I come from Ohio, which means two things.
First, I am impossible to be around for most of college football season. Particularly once the bowl games start up.
But second, and more apropos for this piece, I have a deeply ingrained love of theme parks in general, and roller coasters in particular. It's part of the Buckeye DNA, that instinct to strap yourself down to a rolling car and let the G forces ignite that nerve cluster in the pit of your stomach. It's why we have Cedar Point. It's why whenever some brash upstart tempts the Gods by building the tallest rollercoaster in the world, we start working on a bigger one. It's why if you look at any list of the tallest, fastest and scariest rollercoasters in the world, you'll find Ohio.
For me, it started with a trip to Cincinnati's King's Island with my dad. A longtime employee of GE, dad had scored us a couple of tickets to employee appreciation day wherein the company essentially bought the park for the day for its workers.
The forecast called for pretty severe thunderstorms throughout the day, but neither one of us had much going on so we drove a few hours down from Columbus to check out the park. When we got there, the skies were blue, the clouds were nowhere to be seen, and most importantly the entire park was deserted.
We had the whole thing to ourselves, just me and my dad.
I can't tell you how many times we stepped off each coaster only to whip right around to the entrance to ride it again. I do remember riding The Beast several times in a row, non-stop. At one point, the guy manning the ride stopped making us go through the turnstiles again.
Cedar Point may get all the glory and the spots in the record books, but in my mind King's Island is the best park in Ohio, and all because of that one day.
Sure it was the rides and it was the freedom of not waiting in line, but really it was that time with my dad. Just me and the old man, throwing back Italian ices and chain-riding coasters. Until my wedding day and the birth of my three children, it was the best day of my life.
And until my recent trip to Walt Disney World, it was still in the top five.
I took my son with me during a press trip last week, squeezing in as much time with him as I could around media breakfasts, presentations and interviews centered on the rollout of MyMagic+ and the unveiling of The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Ride.
The crew at Disney were extremely generous hosts, putting us up in the Wilderness Lodge, loading us up with freebies and giving us a pair of MagicBands. The Wilderness Lodge is a story in itself. I never stayed on the resort as a kid, so I never knew what I was missing out on. It's an entirely different, monumentally more incredible experience and I can't recommend it enough. And if you happen to dine at the Whispering Canyon Café while you're staying, ask for Mountain Momma. She's awesome. Loud, but awesome.
Anyway, the lodgings were only a small part of it. The MagicBands are really what sealed the deal. They didn't directly tell any of us, but the Disney folks had made it so all of the MagicBands given out during this trip were rigged so we could walk on to every ride without making a FastPass reservation.
So there I was again, just a father and a son with the keys to the kingdom. Only this time I was on the other side of that equation. We walked right onto the Haunted Mansion, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Space Mountain you name it. Once again, I lost count.
And during the evening party to celebrate the opening of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Ride, we hopped off and right back on three times. Only this time, we were on a ride almost no one else had ever ridden before. My son spotted the witch hiding out at the end of the ride before I did, and lorded it over me the rest of the night.
And afterward, hanging out with the colored lights of New Fantasyland holding up the night sky, my son and I sat on a wall and just spent a minute… doing nothing. Just being a kid and his dad talking about the day they'd just had.
And I told him to remember this moment, because someday he'd take his kids to the park, point to that Mine Train ride and say he rode it the first night it was open.
All the beats were there from that one perfect day with my dad. The roller coasters, the park food, the feeling like we were the only people in the park that mattered. Only they were just… more so. Maybe it was knowing that now it was my turn to create these father/son moments. Maybe it was the way we were making history on that coaster.
Maybe it was just that inimitable Disney magic. Who knows.
The how isn't important. The why is.
This, this one perfect moment we look to for the rest of our lives, is why we do it. This is why we go to these parks, Disney or otherwise. Because they'll always be there, because we can go as children and as adults and feel the same sense of wonder. It's a place of permanence in a world that always feels like it's slipping away bit by bit.
Maybe that's just the Ohio in me taking this whole theme park thing too seriously. But I doubt it.
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