On Saturday, in between spitting and full-blown rain showers, I finally experienced Valley Fair in Shakopee, MN. I’d not been there before.
At some point, I want to consider myself a roller coaster aficianado. That will likely happen when I procure the funds in which to actually travel around and ride roller coasters. A trip to Disney World and Busch Gardens this past January, however, set me off on this quest for windmills.
Valley Fair had some really good rides. Both Mark and I agreed that the Renegade, a wooden roller coaster, was one of the top rides there. Usually wooden roller coasters leave you feeling as if you’d just been beat up by a few thugs, but the Renegade wasn’t so much rough as it was alarmingly fast. Much fun. Rode it twice.
There was the Power Tower ride, which really was more about increasing your agony on the slow ride up to the troposphere, dodging wayward Russian satellites, while allowing each rider plenty of time to think of all the ways he or she was stupid and mistaken to get on the ride. Once at the top, the pause allowed for a view and for dread to set in, before dropping you to the bottom.
I shrieked on that drop. We rode it twice, it being our final ride of the day because I thought it fitting to close out the day with a little adrenaline. I also had to buy a bag of cotton candy because with the adrenaline rush comes a crash and I wanted to remain coherent, to some degree, for the ride back.
The Xtreme Swing also had some pant-filling moments. It seemed, from the ground, innocuous enough. The problem was, though, that once strapped in you realized you had pretty much nothing to hold onto and the designers didn’t include shoulder harnesses. When that swing (which had a loud machinery sound when swinging that impressed me greatly) had you in the top swing moments, it felt as if you were falling out of the chair. Certainly, we were strapped in (with a weird blue cross-lap restraint that looked like a blue Speedo), but there was only a wimpy little handle on one side and I found myself screaming bloody murder at the highest swing for lack of something to grasp.
But, really, what I’m here to tell you about is what Valley Fair will give you for 40 bucks. ($37.99, actually, and what an annoying thing to have a penny to carry around.)
The new Valleyfair! slogan should be, according to Mark: “For 40 bucks, we’ll punch you in the…”
Suffice it to say that Steel Venom, which shoots you out like a rocket and whips you back and forth until it suddenly stops mid-air in the vertical position which, due to the hard plastic seats which molded around and inbetween your legs, slams you forward, was not designed by a man. Or so I was informed. I certainly didn’t have any discomfort beyond screaming my head off, but I was told that perhaps, had I listened, I would have heard every guy on that ride groaning at that moment of impact, and then noticing them limping away from the ride when it was finally done.
It was a fun day. IMAX, chocolate malts, coasters, hardly any wait in any lines, cotton candy, and lunch out in the car.
There were a few other 40 buck slogan ideas, but that one consistently made me snicker the most.
That’s quite a deal, for 40 bucks.
