day. I hadn't been to KI in at least five years,
so I said yeah yeah yeah and got The
Scotsman in on it too. Though tired by so
much early, up we got and took off for Mason,
Ohio at 7:30 am. Meanwhile, Cynthia & ang,
having gotten three hours or so of sleep the
night before, were already an hour on the
road, proceeding northeast from Louisville,
Kentucky.

Scotsman drove very responsibly, noting that
as it was Memorial Day, the Smokies would
be out in full force, and since he was driving
his fiancee's car, he did NOT want to get
stopped. Poor old Jean Claude Grand Am
(Scotty's car) decided to break down on
Sunday night, and was unable to transport us
for our day of adventure. As he predicted, we
saw several law enforcement vehicles out on
the road, and even witnessed a
double-cruiser bust in progress near
Middletown. Luckily for us, Scotsman's safe
driving saw us through our journey without
incident.

Arriving at the park about forty minutes early for
our scheduled meeting with ang & Cynthia, we
cruised down the road to the King's Island
Showcase Cinema to purchase our movie
tickets in advance. The building appeared to
be closed, but upon trying the doors and
finding them unlocked, we proceeded inside.
Finding the box office unmanned, we utilized
two conveniently-placed electronic ticket
kiosks to purchase our tickets for the 9:30
showing. Mission accomplished!

Returning to King's Island, we parked and
proceeded to the front gates, and discovered a
NEW RIDE had been installed right there at
the front of the park! That's right, and you get to
ride it FOR FREE before you even get to the
ticket windows! The new ride was called
"Metal Detectors," and EVERYONE gets to ride
it; there are no age, weight, or height
restrictions! COOL! Scotsman realized he had
a miniature pocket-knife on his keychain, and
didn't think it would be a good idea to take it on
the new ride with him, so I waited while he
hiked back to the car to stow it safely there.

After we went on the "new ride" (it wasn't that
good) we entered the park and then waited for
ang & Cynthia to show up. And waited. And
waited. And waited. FINALLY, they showed up.
I want to say "A FULL TWENTY MINUTES" after
they were supposed to meet us, but I'm not
sure it was that long, so I won't. Apparently
ang took the wrong highway or something like
that. They got there before the rides opened,
that was the important thing. Following the
lengthy introductions process (Scotsman
meet ang, ang meet Scotsman, Grishny meet
ang, ang meet... etc...) we were immediately
accosted by a camera-toting park employee
who took our picture, linked to below for your
viewing pleasure.

Now we had twenty or thirty minutes to kill
before they opened the rides. No problem, not
for four Rinkies, two of whom were about to
start a 12-hour sleep deprivation-induced
giggling spree. Twenty minutes felt like four as
we chatted about all kinds of stuff that I can't
remember now. Then the rides opened. Let
me see if I can remember everything:

First we rode two coasters-- Son of Beast (not
Beasty) twice, then Face/Off; a long wait for a
short ride ridiculously named for a Paramount
movie. Then we rode Drop Zone, which is one
of those big circular thingies that seats forty or
fifty, takes them up a tall pole, and then lets
them free fall for about two seconds before
lowering them gently to the earth. Whee! This
was followed by Adventure Express, which is
probably the lamest coaster in the grown-ups
section of the park, but it has some cool
fist-pounding tiki gods at the end that are
extremely fun to mock.

It only took five rides to make us hungry, so we
went out to the parking lot to eat our packed
lunches as quickly as possible. Our first stop
after lunch was the Racer, King's Island's first
coaster ever. It was once featured in an
episode of the Brady Bunch! We rode only in
the backwards car, of course. Then it was off
to the Outer Limits Flight of Fear, an indoor
roller coaster that I have been swearing for five
years I'd never ride again.

Let me explain: Flight of Fear, like Space
Mountain at DisneyWorld, is an indoor,
in-the-dark roller coaster. And instead of
climbing a tall hill and then diving to get its
initial speed, it has some kind of high-speed
induction fast-start system that rockets you
from 0 to 60mph in four seconds. The last
time I went to King's Island was the year they
opened this ride, and I rode it. The wait was
something like two hours, and the ride ended
up being very rough... I got off it with a
throbbing headache.

But Scots and ang and Cynthia persuaded me
to give it another go, and I'm glad they did.
They've made some modifications to the ride
since it was new, and it's a blast now. Now if
only they'd replace the corny, endlessly
repeating movie they make you watch in the
queue while you're waiting to get on...
Funniest thing about this ride? Hearing a
young girl walking *out* of the line for it saying
loudly, to her friend, "People think we're
scared, but we're not!"

After Flight of Fear, we felt we needed a gentle,
relaxing ride before taking on another roller
coaster, so we rode the Zephyr, one of those
carnival swing rides. ang was wearing mules
and tried to take them off for the ride, but the
operator insisted that she wear them despite
her well-reasoned protests that they'd fall off.
Well, at least only one fell off. After retrieving it
for her from the bushes next to the ride, we
proceeded to get in line for Vortex, KI's largest
steel coaster with loops & corkscrews.
Despite Scotsman's repeated comment that
he can sleep through the Vortex, the rest of us
enjoyed it mightily.

Another carny ride called Shake, Rattle & Roll
followed the Vortex, and then it was time for
the highlight of the day-- THE BEAST. The
Beast holds the record for the longest wooden
roller coaster in the world. The ride is over four
minutes long, and the wait for it is normally
between 45 minutes to an hour & a half. We
felt like we were getting away with something
when it only took us about 20 minutes to get
from the start of the line to the queue for the
front car of the coaster. Alas, it seemed fate
was going to even things out. With only two
more runs in front of us before our turn, they
had to shut the coaster down for mechanical
difficulties.

What, leave? No way. So we waited another
twenty minutes to half an hour for the problem
to be fixed. We passed the time chatting about
random stuff and singing happy birthday to
some guy farther back in the line. Then it was
fixed, and we rode, and it ruled.

At this point it was getting on toward evening;
the ride time clock was ticking; our time was
running out! And we made, quite possibly, the
worst decision in the history of theme park
riding. Cynthia and ang, getting sleepy,
wanted to ride White Water Canyon, and we
said yes. DUMB. DUMB. DUMB. It was almost
six o-clock, people. The sun was starting to
sink. It couldn't have been more than 65
degrees outside. The wind was blowing.
DUMB. DUMB. DUMB.

There are warning signs for this ride that read
"You will get wet on this ride. You MAY get
drenched." Our condition was somewhere in
between the two. A little girl who was on the
ride with us said, "I don't like this ride." We
further demonstrated our vast intelligence by
getting in line for the log flume ride right away,
where Scotsman had the bright idea of
front-loading the boat (in other words, he and I
sat up front with the girls in the back) in order
to get them wetter. Well, somebody got wetter,
but it wasn't the girls.

Nearly frozen solid, with my face looking
similar to the :cold: smiley in RinkChat, I
followed the rest of our company to the Potato
Works shack, where I tried to get warm by
borrowing Scotsman's fries and putting them
on my arms. I only succeeded in getting
cheese on them. (My arms, not the fries.)
Then we went to the pizza place and ate. (I got
a calzone, Mousie.)

Still damp, we left after dinner for our
second-to-last ride of the day, the Rugrats
Runaway Reptar in Nickelodeon Land. Why? I
don't know. Probably because the line was
only ten feet long. Fortunately, it doesn't go fast
enough to create more than a gentle breeze,
so I didn't lose my core temperature and
develop hypothermia, although it was a near
thing.

Finally, we hit Scooby Doo's Haunted
Mansion, which turned out to be Lame with a
capital "L." All they did was take their old
Phantom Theatre ride and change its clothes.
The best thing about this ride was that it was
warm inside.

That concludes the King's Island RinkMeet
Ride Report. Our time together was concluded
by a visit to the Funnel Cake shack, and a
quick photo shoot out by ang's car. Then Scots
and I headed off to our movie, and ang &
Cynthia headed home.

As far as The Matrix Reloaded is concerned,
I'll just say that I agree with just about
everything everybody said about it in the Big
Thread. I need to get back to work and this
post seems far too long already without a big
rehashing by me about all that.

Gri"exhausted"shny

Whoops, I new I would forget something. At
some point, before lunch, I think, ang, Cynthia
and I rode the Viking Fury, which the
Scotsman always refuses to ride because it
makes him sick. This is the one where you're
in a huge boat that rocks back and forth, back
and forth like a pendulum, and you're facing
the people sitting in the opposite side of the
boat, and you invariably get into a screaming
match with them. That is all.