It's Sunday you you know what that means, a look at my mathematics blog. It's been silent almost a full year now. Here's pictures from California's Great America instead. That is, if the pictures work. Livejournal's image gallery took the dozen uploads and the captions and all, but it was being very slow about showing images. I have no explanation for this except that I guess Ukraine had a good day on the battlefield.
Look what we have here: the Star Tower, a 1979 Intamin Gyro Tower that brings the cabin up two hundred feet to look around the park and its surroundings. You know what you don't see? ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger. I would ride this alone, but I felt it worth the time.
I got a seat almost to myself. This all felt nice and nostalgic; I forget if Great Adventure had a similar sky tower (likely they did) but the design, looking so much like the shuttlepods from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, is dear to my heart.
And here we ascend! The big tunnel is for the first drop of Gold Striker, and was added to the ride to keep the noise of screaming riders down to something the neighbors would tolerate. It works great for the ride, though, so everyone wins.
And here's a look out at the entrance gates, the reflecting pond, the carousel (on the right) and, at the top of the picture, Flight Deck and also the football stadium.
Carousel in the lower left, the Patriot roller coaster in blue to the right of that, and Gold Striker at the lower right.
Here we go, a better view of the tangled bowl of coaster that is Gold Striker --- notice the train ascending the lift hill --- and in the background you can see Rad Blazer and some other roller coasters, including either The Demon or Grizzly.
Star Tower is very close to Gold Striker and you get a good look down at the lift hill from it! That train's getting closer to the top of the lift hill, too.
On the left in the center you can see the pavilion everyone was talking about before. Also way in the distance, like, San Jose and mountains and all that other California setting.
Looking down here to appreciate how absurdly tall the double-decker carousel is.
And you might get enough of Gold Striker, but that's just because you didn't ride it.
This started as tilting the camera down a little and it gives a little idea of what the wear in the plexiglass windows looks like, including some vague graffiti.
The ride's descending now. This view with the seat and the windows somehow makes the view more encompassing than pointing the camera right out the window does.
Trivia: On the 18th of September, 1973, NASA headquarters ruled that fish and embryos that survived to the end of the second Skylab flight --- a week off --- would indeed be returned to the Johnson Space Center for study, and comparison to the backup fish and embryos held in the Houston laboratories. Source: Skylab: A Chronology, Roland W Newkirk, Ivan D Ertel, Courtney G Brooks. NASA SP-4011. I, too, would have thought that was the plan from the start and unfortunately the chronology doesn't explain why this needed to be noted in a memorandum a week before the crew returned to Earth. Maybe this was just a confirmation that the plan was still the plan.
Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 27: The Island of Laughing Waters, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.
