I've seen people walking down one coaster, and I've been stuck on another. Just today I saw a fellow lose his inner tube on an intense water slide.

When I was still pretty young we took a trip to California to visit my great aunt. While she was managing her restaurant therein Van Nuys, we were touring and going places like Universal Studios and Disneyland. The second day were were in Disneyland, something happened to the Matterhorn Bobsleds and folks had to walk down the mountain.

A few summers later, I was at Big Splash water park in Tulsa, OK, and I got stuck on one of the slides. It took me so long to work my way along that the person behind me crashed into me from behind.

Years later someone misjudged their tolerance and caused the Busch Gardens Europe crew to have to "perform minor housekeeping duties" about Apollo's Chariot. It was more than minor. My train sat in the block brakes for a good ten minutes in the cool Virginia evening while they cleaned up.

Just today as I climbed the seven story tower known as "the Bermuda Triangle", I saw a kid on the sidewall of one of the tube slides, and his tube was on the other side. He flipped over lengthwise before hitting the splash pool below. He got up and made his way to the exit no worse for the wear.

The tower itself has five slides, so you get to choose the quick way down. It's clearly visible from the freeway, which adds to the fear factor when you get to the top and see 18 wheelers going by at 60 MPH. Three of the five slides exit into a splash pool. The total drop on the purple, yellow, and blue slides is 70 feet, and riders get to speeds of 35 MPH. Purple and Blue are mostly enclosed, Yellow is not.

Then there's a green speed slide. It's smooth and fast, and reminds me of Apollo's Chariot since you can literally feel the speed on both rides, yet there are zero bumps of any kind.

And then there's my personal favorite ride in the park...the Acapulco Cliff Dive, which is a white speed slide that goes west from the tower. Riders go about 1/4 of the way down and then level off before the main drop. The slide has water dumping into it in the level section, which gives the rider a pretty good boost...enough that most people over 150 pounds catch several inches of air, then smack down onto the fiberglass at nearly full speed. I always catch air, and that's the main draw! I actually got some battle damage from it today, too. I walked away from my first ride with blisters in two places and almost a third. I didn't care--I went back for more! And I got to freak people out like I used to do with new Alpengeist riders...

"Is it scary?"

"Yep. You look out over this green slide and all you can see is air. You can't see the slide at all. It's 64 feet to the ground, and rumor has it that you exceed 60 MPH on the way down."

"How about the white one?"

Now the fun begins...after I have convinced them that only suicidal people would ride down the tower in any other way.

"I come off of that slide every time I ride it."

Serious, three guys were hanging on to the fence watching folks drop down the Cliff Dive. When one person went right before me, they were all like, "Whoa! That dude came off! Did you see that!?" I told 'em I was gonna come off, too...just you hide and watch!

A couple of days ago I saw a kid lose his life jacket when he hit the water coming off of another slide in the same park. He'd been told he shouldn't slide with it, but he ignored the guards and went anyway. They got him out of the splash pool and he went on his way. The slide is called Cannonball Falls, and he went on the more intense green slide. There's an eight foot drop into the splash pool, and when combined with the speed built up from the slide itself you hit the water with a lot of force. It knocked his life jacket off of him.

Fortunately I have never seen anyone hurt on any kind of ride, and don't really think about it much before I ride. Matter of fact, I'm going on the Bermuda Triangle again the next chance I get, even though I usually hit the wall several times no matter which of the five slides I ride down.

All that said, though, I love extreme roller coasters, but I'm too chicken to get on an extreme water slide...you know, the ones where you gotta pick your shorts out when you get up, right? There just ain't nothin' between my pasty self and the ground if anything goes wrong.

I was watching some POV films from several rides. I gotta go get on Griffon some day--that looks like fun! They said it has a 205 foot height to it. I also watched POVs of some old favorites like Hypersonic XLC and Volcano. I love the way when volcano launches, you can't see what happened to the hapless riders but you can hear them scream. I watched some videos of the Steel Lasso, and I can't wait to get on it when I get the chance. Ditto for a wooden coaster called the Wildcat. Normally you wouldn't see me get worked up to go to Frontier City, but it's beginning to pick up a little bit.

So I have officially ridden everything in White Water Bay. Not this year, mind you, as there are some SBNO rides in the park and I haven't worked up whatever it is to ride the Big Kahuna. I rode that once and I didn't really like it. But I have been on everything there.

What really cracked me up was when a guard told me that I could go down the Cliff Dive head first. I knew she was joking, but then told her that such a ride existed where the Big Kahuna sits today. None of the guard believe me when I tell them of the All American Plunge, and of the times we watched folks skip across the splash pool and crash into the pile of inner tubes. This guard didn't believe me, and she also didn't believe that the park used to have a mini golf course.

I think the Cliff Dive was built to replace the All American Plunge, and I gotta say the Cliff Dive is a worthy ride, but it'll never replace the feeling of "oh $**t" that the Plunge could give when its gate opened and you were dispatched head first on those special kick boards.

Seems that the greatest rides of all sometimes don't make it. Rest in pieces, Hypersonic XLC and All American Plunge. What's real sad, though, is that they were never within 1500 miles of each other...and they shoulda been in the same park!