Roller Coaster Riding

It was a very long day of waiting.  I set my alarm for 6:07 but was awake shortly after 5:00 a.m.  I got up around 5:45.  I left the house right at 7:00 in hopes of avoiding bad traffic and I was lucky in that respect.  It slowed down slightly near downtown, but wasn’t bad at all after that.  I got to the park around 7:40.  Once there, I turned in my release form and then went through security.  We had our pictures taken with our names for identification purposes.  We headed over towards the coaster around 8:00 but ended up going past it to another area where they served us breakfast.  I honestly thought it was going to be a smaller group of about 30 or 40 people, but there were over 100 there.  Breakfast was decent – lots of fruit and pastries.  Then we waited and waited.  One of the guys directing the commercial came around and starting pairing people off. At the end there was a group of “singles” that hadn’t been paired and I was one of those.  I feel like an outcast being one of the last to be “picked.”  I got a partner but we ended up being nearly last in line.  Then we waited more.  We finally headed over the the coaster a little after 11:00.  Then we waited.  We finally got up on the platform and they sent a couple of trains with people through.  But then they had technical difficulties.  It was close to noon so they had us leave the platform and go eat lunch.  They served us a choice of BBQ brisket or grilled chicken with beans, potato salad, and cobbler.  So we ate.  Finally we got to head back to the coaster around 1:00.  Again, I was at the end of the line.  I finally got a ride shortly before 2:00.  It was a great ride – I love the hybrid compared to the rough coaster it was before.  After that ride we had to go back down to the ground level and get in line again if we wanted another ride.  Slowly people started leaving.  They had to do reset cameras again so I had to wait another hour or so.  I was able to get a second right around 3:15 – second to last car in the back.  Event though they were going to open more coasters and keep going until 8:00, I had to leave by 3:30 to go to a meeting for UIL.

I made it to the meeting with time to spare.  We had to grade the papers for the writing events.  Luckily I was able to choose a smaller group of papers and we finished by 6:45 when I had to leave to go play my last orchestra concert for the season.  I got home shortly before 10:00 tonight.  I’m going to head to bed shortly since the Spurs aren’t playing very well tonight.