Knott’s Berry Farm – The Ghostrider

Posted on December 9, 2007 in Travels - So Cal

The initial reaction…words cannot describe it. Quite simply said GhostRider’s one incredible ride!

Our tickets said we could start as early as 10 am, but I’m not one to go out to a theme park as the south end of a storm that is devastating Oregon and Washington is pushing through the region. So we went later in the day, ate the Christmas dinner that Lynn’s company had shelled out for, and then walked around Walter Knott’s fantasy mining town.

They said “No one with heart or nervous conditions” so, having both, I had to go on the Ghostrider.

The picture that they took somewhere in mid-ride tells it all. I couldn’t get my seatbelt to fasten, so I pulled down the lap bar and just pressed it down so that it wouldn’t come up. Lynn closed her eyes for the entire ride. Yes, on an attraction which is supposed to induce terror — where you are supposed to scream all the way as you watch yourself tumble down chute after chute — she clamped her lids so she wouldn’t see the adrenaline-pumping dives and turns. I didn’t dare close mine: being six foot four, I am used to bumping my head on things and I just didn’t want to whack mine on one of the wooden overhead crossbars. “It’s supposed to be rickety” one of Lynn’s coworkers told me, but I never noticed.

The distinct fall nearly to the ground caught me offguard. I thought about my unfastened safety belt and the crossbeams that we kept diving through. Oh my head! What if the beast threw me? What if I stretched my neck too far and got the crown of my skull lopped off? I never screamed. In a dark way, I enjoyed the rolls and thunders, the threatening tunnels and violent turns. Just when I found myself praying that the miserable experience would end, it did. We rolled into the station and got out.

Next to the exit is where we saw the photograph: Lynn with a blank, eyes-shut face like she was undergoing thorasic surgery with only local anesthesia and me leaning into her, fearful for my head.

We should have bought the photo.

My heart took it just fine and I didn’t have the slightest inkling of a panic attack. Nor did I blow chow on disembarking. Only a muscle in my back complained. Damn, it was fun.