Location Taken: Just outside Winnipeg, Manitoba
Time Taken: June 2010
There’s an amusement park just to the southeast of Winnipeg, right off of the Trans-Canada Highway. It’s called Tinkertown and seems to be a fairly standard amusement park.
Not that I really know. I’ve only been to one real amusement park (and a few tiny traveling carnivals with rides), the Six Flags America not too far from Washington DC.
It was with my physics class, of course. And I spent the time with my Mom, since she was a chaperone. I know, how typically geeky of me. Each student was given a small array of testing equipment and various experiments to run on the rides. The park was rather empty, since it was a special physics day, not to mention being during school hours, though I think there were other classes there. There were pretty much no lines, though none of the rides were empty. Well, except for maybe the tea cups. They’re not that popular a ride amongst teenagers, not when compared to the roller coasters.
That was my first time riding a roller coaster, actually. And my second, and probably my last. First, I tried a standard one, on a wooden track. It was awful. The g-forces go to my stomach rather than my head, so I was queasy for all of the ride, and I kept worrying about my glasses falling off. But, being of a scientific mind as I am, I gave another coaster a go, this one of the design that lets your feet dangle. Just as bad. Alas, roller coasters aren’t for me.
Nor are many of the other rides, really. The majority of them are designed to amplify g-forces as much as they can in various ways, which just wasn’t working for me. Some of the games were fun, if simple, and I’d have really liked it if the water park was open, but it was the wrong time of year for that. The rest of the park, well, let’s just say it didn’t encourage me to go to another amusement park since then, and it wasn’t the fault of the park itself.
Still, there’s something special about amusement parks. They’re places devoted to enjoyment, and thus operate differently than the rest of society. There’s a joy to them that leaks out even to people to me who don’t enjoy going on the rides and really don’t care for overly-fried park food. I may not visit them, but I still love going past them and living vicariously through all the people who do enjoy them. I certainly wish them the best of it, and the shortest of lines!
