Magic Mountain

Last week Natalie and I had our 7 year anniversary. This year I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I really wanted to go to Catalina and do some hiking or something but leaving the kids isn't that easy, well leaving Zach isn't easy. So eventually I decided we should just do Magic Mountain instead. We could drop the kids off with my sister, let them drive her up a wall for a little more than 24 hours, and have some fun. I used to go to Magic Mountain all the time when I was younger and the only time Natalie and I went was October 2007. I was suffering from altitude sickness from the day before and we ended up leaving early so another trip was long overdue. So last week I worked a crazy long weekend so I could have an extended 5 day Thanksgiving weekend without burning up any PTO.

Our first stop in Santa Clarita was BevMo. I've been on a diet lately and it had been a while since I've had a rum n coke and I wanted to see if they had anything good we can't get in Arizona. I didn't find any of the good Dominican rums I was looking for but I did find this 12 year aged Haitian rum and it was delicious. It wasn't til I got to the hotel that I realized who coke suggest I share my coke with. The rum was so good I decided to start my morning off like a pirate the next morning.

That night we decided to walk to dinner. El Torito is a five minute walk from there and I thought I was going to have a drink. When we got there I realized everything is full of tequila and I hate tequila. So it was water for me. At the end of dinner a woman walked in with a full sized poodle. Natalie was busting up laughing. I have one picture where you can see half her face blue and the vein popping out. She would kill me if I shared that one so here's another one instead. After dinner we got back to the hotel and fell asleep by 8. I brought my board shorts and was planning on hitting the jacuzzi but having two crazies kids has made us like senior citizens. No kids for the night and out by 8.

The day started off pretty warm so I left the sweater in the car. We got there a good half hour or more early thinking we would be first in line. Haha, yeah right. When the gates opened we made a dash for X2. After waiting 20 minutes we were told the ride would open up later in the day because it was stuck. So we ran over to Tatsu next and found that one was closed too. So next we were off to Riddler's Revenge. We walked right onto the ride and there was no line so we got to ride a second time next to some fellow metal heads. I have to say, after the second ride I was feeling a little sick and needed a break to to let my breakfast make it's way back down into my stomach.

After Riddler's Revenge I decided to ride this one, the Green Lantern. It really doesn't look that bad, and it's not that fast, but damn it's a mean coaster. The seats are like on X2, on the side of the car, and they rotate so they spin you all around. The worst part of the roller coaster was the over the shoulder restraints that felt like they were going to pop right on open. After this Natalie was a little scared to ride on everything.

So after Green Lantern we headed over to Batman. A classic ride. And after that I decided to get Natalie on Lex Luther's Drop Of Doom. I have to say this ride is over rated. It's like Supreme Scream at Knott's only 100+ feet higher and a lot faster, 80+ miles per hr vs 55mph. However once they lift you up they drop you once and that is it. With Supreme Scream they drop you and you bounce halfway back up and it's a lot harder on the stomach. I have to say my expectations for this ride were too high. I almost thought Natalie wasn't going to ride. She was putting up a fight getting on this one. She had her eyes closed most of the time and was screaming her lungs out. I don't understand the whole eyes closed thing. The best part of the ride was enjoying the view. One thing I like about Magic Mountain is all the trees and the fall colors and the view from 300+ feet up was pretty awesome. This ride was built on the side of Superman. So the track that curves is Superman and you can see the people going up Lex Luther's Drop Of Doom just below where it turns red.

After this we did Scream. I forgot that I had ridden this last time we were there. I thought it was something new I hadn't tried. However when I got off the ride with a sore neck and nausea I remembered that we had been on it before. We wanted to try the new Twisted Colossus but the line was so long it was stupid. So we ate lunch and headed over to Goliath where we were in line behind the most annoying kids for an hour. It started getting cold in the line for Goliath and the ride stirred up my lunch pretty good so we took a break afterwards and I ran to the car to get our sweaters. 

We I returned we ran over to X2. Natalie was talking a lot of crap about how if she gets sick she is done for the day. I kept trying to remind her that she rode it last time but she didn't remember. For those who have never been to Magic Mountain X2 is the most insane roller coaster on the planet. It's the world's first 4D roller coaster. The seats are on the side of the car and they spin at certain parts on the track. So going up we were laying on our backs looking at the sky. They drop us from that big drop in the background of the picture and half way down the drop the seat flips. The seats keep flipping so you never know where you are. The track could be above you one minute and you're going one way and the next it's below you and you're going the other direction. One part I really like is when they flip the seats during a corkscrew and it looks like you're moving sideways. The ride is all kinds of crazy. Anyways Natalie rode the entire ride with her eyes closed but somehow she said she loved it and wanted to ride again. We had just enough time though to get over to Tatsu before they close. The best thing about X2 is that even though it's really intense it's the smoothest roller coaster you'll find and I didn't get any nausea.

Here is a video of X2. If you skip the first 1:55 in the video you see right where the ride actually starts.

Tatsu was the most ridiculous line of the day. Well over an hour. When we got to the loading station there were three girls in front of us and two people in front of them. The three all wanted to ride together so they let us have cuts. Well the kids in front of them had planned some shady crap with their friends to ride twice. So when the coaster came back for loading their friends didn't want to get off the ride and thought we were just going to stay quite. The girls that had given us cuts were all pissed off and yelling and cussing and I just wanted to go home and didn't feel like dealing with these kids. So I got the ride operator and told her to kick those kids off. They sat there playing stupid. She took off to get help and those kids got scared and took off. So the funny part about this is that when the ride was done and we were just outside the station we got stuck. Tatsu is a ride that the seat rotates once you get on it and it stays face down the entire ride, like you're flying through the forest. So here we are stuck face down, in the cold, outside the station. Natalie was about to have a panic attack and I'm just sitting there laughing. I think we were stuck about 10-15 minutes before they finally got maintenance out there and got us back into the station. 

So that was our day. The only ride we didn't get to go on was Full Throttle which currently has the biggest loop in the world and the car rides on both the inside and the outside of the loop. The loop didn't look that impressive from up close but once you get a half a mile away and compare it to the other rides it looks massive. I guess there's always next time for that ride right? Maybe? We'll see if Natalie ever wants to go back. I'm looking forward to the day when the kids are big enough to go to Magic Mountain.