Millennium Force

Millennium Force

The ear piercing noises that I heard reminded me of hearing Jamie Lee Curtis shriek at the sign of Michael Myers in Halloween. I quickly realized that I was not in the theatre, but rather in the midst of the world's largest theme park, standing next to the tallest rollercoaster ever constructed. As I made sure that my jaw was still attached and not scraping the ground, I stared with awe at this massive tangled array of steel which brought together the Millennium Force. Heard about worldwide, the Millennium Force stands extremely tall at 328 feet and consists of over a mile of steel track. The rubber wheels racing over the track sounded like a lion's roar in the middle of an abandoned amphitheatre. To say the least, the sound was mind boggling. Not only does the structure look as though it touches the sky, the speed that this monster reaches tops 100 miles per hour.

So this is it. My walk down the plank began as I slowly arrived at the teeth of the beast: the entrance gates. I was sure to remind my brother and sister that I loved them dearly in the chance that I would lose my mind after going mono y mono with the giant coaster. The first of my senses were exercised as my mouth dried up as though I had just swallowed a truckload of sand. My throat quickly shrank to the point where a thread would be a close fit through my esophagus. For the first time, there was no wait to board the coaster and that, to me, was upsetting because I needed time to comprehend what I was about to encounter. All of a sudden, a jar full of flies appeared in my vision, but it turned out to be my vision was fading at the sight of the monstrous hill which was in my immediate foreground. For some reason I felt like I was being laughed at like the clown in a haunted house. It turns out that I was being laughed at by a group of eight year old boys who saw my actions as I was about to enter the station.

The cars were thin fiberglass boxes shaped with a corklike floorboard and there were no sides to the trains. Just a seatbelt strapped across my lap would keep me safe on the three minute journey on which I was about to embark. The train departed the station and I felt my stomach drop faster than the blink of an eye. The ascent to the top seemed to be nearly a mile. The clanging of the lift did not ease my emotions whatsoever. The sound grew louder and louder as the pinnacle slowly