On testing the limits at Cedar Point
by Jean Martin
Last Saturday I took a ride at Cedar Point that most of you have probably not taken, and thereby hangs a tale.
Let me be clear from the outset. I freely admit that initially I made a series of bad decisions.
1. I went to Cedar Point during the hottest summer on record.
2. I stood in line for the latest must-ride roller coaster with a teenager for an hour and a half — only to learn when we reached the front of the line that the coaster had broken down, and no one knew when it would be operational again.
3. There were three of us in our party, and I had the only cell phone in the group.
After the aborted ride on the Millenium, I sat in the partial shade to recover while the others found a place to eat. As it turns out, this was a good decision. When the others went off in search of further adventures, I decided to ride the little train in search of a cool breeze.
As the heat index rose well above 100 degrees, I found that I could not get off the train. Another trip past Lake Erie and through Boneville told me that I needed to get somewhere cool. When we pulled into the station for the second time, I noticed an air conditioned restroom. After staying in the bathroom as long as I dared (There were desperate people waiting.), I ventured back out into the heat to sit and contemplate my next move.
The one goal I had by that time was to meet my family at the other end of the park by 5 p.m. The Sky Ride was pretty close, and I had one of those refillable drink containers. The problem was that not only could I not make it to the Sky Ride, I couldn’t even make it across the midway to get my container refilled. There was a water fountain about 10 yards away, but I couldn’t stand in line to fill my bottle.
It was about this time that I began to make some better decisions. One young woman came over to me and asked whether I needed anything. I told her I would like to have my container filled with water, so she kindly did that for me. Eventually she wondered what else she might do, and I finally had to ask her to find a park attendant for me.
Soon enough a little electric cart and two EMTs arrived to give me the special ride. There was no waiting in line, no breakdown this time. In no time I was deposited in a little cubicle where I could rest in the blessed relief of air conditioning. As it turns out, I was not alone in taking this ride. People were dropping all over the park, and the little cubicles were filling up fast.
There is one thing to bear in mind should you ever choose to take this particular ride. You must be able to tell everyone in the place your name, where you live and how old you are. If you are not able to do this, you will end your visit with the much more prosaic ride in a motorized ambulance to the local hospital. I knew my name, where I lived and how old I was. At one point I told someone that we sometimes had this kind of heat in Alpena, but we didn’t walk around in it.
Eventually I decided that I needed to rejoin my party because they would search every bench in the park and still never think to look for me in First Aid. I found them, we ate dinner, and eventually we returned to our bus for a delightful trip home in the air conditioned bus.
I had tested my limits and found them. The one really good decision I had made was not to exceed those new-found limits. I ended up in the air conditioned First Aid station but, unlike many others, had not smacked my head on the pavement to get there.
There are people who will tell you that what does not kill us makes us stronger.
I, on the other hand, tend to subscribe to something the late Dr. Jim Grost told me many years ago: Just because you lived through something doesn’t mean that it was good for you.