Little Amerricka

As I write this, the trip is over, but I'm going to try to get all my pictures and ramblings posted anyways. 6/19 did not go as planned. There was some very nasty rain on my drive, which started in Kalamazoo, MI and got harrowing in Chicagoland. I drove through downpours the likes of which I have not seen in a long time. Put it like this...I drove straight through an area that was under a tornado watch by the National Weather Service. Now, I've always wanted to see a tornado, but with the intensity of the rain, I was happy to settle for just being able to see (and not crash into) the cars in front of me on the highway.

I had several stops planned in the Chicago area, all of which had to be nixed due to lack of time. Turns out I did not get to say goodbye to Kiddieland (a small park with a small wood coaster closing at the end of this season after decades of service to their community), but I did make it there previously. Shame that I couldn't squeeze it in, though.

I decided to make the push for Marshall, WI and Little Amerricka. The park's name is a pun on it's founder's name, Lee Merrick. Its coaster is pretty much the same as the one I would have taken another spin on at Kiddieland, with two important differences: I personally had not ridden this one before and this one looks like it'll keep on operating for a while longer. I arrived to find the skies had cleared and that the park was empty. I mean really empty. I mean closed due to earlier bad weather empty. :( I had been trying to call the park all day to make sure they were still open and kept getting busy signals. This actually helped to save my ass....

I got there, parked, and started walking around trying to find out what was going on. I came upon two people a short walk into the park. One was a man standing and the other was a woman sitting in her car idling in the middle of the midway. The man was a person who had brought his whole extended family from Indiana and was looking forward to giving them a fun time at the park. The woman turned out to be the wife of the individual who designed/built the park for Mr. Merrick--one of the "higher-ups" in it's day-to-day operations, indeed.

She explained that the bad rain I had experienced passed through their area as well and it sent guests heading for the hills. A park that small can't afford to keep employees around when there are no guests in the park, so they called it a day. The man explained his situation and disppointment to her and then I chimed in about my situation. I was so desperate to be able to check this ride off my list, and only wanted to ride it and move on. This brings me to a bit of a digression....

One of my goals in coastering is to someday be able to say that I've ridden every operating wood coaster in North America. I created a list of those coasters I need to ride in order to meet this goal. It looks like this:

"Wood Coasters Needed

United States

1. Boardwalk Bullet Kemah Boardwalk Wood Sit Down Operating 8/31/2007

2. Evel Knievel Six Flags St. Louis Wood Sit Down Operating 6/20/2008

3. Renegade Valleyfair! Wood Sit Down Operating 5/12/2007

4. Meteor Little Amerricka Wood Sit Down Operating 8/8/2007

5. Prowler Worlds of Fun Wood Sit Down Operating 2009

6. Terminator Salvation: The Coaster Six Flags Magic Mountain Wood Sit Down Operating 2009

A. Flying Turns Knoebels Amusement Park & Resort Wood Bobsled Under Construction 2009

B. Zippin Pippin Libertyland Wood Sit Down SBNO 2006

C. Mega Zeph Six Flags New Orleans Wood Sit Down SBNO 8/2005

D. unknown Quassy Wood Sit Down Under Construction 2010

*Son Of Beast Kings Island Wood Sit Down Operating 7/4/2007

Canada

7. Monstre La Ronde Wood Sit Down Operating 7/20/1985

8. Tree Topper Upper Clements Park Wood Sit Down Operating 1989

Mexico

9. Montaña Rusa La Feria Chapultepec Magico Wood Sit Down Operating 1964

10. Medusa Six Flags Mexico Wood Sit Down Operating 6/2/2000

*Technically not needed, but when last ridden, it was radically different."

The numbered coasters are coasters that are operating that I have not ridden. Coasters represented by a letter are either under construction and will have to be added to the list once open, or are not operating but have a good chance of operating again and will have to be added to the list in the event that that happens. The ride denoted with an asterisk is explained within.

I once achieved the goal of having ridden every operating wood coaster in the U.S. It lasted from October 2006 after having ridden El Toro (Great Adventure, NJ) and ended in May of 2007 when Renegade opened. Then the money started getting tight and new woodies started opening far enough away that I couldn't get to them. This trip represented an opportunity to check four more off the list. Had I missed Meteor, it would have been a pain and nuisance to plan to return to that part of the country within the next few years.

I explained to the woman that I had attempted to call to make sure the park was open and could not get through. She checked the phone and found that, sure enough, it had not been placed on the hook correctly. She informed me and the man from Indiana that we were lucky. A man who knows how to run the coaster is still on the premises and she was going to get him to fire it up for us. I was so impressed (and more than a little relieved) by this, that I gave the woman $10 as a tip/thank you/attempt to give the park some small revenue.

After he did a quick inspection, turned on the lift hill, and sent an empty train to make sure it was still safe after the rain, he had us get on. I asked if I could take my camera on (with the woman "in charge" looking on) and he said it wasn't a problem. In light of this, I chose the front seat so I could get some photos. He gave us three consecutive circuits. The fruits of this ride/photo session (as well as some shots I took from the ground beforehand) can be found here: http://s632.photobucket.com/albums/uu42/harrycalder/061909/ .

When we were done, the woman in charge came back with a bag of blue cotton candy (which I never ate and now sits in my cupboard as a crumpled up lump of blue sugar...and wouldn't you know it, I know someone who would've loved this little perk, but she happened to be 1000 miles or so away at the time, so there's not much I could have done about it) and an out-of-print Meteor shirt in my size that will not be made again. She wanted to thank me for being willing to give the park some money. I'd say I got far more than my $10 worth! If you're reading, thank you Little Amerricka for being such nice folks and for giving me this fun little story to tell.