Thunder River

Oh Waldameer. Good ol' Waldameer. For those of you who don't know, Waldameer is an amusement park in Erie, PA. I use the term "amusement park" loosely because Waldameer consists mostly of what most people would consider permanent fair rides. Think of all the shitty rides you see at any county fair... just built slightly sturdier and cemented into the ground. And at Waldameer, you don't have to worry about the rides being disassembled and taken away at the end of the weekend... you can count on them always being there. When I was growing up, the best rides at Waldameer were the Scrambler, Tilt-A-Whirl, Paratrooper, Sea Dragon, and Whacky Shack. The sole roller coaster was older than my parents... so I think you can imagine how thrilling that was.

Even though my description of the park sounds disappointing, I used to love going to Waldameer. I'm pretty sure it's a huge part of every young Erieite's childhood. Every school held a picnic at Waldameer at the beginning of summer. People had birthday parties and family reunions at the park. I'd say in an average summer, I'd go to Waldameer at least twice a month. And although I think most of the rides are lame now, I couldn't get enough of them back then.

There have been a lot of changes to the park since I was a kid and Thunder River, I think, was the first big step in the right direction. Waldameer had always built a new ride every year, but they were usually just new fair-type rides. Borrring. But Thunder River was a big jump. It was by far the biggest and most modern ride in the park. It replaced the previous 1920s-built log flume whose highlight was a pathetic four foot drop... which actually was slightly exciting because by the time you got to it, you had been floating along for what seemed like 30 minutes travelling at a slower pace than the average walking speed of someone who was also born in the 1920s.

So now you understand my EXTREME excitement over the addition of Thunder River.

Since Thunder River, Waldameer has continued to add more exciting rides which I'm always surprised to see in the "lame" park I grew up with... including three new roller coasters (one which is legitimately kickass).

I could go on and on with memories of Waldameer (throwing up after riding the Paratrooper in 5th grade; my best friend Meghan, fully aware of my motion sickness, leaning all her weight into the side of our Tilt-A-Whirl car while innocently claiming she had no idea why we were spinning so fast; winning a stuffed animal lion from a midway game and naming it after Rider Strong; my sister getting kicked out of the park for spitting from the Sky Ride; frantically running around the carousel to claim the awesomest "horse" which was actually a dragon; the delicious french fries from the Potato Patch)... but I think this entry is long enough!

P.S. "I LIKE Pauly Shore!" Hahaha. Where the hell did that come from? I was probably watching too much Encino Man again...