Come
on now junior take a wild ride. See can you make it on the wild ride. Don't try
no shakin' on the wild ride. We just might break it on the wild ride!
- Kenny Chesney
One of the things I love most about America
is the bunch of awesome people I know here, who’re great friends who go out of
their way wherever they can to help make my vacation(s) awesome, be it buying a
few rounds, completely changing their schedule to make sure they’re in town
when I am, invites to Thanksgiving, collecting all my tickets and organising
really cool experiences wherever we travel.
Like today – we headed out to Valencia, CA
(about an hour’s drive from our hotel) out of the Valley, to Six Flags Magic
Mountain, whose location reminds me of the distance and setting between Sydney
and the old Australia’s Wonderland. The difference is, whereas Wonderland had a
few big-time rides, this place is stacked with possibly the most insane
collection of thrill rides on the planet.
Knott’s Berry Farm was big, but this place is huge. Right away, you get an idea of the enormity of the rides. You drive into the parking lot, and are confronted by the twisting, intertwining track of two or three roller-coasters, and there’s the foreboding twin towers of ‘Superman: The Escape’ in the background, rising out of a tangle of other rollercoaster tracks. That’s when you know you’re either going to puke up your guts on the first ride or discover an iron constitution. There’s no middle ground at Six Flags.
Knott’s Berry Farm was big, but this place is huge. Right away, you get an idea of the enormity of the rides. You drive into the parking lot, and are confronted by the twisting, intertwining track of two or three roller-coasters, and there’s the foreboding twin towers of ‘Superman: The Escape’ in the background, rising out of a tangle of other rollercoaster tracks. That’s when you know you’re either going to puke up your guts on the first ride or discover an iron constitution. There’s no middle ground at Six Flags.
Through a friend’s relative, we were gifted
VIP Flash Passes which basically put us to the front of every queue for every
ride in the park – the website says it cuts waiting times by 99% – bar the two
newest ones, which you can add on for a small price. Not only do you get to the
front, but you can ride twice in a row without getting off to re-queue. There’s
nothing quite like VIP treatment, and it was ours for the day.
Pretty much every ride at Six Flags Magic
Mountain is white-knuckle. There’s a roller-coaster where you’re actually
‘flying’ on your stomach (the longest and fastest of it’s kind in the world),
one that has free-moving pods that spin forward and back of their own accord, one
with two 160-foot loops, another where you actually stand up, a wooden coaster
where you have flame blasted at you, a coaster that drops beneath ground level
into a tunnel, and then there’s ‘Superman: The Escape’. On that, you go from 0
to 100mph in seven seconds straight up a 415-foot tower – backwards…with 2.5
seconds of weightlessness.
The best thing you can do is not eat very
much during the day. Ride til you can’t ride anymore, and then get something to
eat. It can get pretty dicey if your Johnny Rockets burger with fries and a
bottle of Sprite starts to repeat on you – or worse – when you’re being flung
side to side and upside down and through double corkscrews, pulling pretty
heavy G-forces at sixty miles an hour.
Poor Lauryn, who hadn’t seen anything worse
than Luna Park up until forty-eight hours ago, either hates me or has become a
roller-coaster fanatic. If it’s the former, I’m eternally sorry. If it’s the
latter…well, cous, you’re welcome. Armed with our Flash Passes, we rode til we
dropped, hitting the front of every queue. There’s nothing I hate more than
queuing for a ride that barely lasts two minutes, so the Flash Pass was
awesome.
We’d ridden ourselves to a standstill by
mid-afternoon, and drove back to downtown Los Angeles to Staples Centre – for
the second night in a row. The sheet of ice the Kings and Avalanche skated on
last night was covered over by the hardwood of a basketball court with gold and
purple trimmings. Staples is home to two NBA franchises, the 16-time NBA
champions and their cross-town rivals, the less-successful Clippers.
Although, in recent seasons, the balance of
basketball power in this city as switched around: the Clippers have enjoyed a
resurgence whilst the Lakers stocks, due to injuries, trades and retirements,
have somewhat diminished. Tonight, though, it was the Lake Show on fire in
front of a sell-out crowd, beating the Sacramento Kings 100-86. Whenever the
Lakers win and hold the other team to under 100 points
Earlier, we met up with the great Sasha
Krivtsov for breakfast at Starbucks in Valencia. Sasha plays bass on NBC’s The
Voice, which is the biggest music talent quest in America, and is one of the
coolest people I know. He passed over a very important package which is going
to make one of my friends very happy when I see her in a couple of weeks.
Something else happened tonight. There is a
little-known phenomenon in Southern California that affects me on a regular
basis. Nathan and toilets in this part of the world have a disagreement at least
once every trip. Tonight was no different. He had successfully reached his
quota of blocked toilets for the week. Room Service personnel are like a
quick-strike military team whenever he’s in town. No one is safe. Trevor had to
take shelter in our room whilst the unblocking happened. He’s scarred for life.
I don’t blame him.
A harrowing end to an awesome day. Some
pretty cool stuff happening tomorrow that’s come up suddenly…which I can’t yet
talk about, but it’s gonna be pretty awesome!
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