Great America

Monday we made our third annual trip to Great America. We usually go in early July to celebrate Megan's birthday, although we went in August last year. She loves the park, and is rapidly approaching the minimum height required to be able to ride the best rides (Raging Bull, Superman, Deja Vu, and Batman).

Megan has mastered The Whizzer, and also likes The Demon. Although she's tall enough to ride The Viper, and The American Eagle, I wasn't able to coerce -- I mean convince -- her to go on those rides.

It rained that afternoon, and rides were shut down for a couple of hours, and we were also deprived of a chance to ride in the 3:30pm parade as the Grand Marshall Family, or whatever it's called.

Just before the thunderstorms hit, I was in line for the Superman ride -- I didn't make it before they shut it down -- and my wife and the girls were watching a show. They were approached by someone from the park to see if we were interested in being the "family" for the parade. We'd get to sit in the first car, smile and wave, etc. After saying yes, the rains came, and the parade was washed out.

Yes, it literally rained on our parade.

Strange things have happened these last frew years while we've been at Great America:

2007: Rain washes away our chance to be the featured family in the daily parade.

2006: A girl had a seizure and died inside Camp Cartoon Network, minutes before Megan and I were about to go there and ride Spacely's Sprocket Rocket, the same ride where the girl in the story may have suffered her attack.

The pic above is Megan and I enjoying the coaster in 2005. This was Megan's first coaster ride of any kind.

2005: While I was in line for Deja Vu, a kid tried to hurdle his way over a metal railing to meet up with his family, slipped, and crashed mouth-first into the railing. He was knocked out for about five minutes.

Spooky. Maybe I'm bad luck. In fact, next year, I'll try to let everyone know when I'm going so you can avoid the park, (shorter lines for me) and whatever catastrophe will happen on that day (shorter lines for me). Please, stay away (shorter lines for me). I'm only trying to help you (shorter lines for me).