This morning I woke up early and made waffles for myself, my aunt and uncle, and a few of their friends. A real breakfast of champions made with a waffle iron of champions.
After breakfast, I set up a makeshift bank-a-ball game in my aunt and uncle’s basement for practice. Check out a short video of my practice session. I probably spent 15 minutes or so practicing before heading off to King’s Dominion. Unfortunately, I set my camera on a very high shutter speed to photograph the practice session and forgot to change it before taking a bunch of crappy pictures at the park (included on this post).
The game plan for today’s trip to King’s Dominion was to go and win Bank-a-Ball, drop the prize off at my car, and then go ride roller coasters.
When I got to the park, I went straight to the Bank-a-Ball game. I asked the game operator the rules and he said I could lean and stand on my tip-toes, if I wanted, so long as both feet stayed touching the ground. Then I paid $5 for three tries, leaned over as far as I could and won the game on my first throw. I was allowed to give my two remaining tries to a guy standing nearby, who kindly took my picture. Having already won a gorilla yesterday, I decided to take a parrot today, which might not shed as much.
Some of the nosier blog readers have asked how much money I am spending on carnival games. Today I spent $5. Then I ran off to the caricature booth and had my caricature drawn with the parrot. I don’t think it’s fantastic, but it’s not terrible. I think it looks more like my brother than it does like me. I’m not sure how the artist decided on that exact hair cut. It looks terrible. Sorry, Devin.
A couple people kindly agreed to take my picture during the process, though quite a few others curtly refused.
On my way out of the park, I stopped to have my picture taken at front sign. I thought that I had reached and agreement to photograph a couple and their child in exchange for them photographing me. Instead, after I had photographed them, they thanked me politely and walked off as I was preparing to grab the bird to pose. Kind of weird. Fortunately, someone else was willing to take the picture.
After dropping the bird off at my car, I returned to the park and rode several roller coasters, including the Dominator, the Anaconda, the Volcano, the Shockwave, the Rebel Yell, and the Backlot Stunt Coaster. Nearly all of them were way smoother than the Magnum and the Gemini at Cedar Point. The lines were short, with a maximum wait of about fifteen minutes and usually no wait at all. I also seem to have lost the overpowering terror on roller coasters that gripped me in high school, as well as any motion sickness. I rode on all kinds of up, down, around and upside down roller coasters with no ill effects. It was mostly just thrilling and exciting, though it threatened to become slightly boring by the end of the day. If I had had to wait any longer than 15 minutes in any line, I would have been very unhappy. This leads me to my next post.
