It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to the amusement park, and I’ve never been with The Husband. Amusement park rides and crowds are on his list of things to avoid whenever possible, so I’ve always gone with a friend or tagged along with my sister and the nephews.
Since there are fewer and fewer rides I can tolerate being this side of ‘a-certain-age,’ I’ve not felt terribly deprived.
But this year, when my sister-in-law offered us a pair of passes to Seabreeze Amusement Park, the stars aligned and The Husband said “Yes.”
We ate junk food, soaked in the sunshine, played a lot of skeeball to win a pile of loot, and went on the three rides that are the most iconic amusement park rides: the Bumper Cars, the Carousel, and the Roller coaster.
Note to self: When choosing a bumper car, choose one behind The Husband’s. Because being ahead of him meant I was his first target.
The Husband opted out of the Carousel in favor of the big red rocking chairs inside the pavilion, then we all took in the photo exhibit documenting 135 years of Seabreeze.
Then there is the Jack Rabbit, the oldest continually running wooden roller coaster in the United States. The ride runs about a minute and a half (‘of hell’, according to one bystander), has a steep first hill, a hairpin turn, and ends after a long and dark tunnel.
What makes it so terrifying? It could be that it was built in 1920, and as the cars clank around a turn, a small part of you wonders if this might be the time it flies right off of the tracks.
Until today, The Husband has never ridden the Jack Rabbit. Despite having grown up less than five miles away. Despite his brother having worked at Seabreeze for several summers as a teenager. And despite the fact that most people who have lived within a 25 mile radius of Seabreeze have ridden the Jack Rabbit.
Today, The Husband buckled to spousal pressure, then white-knuckled his way through his first real ride on a roller coaster. (I screamed, as usual…he was oddly silent.)
Screaming your way through a minute and a half ride at 50 mph, on a wooden track with nothing to hold you in except a lap bar and a good grip? Well, that’s a summer classic.
