austin_dern

Cedar Point got to feel really weird at night, in the dark, with so few people around. Most of the Halloweekends attractions were still running, but the atmosphere of walk-through areas turns bizarre when the number of performers is greater than the number of patrons. We started to see clumps of performers hanging out and just chatting, with maybe one breaking away to run up to a likely-looking passer-by. We would have our most peaceful walks through some of these areas since, well, we spotted many of the performers well ahead of time and at that point there's little reason their coming up trying to startle us.

For a while I thought we were going to ride on every one of the open roller coasters, but we were foiled by the Mine Ride. The Mine Ride was open, but the operators were just kind of hanging around chatting with each other, and when bunny_hugger and I walked up to the empty car and sat in the front seat they told us, apologetically, that they couldn't send the ride out without some absurdly large number of passengers; I think it was something like 24 passengers to be sure the ride would not valley out on the track. Possibly if we asked everyone in the park we could've put together 24 people to ride the Mine Ride, but that was impractical, as Cedar Point lacks a parkwide public address system. We shrugged and walked through the ride.

As we were leaving one of the operators gave us a ``cut to the front'' pass good for any of the haunted houses. Someone had apparently won it at a redemption game and then lost it, and they recovered it and what the heck. We had been to more haunted houses than usual this year, but, hey, another one wouldn't hurt and it would be indoors. This also inspired us to talk a little about the ethics of line-cutting passes and various other ways that you can subvert the democratic amusement park principle that your admission is exactly as good as anyone else's, and the ways I'm not sure I'm consistent with that principle I like.

The nearest haunted house was the Eternity Infirmary, housed in what used to be the Frontier Carrousel's building, but the ethics of using the pass evaporated because there was no line. There was, one of the ride operators said, my twin inside, though and so there was. Tucked far in the maze of hospital- and sanitarium-themed rooms was a guy who looked tolerably like me. I've now encountered something like six people who could pass for me, at least for casual contacts; go figure. It's a good haunted house, very creepy and a little trigger-y, and I'm glad we were able to see it without waiting in a two-hour queue. Also if I'm not mistaken now there's only two haunted houses at Halloweekend that we've never been to, the one in a corn maze and the one that's high-school-themed. So we have something to shoot for next year.

We closed out the night noticing that the kettle corn stand had never opened and supposed that it had run out of kettle for the season (we'd see it open on Sunday), and walked slowly out of the park to enjoy the weird way its lights play in the dark.

Trivia: By October 1814 British negotiators in Ghent were pressing for the settlement of the war with American on the grounds of territories in possession of the battling armies. American negotiators, aware that the British had recently seized Bangor and Machias in Maine, pressed for the status quo ante bellum. Source: Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought The Second War Of Independence, A J Langguth.

Currently Reading: In Pursuit Of The Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed The World, Ian Stewart.

Sunday morning we woke up about as late as we could, got ready, packed, and said our goodbyes to our room and the Bel Air wing of the hotel. We started with the traditional early-admission ride on Maverick, and I realize I forgot to mention something about the ride from Friday so I'll tuck it in here: there were spiderwebs on it. There were even threads of spider silk reaching from one seat to its neighbor. This on a roller coaster that gets up to 70 miles per hour, and that has drops of up to 100 feet. Spiders are amazing.

We rarely ride Top Thrill Dragster. It's not really all that thrilling --- just a rapid acceleration, climb 400 feet and drop back down --- and the lines are normally too ridiculously long to bother. But I thought I saw them sending out half-empty cars, implying they couldn't have too long a line. Given the chill and the still-early hour this looked plausible. And we hadn't ridden it at all this year, so, why not? Well, it turned out there was a line, a roughly half-hour queue, and that's just my bad call. As we were talking about whether our pinball friend might be in the park already, though, bunny_hugger saw him coming on the returning train. So we'd figured on having a little pinball tournament on the functioning games after all.

We finally got up to the station and sat down in the second of the two separate train cars they load at once. That car went on its quick way and our car moved up to the waiting spot. And waited. And waited. Waiting for the launch to start is the real thrill of the ride but this was rather much. People started getting antsy and the people in front of us took out a cell phone, very unnerving considering that when the ride launches it goes from zero to 120 miles per hour in under four seconds and I'd rather not have consumer electronics embedded thusly in my skull. But we weren't at the launch station yet either, just, the waiting one.

Finally ride operators came and said there was some issue and we would soon be leaving this spot, either forward or backward. bunny_hugger and I wondered if this meant the car could actually literally roll backward or if they'd just have us get out and walk back on the horizontal walkway to the launch station. This would, I suppose, technically count as a walkdown from a roller coaster, something neither of us have ever done, but since the track is horizontal at this point it's not much of one. No, though; they rolled us backwards into the station and said the ride would be down for an indeterminate time and we were free to wait to be in the first car launched or were free to go somewhere else.

We decided not to wait, and met up with our pinball friend --- he and his group had spotted us trapped in the waiting --- and joked about us being the jinx when I've got to say he was a major factor in Demolition Derby Night at pinball league and has had several machines break down on him since then.

As to what was wrong with Top Thrill Dragster? We don't know, but we did see it up a handful of times during the day. Our best guess is that the winds exceeded some safety threshold; the taller rides are very vulnerable to this and the weekend, wind-swept as it was, would see a lot of things closed down. For example we're not sure that Windseeker, the elevated swing ride that last year kept having mechanical problems, ever opened for the day. They had a sign by its entrance saying Windseeker was closed due to high winds, as if it were posing for a ``You Had One Job'' meme. Of course one could say the ride was just quite good at its task.

Trivia: The Imperial Russian Olympic team arrived in London twelve days late for the 1908 games. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, EG Richards.

Currently Reading: Alley Oop: The First Time Travel Adventure, V T Hamlin.

Happy birthday to my dear bride, bunny_hugger!

After a couple hours at the Merry-Go-Round Museum we figured it was time to pack everything up and go back home, understandably. The satellite navigator --- which spent a considerable portion of our trip to Cedar Point trying to get us not to take the Ohio Turnpike --- was eager that we should take the Turnpike back, though bunny_hugger noted that it was probably not significantly longer to take some of the state routes instead. And we always take the Turnpike. So on an impulse just before the turn we took off, driving by way of the non-toll roads, to see what we might see.

The first thing, and the biggest thing to recommend Route 2 (or whichever) over the Turnpike, is catching glimpses of the Cedar Point skyline, not just the once but repeatedly as city and suburb moved into and out of view. It looked odd with the Space Spiral gone, but the Windseeker tower was at least somewhat similar in being a tall tower ride, even if it wasn't running.

One of the roadside attractions we expected to pass was the nuclear power plant and indeed it was there, with a delightful series of increasingly tense signs surrounding it. One of the roadside attractions we did not expect to see was a former airplane in the middle of a field. Apparently some time ago someone hoped to open a novelty restaurant in which people would enjoy fine dining in a former real airplane, and they got as far as buying the airplane --- from the Moonies, because of course --- and moving it to a field in rural Ohio before the project collapsed. But the airplane's since gone away, we can only guess where.

The thing we did not expect to see, and which bunny_hugger could not remember ever seeing before, was a drive-in theater. Yes, a real actual live drive-in theater, showing current movies (I want to say ParaNorman). This wasn't a new theater, remarkable as that would be --- we found that it'd been open sine the late 50s --- but that she didn't remember such a singular thing despite driving along that route a good number of times is remarkable in its own way.

We did stop at the official Michigan Welcome Center on the highway back, hoping to stretch and use the bathroom (successful) and to see what flyers advertising stuff going on was around (successful) and to pick up some vending machine coffee (utter failure) or at least a diet soda (they were out, something the machine only bothered to reveal after we'd scrounged up enough change). It's probably for the best we're both sold on Michigan already, since the vending machines were letting the state down. And so we got home, in the early evening, in time to relax and enjoy being back home again.

Oh, yes, and Windseeker? Which was closed the entire time we were at the park? It turns out the week before Cedar Fair, the corporate overlords of Cedar Point, had closed indefinitely all their Windseeker rides. bunny_hugger learned that the 300-foot-tall swing rides have suffered a number of technical glitches, including several cases of the swings getting stuck at or near the top of the ride and leaving passengers stranded several hundred feet in the air for over an hour. I'm not particularly afraid of heights, but thinking of being stuck in a swing for two hours leaves me uneasy. Plus I just know I'd be stuck looking at nothing interesting.

Trivia: At the time of the Gunpowder Plot, while the government claimed a monopoly on powder production, English soldiers were required to pay for their own gunpowder. Much was sold on the black market to defray the costs. Source: Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History Of The Explosive That Changed The World, Jack Kelly.

Currently Reading: As She Climbed Across The Table, Jonathan Lethem.

Let me return to, and finish up, the Halloweekend report, since between travel, illness, and disaster it's gotten really behind the times.

One of the high points of a Halloweekend day in the park would be the parade, and we were ready along the path ahead of time. We spent a little while figuring out just the right vantage point, based on the assumption the parade would be going in the same direction as last year's, from the front to the back of the park. It didn't. What we realized was that the parade probably alternates directions on different days, costing twice the storage space but saving the bother of moving all the props back after the park's closed. But we had some fine time by a little bridge, figuring out what the better angles were likely to be, considering what looked like a riverbed below, and bunny_hugger identifying the many kinds of plants and picking out which ones were native and which ones weren't and which ones were edible and proving it. The Cedar Point security folks were concerned only that we not stand on the bridge, as that needed to be cleared for the parade. I don't know if they even noticed my wife picking and nibbling on vines.

But as much fun as the parade was, and it truly was, it wasn't the best moment of the day. I'd say the best moment was a more quiet, more private one, tucked out in back near Frontierland --- decorated in a steampunk style for an open walk-through haunted trail experience --- hidden enough we needed a couple go-rounds to figure out just where it was. Specifically, it was a vendor selling kettle corn, in sleeves a yard long, which we got, and sat down, to eat just a little bit, and just a little bit more, and just a little bit more after that. And we sat in the early-night shroud of the park, eating and talking and paying attention to one another. Also to a person who asked how much a sleeve of kettle corn was ($7, I think); he was surprised to find it was that reasonably priced.

The closing of Disaster Transport, and Space Spiral, and Wildcat were reflected in the graveyard of lost rides. Disaster Transport and Wildcat also gave some of their parts to new decorations, as cars from their trains were set out on the ground with skeletons inside and, for Wildcat, overturned as in a crash. The park's maps still showed Disaster Transport and Space Spiral on them, though Wildcat had been removed, suggesting something about the decision-making process regarding the taking out of those rides --- specifically, that the removal of Disaster Transport and Space Spiral were apparently made later than planning for Halloweekend this year began, or that the map department wasn't kept informed of the park goings-on.

Back in the hotel room, I fired up Roller Coaster Tycoon. I've been downloading people's reconstructions of parks and Cedar Point is, naturally, one of the more simulated parks out there. I thought it'd be fun to play Cedar Point at Cedar Point, and sure. The park was set up as a scenario, to meet various challenges, but the scenario designer didn't work out the game balance well. The objectives, about getting enough people in the park and reaching a satisfaction rating, were automatically meetable. I just had to let it run for ten months without Cedar Point falling into the sea [Added 3 Nov, 4 pm: You know, I wrote that a week-plus ago and just realized what it sounded like and I'm sorry.] and victory was mine. Still, it's fun game, at a fun place.

Trivia: A 1924 study determined the average cost per student at Rutgers was $387 in liberal arts courses, $547 in technical science courses, and $808 in agriculture, for an overall average of $518. Source: Rutgers: A Bicentennial History, Richard P McCormick.

Currently Reading: Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America, Henry Petroski, of course.

PS: It Would Have Been One More Ride Because, concluding the main thrust of my study of how many rides on Disaster Transport bunny_hugger and I might have gotten. There's still some loose ends, though, so if you want them reported on let me know.

Our major question for Saturday was, did we want to go into the park? That is, did we want to use the tickets which came with our room for entry on Saturday or on Sunday? We'd gone to the Merry-Go-Round Museum on Saturday last year, which was wise, since everybody else in the midwest went to Cedar Point producing two-hour waits for closed rides and crashing the local mobile phone network as everyone tweeted that the park was impossibly crowded. But we were here several weeks earlier, and if we went Saturday we could have a whole day at the park ... well, we decided to risk it, and go in Saturday.

Probably a good decision. One of the crowd entering with us included some Asia Pacific-looking young adults, who looked up at Magnum XL and Top Thrill Dragster and such and squealed with that delight that comes from being overloaded with excitement. Who doesn't want to be around that kid of delight? With our early-admission tickets we got rides on Top Thrill Dragster --- the only Cedar Point roller coaster I hadn't been on, one of those 16-second rides where you're accelerated fast and go up 400-plus feet, and go back down again. It's not so big as Kingda Ka, of course, but it does show off a readout of your ride speed on the ascent, which we both failed to look at. On the bright side, my camera remained securely in my pocket through this, proving the coaster-camera concept nicely.

One of bunny_hugger's favorite little traditions of staying at Cedar Point is going out to a dinner at a marina-side restaurant. I unfortunately spoiled the chance for that last year because I didn't dress well enough. This year I was dressed much more like a grownup and could go into a real grown-up type restaurant where they have far more plates than you can use. bunny_hugger considered this an extension of birthday-fussing for me, which was so very flattering, and wonderfully satisfying. Plus we went to dinner early, and so missed out almost all the rush of people with loud children coming in.

Among the restaurant-related curiosities was the player piano, electronic of course, and the mysterious ``140'' displayed by its keys. It couldn't have been the beats per minute, and since it was that number the several times we passed it that couldn't have been the selected song. It's a weird number for a volume control. But what was it, then?

And something we spotted on the way into the restaurant was a snake in the road. It was making its way across the brick-paved road towards, we guessed, the bushes beyond. I haven't seen a snake that large outside of zoos. Apparently it made it safely; we had a decent view of his location from inside the restaurant and didn't see anyone stopping and pointing at snake carcass later on. It was just one of those little park oddities.

Trivia: The Confederate Congress passed a bill in March 1862 creating the post of commanding general of the Confederate armies. Jefferson Davis vetoed the measure. (He viewed it as an oblique vote of no confidence.) Source: The Confederate Nation, 1861 - 1865, Emory M Thomas.

Currently Reading: Novelets of Science Fiction, Editor Ivan Howard. From that little stretch where there was apparently something called a ``novelet'', by which they mean like Blish's ``Testament of Adros'' or Clarke's ``The Possessed'', which are certainly two stories which share important properties like being two stories.

We had originally had thoughts of getting to the Breakers Hotel just as it opened for the weekend, but we weren't able to. We were primed for catastrophe, after being there Columbus Day weekend last year, and imagined lines reaching through to November. But it wasn't nearly that bad; we spent barely enough time in line waiting to check in to look around and appreciate all the decorations --- cobwebs and mannequins and giant spiders and bats hung from the ceiling and rubber rats in the corners, and all --- including the dinosaur poised outside the hotel's Perkins restaurant, and consider how tired the lobby staff must get of the Halloween Soundtrack and It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown playing in the corner.

Our room this year was in the older parts of the hotel, so we had good excuse to go looking around the early 20th century portions and the stained glass windows and all that. We had a great view of the lake, which did unfortunately mean we couldn't see any roller coasters from our room. But we were able to see the swimming pool, and saw that there were people swimming just about every time we looked outside. It wasn't freezing cold yet, no, but it was still surprisingly cool for that, by our standards.

One advantage of staying at the hotels run by Cedar Point is early admission: getting in an hour before the park opens to the general public, and this gave us the chance to grab rides on Maverick and Millennium Force, two of the biggest crowd-attractors. Off of Maverick, as the sun worked on setting, a woman pointed out that we could get some great photographs of the lake from the exit path. She was right, though bunny_hugger pointed out that I almost certainly had similar shots from previous times we'd been there. She's right, although this was chance to try out the new camera with them.

Millennium Force, by the way, gave us some modest new thrills because the dinosaur animatronics path was built more or less underneath it. So while we had the pleasantly smooth, speedy ride to enjoy, we also had tyrannosaurus rexes (reges?) to wave down to.

Trivia: Samuel Morse failed to secure patents for the telegraph during his 1838-39 expedition in any European country except France, whose state-run telegraph company paid no royalties. Source: The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage.

Currently Reading: Pendulum, A E Van Vogt. I can't express how very much I hoped to run across a story about future perfect society trying to examine why some very similar personality types became science fiction writers while others became rapists.