Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, which is unrelated to how I got to Great Adventure. This was a more spontaneous thing. My sister had been trying to buy a saddle from someone in my township, and was thinking I could pick it up and pay for it until she had the chance to come down. But negotiations dragged on, and eventually she figured, why not just take a weekend day to come down, buy the saddle, and go to Great Adventure for her and her husband's first roller coaster of the season? They invited me --- catching me on my cell phone, by the way, in-between my two classes --- on Friday and for a rare moment of decision I said yes, let's go. Who knows when I'll be back in the area, after all, and who knows when they'll be around, as they plan to move later this summer.
My sister was slower than she expected in getting the saddle purchased, so, I stayed at home even though we figured to meet at the park instead. I realized on driving to the park that as long as I was going myself, I should've gone earlier and taken in rides that my sister and brother-in-law might not be fond of. They're there for the roller coasters, while I'm interested in more nearly everything. I may be slow starting, but I'm good for trying most anything.
My camera was going to be a difficulty. Or at least my camera combined with my wearing a normal pair of khakis rather than cargo shorts would be: I didn't have a place to stuff my camera where it could be easily contained. The ride guardian at the first roller coaster we went to --- Bizarro --- insisted I put it in the locker, and a day of putting stuff into and out of lockers would be a real nuisance. I made it through two locker uses, by our getting a bunch of Bizarro-area roller coasters at once.
We got separated early, on El Toro, the wooden roller coaster so large that from the top of the secondary hill you can look down on Rolling Thunder, which had so impressed me in my youth as an impossible huge roller coaster. The guy in front of us offered to let us go, so he could ride with friends, but while I went through the turnstile, my sister and her husband didn't, which I didn't realize until the gates were closing again. So I rode alone --- someone's watch flew off, too --- and waited by the ride photo booth, where once again, my face was in a goofy wide-open smile.
Trivia: The radio station Prague I, still in German hands in May 1945, denounced the broadcast of Germany's surrender as an Allied propaganda trick and demanded fighting continue. Source: Germany 1945: From War To Peace, Richard Bessel.
Currently Reading: Experiment In Independence: New Jersey In The Critical Period 1781 - 1789, Richard P McCormick.
PS: Late April, Early May Math Comics, since it's been a while.
