Blogmas Day 21: 2021-That Cedar Point Summer
And Some Covid talk
The Pandemic threw a wrench in everyone’s plans. I had originally planned to be in Madrid in Spring 2021. However, doing the work got to close to the wire and my university said “not going happen in 2021 either” for study abroad programs.
Concurrently, El Toro Ryan started his Problematic Roller Coaster series and had talked a lot about of his time working El Toro (obviously), Kingda Ka, and Top Thrill Dragstar at Cedar Point.
He brought up that, as least the younger enthusiasts, should work in the industry. I don’t drive and Sesame Place is the only park that’s only under an hour away on the other side of the metro (yet just due east on the PA Turnpike).
Summer of ‘16, Cont
I had previously spent, well only a few hours, on National Roller Coaster Day 2016 at Cedar Point. Most of the time was in hard cover at Maverick-where I ended up getting front row. Thus, I never had time for the proper experience where I still had a fulfilling experience without riding half the coasters at Dollywood and a more or less half day.
Then again, Dollywood and Holiday World are close to where I have family in Western North Carolina (where I recorded some of the original Agency in Europe series) and Evansville, Indiana-so that adds to it. However, Cedar Point was nearly dropped because my dad got a flat on I-69 (ex I-164) going to a place we always go when we are in town, the Log Inn. Thankfully, a random auto body shop (and a White Castle, only time I’ve been to one) saved the day.
However, of the few parks outside my local area I’d been to that I needed a redemption visit, it was Cedar Point-but I didn’t expect to get a whole summer as an associate.
On Boarding
Taking Ryan’s word, I looked at Cedar Point and turned out they had a vast dorm complex just south of the causeway and put in a brief resume for ride operations.
On the interview, I did bring up my issues with weather extremes-and they directed me into a different role. Initially, I thought this was about the guides they were bringing back as part of the 150th anniversary festivities-and I did stress this a bit in my interview that it would be an honor to be apart of the park during a major milestone period. In the end, I would be just janitor 42.
By then, I realized that time was perfect for a change. I would do inventory and move all my old theme park-related content to a new channel and, since I had turned Talkin’ Toku (and then a spin-off Talkin NOT Toku) into a live format following Coaster Hour’s live streams, I chose that the old channel would remain with the TV/Film beat playing off my Radio/TV/Film major and my actual last initial to be Lindsay TV/Film.
Theme theme park stuff (post-2016) would move over to a new channel I mainly temporarily called History & Leisure, although I was not as set on the documentary style of Defunctland or Expedition Theme Park in its main cycle of programming because I knew I couldn’t compete. Would there be some of that? Yes, I did a bit on Snake River Expedition to cap off the arc of my Summer in Sandusky (and other stuff since), but I didn’t want it to be an expectation for people going in that was the idea. It was just another Autistic Coaster Enthusiast YouTuber documenting his adventures.
Set-Up and Roommate stories
Thankfully, being online and how finals work-I only had one final for Spanish on the first Wednesday of May for Spanish-which was just the 1:1 conversation with the teacher. I made sure to sign up for an earlier slot just to get on the road by lunchtime.
My mom drove me out and we took I-80 and overnighted in DuBois-which is just west of a lot of protected forest. The benefit was that it avoided Pittsburgh traffic while also being a straighter shot to Sandusky the next morning.
Upon arriving in Sandusky, I learned my mom had booked two nights at the Inn at the Thirsty Pony (That’s not actually what its called, just wanted to make the Lord of the Rings joke, as I did at the time). This inn is pretty nice and is connected to an adjacent bowling alley.
After getting situated at HR and wardrobe, with the uniform parts and a vest/sweater to keep, I checked into Valravn-fitting since it was the first coaster I rode at the park in 2016.
The grounds felt fairly open as the older dorms closer to the hub building (with laundry and information, not the game room/general store building) had been demolished for being outdated and I think on a flood plane (or at least they left behind one).
I was the first one in, so I took the bed closest to the window and AC-as well as the locker likewise.
I was soon joined by Grant. His family lived semi-close and was in a transition phase as he wrapped his gen-eds, but was waiting for his university to add the engineering major he wanted. There was one day I had lunch with his parents and sister at the Red Lobster in the Suburban hell down US250. His home ride that year was Windseeker, but would spend a lot of time at Iron Dragon and Planet Snoopy that year.
Before that, came Q and Bailey, two bud from Detroit. However, another kid would later move out with others he met had already taken the bed above me. The two would be in Admissions.
I had one adventure with them where we took the bus down to Best Buy where Bailey blew his pay on sunglasses that had Bluetooth, so he would sometimes call us back in the dorm from the tolls and supervisors were little the wiser.
The other kid was finally replaced by the time daily ops stated at the solstice with a Twitch streamer from Indiana named Tommy who got on the Tiktok trend about spinning rides I leeched off since he wasn’t going to post them to Instagram. I later got to go to (and did an Instagram live review) of Culver’s Cheese curds.
I only can get cheese curds at Reading Terminal, and its hard to say who does it better-but back then I gave it to Culver’s, but it really fluctuates, even if I haven’t been to Fox & Son in ages.
Park Services Crew
Most of the names of my “crew” I remember are actually the supervisors. There’s a buff black dude with dreads, but couldn’t tell you his name to save my life-and I’m usually good at remembering names.
Joshua seemed to run the show keeping all the supervisors in line while Courtney was more the office. Joshua had come up from Universal and came up during COVID. He had qualities of a good mentor. Being hard on me exactly where he needed to be, but all around was positive.
Courtney, along with Jenna, were mostly in the office-being more facing the business side of the park. Courtney, and her much younger sister (who only turned 18 in my last week or 2 of work) came from California. In July, she took over Food and Beverage, so I saw her much less. Reminds me of Conrad in her build in personality-but Courtney is younger and wears glasses.
I forget the next tier a bit, but one of the for was a guy named Edwin. Another went off for military basic training within 3 weeks and returned for my last days. He never really understood me, but his replacement was much better-but he was a teacher so he would have to understand IEP’s and stuff like that. There was another who traded off with Edwin I forget his name.
Next tier would be the team leads and standard level supervisors. Most of these were interns who were actually engineering majors who I guess couldn’t get co-ops due to Coivd. Two were Peyton and Elena were out, they tended to get most of the office work. I knew Peyton a bit more. Elena is the only one of the ones I knew of that wasn’t White.
They only guy at that level was Matt, who went to Pitt and was in their marching band. I didn’t known Rowan didn’t have a marching bad until we did because I never went to the football games because I could care less about sports. Not dissing anyone who does marching band.
Speaking of that brings up Meghan. I developed a crush on her. There’s something just right about her I couldn’t pinpoint though. Something I still couldn’t shake after learning that she had been dating someone since 10th grade. Her name is Rachel and (now went) to (the now defunct) University of the Arts in Philadelphia. I saw her once, but we have never been formally acquainted.
Another one of the first team lead/supervisors I got to know was Zoe. Another Michigander who is a girlboss and rather athletic in college, but also an engineering major. When I found the Demon Drop shirts, I got one and hoped Dorney would get them (I don’t think they did), I had to point them out to her so she could get one for her dad, who also loved the ride dearly.
Besides the shirt, I got a Valravn plush (and shirt) in my early days while still adjusting to the work shoes and the hours-which were fairly close to my high school schedule plus another hour or so being scheduled 7-3:30 (well technically 4, but I always cut early and barely noticed once I was in a routine) 5-6 days a week (I always had Tuesday off, and Wednesdays when the park was closed mid-week). When we went back to 8pm close the last week I was there, I was done at 2:30-which was nice for the two days it mattered.
Thoosies and More
I would get to meet a lot of enthusiasts. One from western New York named Santino I met in the Facebook group.
Another was Lourdes, who worked at Raptor and Valravn and had just popped up in our part one morning.
It was the day after Memorial Day, when I folded around 10 and the park closed at 2, I was assigned to Valravn’s area and Lourdes was outside the ride with another crew member, Tiktok creator MozzerElla, came down. She was previously trained at Wicked Twister and Raptor but seemed to mostly actually be down at Millennium Force.
I seriously think she thinks I was hitting on her. As the above meme goes, somehow I found out her last name, maybe she popped up on Linkedin-but I had previously heard she was stationed at Raptor (and was also trained on Wicked Twister).
You’d think our joint love of music and writing would go somewhere. However, as Kamen Rider Kenzan 1 said unfortunately:
There were many creators I finally got to meet like Emotional Roller Coasters (since transitioned), Callie and her sister Macy, Theme Park Horizons, “Stalker” Michael, Marina and Zach of Theme Park Media (which is really Schrodinger’s Coaster YouTube channel), Bob of BKphotopage and Wyatt (who he was doing senior portraits for that day), Alec of Coaster Studios, El Toro Ryan and some of his Coaster Idiots, and more.
It’s luck I met Alec and how Zach and Marina got to ride Dragster hours before disaster. I was moved to sweep that area and even I didn’t know till dinner time. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it was a “Boy Who Cried Wolf” situation. Trust me, I’ve literally been that boy in a play of Aesop’s Fables. Maybe connecting the two is why my thoughts on the ride still persist? I should be lucky I got to ride it like I did its sister coaster at the start of the “Summer of ‘16”.
On the Fun Side
Adjusting to things didn’t come easy, I didn’t go on park after work for nearly a month-although my roommates came down on employee preview day-which I was scheduled to work.
Dragster Ride Night
The first time off shift I was on park was not until Top Thrill Dragster ERT on June 1st. The park delayed daily operations by a month due to raising our pay to minimum of $20/hr (except for Landscaping, and one born-again Christian came over and got trained on the forklift). Thus, instead of being sunset and night rides, it was like 4 in the afternoon.
I didn’t acquaint myself with her, but that was the first time I saw Savannah-who was close with Bailey and Q and worked in merch. One of the 6 rides on Dragster, and 1/2 on the adjacent Super Himalaya were with Bailey.
Another intern, Rylan also popped in from work (since we still had to condition when closed) for a ride. I probably should’ve tapped out after 4 or 5, but it was quiet so it was worth it.
SteVe Ride Night
The next time, Grant joined me as I began clearing out creds before Steel Vengeance Ride night. Blue Streak, Corkscrew, Magnum, and Gemini-Blue before going life with Dinner at Hugo’s (and hiding my feelings for Meghan, who was still on shift) before doing Cedar Downs and Valravn.
I would end up only getting two rides on Steel Vengeance that night-both in the front half of the the train. I’d say a further back morning ride gauges to me the back might be a little too intense for me. To me, if you really like airtime and can’t get enough-this ride was made for you. In other words, I would be seriously nitpicking this ride (beyond operations) to speak ill will of it.
Mid-Summer
After that, park closed at 10 every night during the 150th celebration festival, so I ignored the ride nights for the sake of routine. I would make my first trip in July to knock out the 3 inverts: Raptor, Iron Dragon, and Wicked Twister (plus a back row reride on Rougarou).
My first attempt to get back on SteVe failed, but I did get on Cedar Creek Mine Ride, Sky Hawk (starting an obsession that would make it my most ridden ride over even a coaster), Millennium Force (re ride), and Snake River Expedition (with POV, RIP)-plus peak on Adventure Island (RIP also).
Later in July, I did a flat ride gauntlet with Troika, Tiki Twirl (now Calypso), Windseeker, Monster, and Pipe Scream. Let’s just Back Row lost it for me and this ride is truly front room. Hot Take: Back room put it not even top 5 in the park. My suspicion would be proved true on Blue Fire the following April.
I however did one ride night at the end of July to finally ride Gatekeeper, whose chain lift broke at the end of May. This was only because I did my normal work shift and then a parade shift-which basically took me till 10pm. I also got my only back row ride on Wicked Twister that night. You would say it was a night to remember-but I really don’t other than at least I was back at the dorms by midnight.
I originally took the 3 following days off to go to Michigan’s Adventure-but that plan got cut and one of my roommates had Covid so I got three days to recover. I didn’t feel much worse going into the break than the end, so I went back on Friday as originally planned.
My final ride on Steel Vengeance, now in early August, included a ride on each arm of Sky Hawk and the Lake Erie Eagles (the last ride I did in 2016) to follow, then all the B&M’s.
National Roller Coaster Day
The next plan for National Roller Coaster Day to ride all the Arrows (with Magnum and Gemini on ride night) plus Power Tower and “Top Thrill with the GP”. However, we all know what happened.
That day, the park did a separate luncheon for us in the Lakeside Picnic pavilions (where we also had an 80’s-themed start of the season mixer)-making up for a rainy day.
Wicked Twister, which we then knew was closing, was up, I got my final ride. I also got Power Tower, Iron Dragon, Corkscrew (with fellow Jerseyans), Mine Ride, then decide to close out on Sky Hawk instead of ride Woodstock Express (which I would only do because of the plot of how Vekoma learned to build coasters from Arrow, like how Power Tower was in relation to S&S taking most of Arrow’s assets in 2002).
I still have more rides on Gemini Red than Blue by 1 (and won on Blue once), and 3 rides in the Magic Seat (2 on ride night, plus row 13 that night). Got a good mix of both the thoosies and the roommates that night. The rains had cleared, and kind of forgot what just happened to Dragster as we were treating that day as a holiday-and my last time in the park as a guest.
Summer’s End
Early on, my mom noticed I could take Amtrak home. Part of the reason she really ended up taking me out in the first place because one friend had talked to another friend about adopting a rabbit and my mom became responsible to deliver it, may it rest in peace.
I was able to Fedex a lot of stuff back in the final 24 hours in town, thankfully via carpool. However, I was still taking a bit more on board than I should have (or at least maybe should have actually checked to speed up the transfer in Pittsburgh) in hindsight-or maybe I just feel bad for what happened when getting off in Pittsburgh eating into the time it made up in Eastern Ohio.
I’ve said enough praises about the Sandusky Transit System and how it got me into transit and urbanism, but the scheduled 12:30am (more like 1:30am that night) Capital Limited was a restless night with a stranger-and an Amish family returning to Lancaster. I was so focused on trying to sleep nothing else mattered. My mom did upgrade me to business, which included a free drink-which I guess I deserved for all I put myself though over that summer even if the seat really isn’t.
It was my first long distance journey, but I never got a full experience of the Capital Limited (RIP?), but coach really does work for weird hops like Ohio to Pittsburgh or Pittsburgh to DC where you might be at Pittsburgh very early/late, but you wouldn’t really take advantage of the sleeper unless you make a poor bid and get lucky to do it for the plot.
Sleeper is nice like if you are going end to end, or at least on and off at certain timings where you might want to sleep like Houston to El Paso on the Sunset Limited.
The Pennsylvanian is basically a Regional that serves the core Pennsylvania cities, hence its name. It and the Palmetto (a “Silver Service” companion train that ends in Savannah, Georgia) apparently have an inferior business class than other Corridor or Midwest services-but it has decent scenery for an eastern route.
While I was going back on campus with 3 semesters to go, that though was a security net as I knew what the next year would look like-including going Beyond the ‘Boro.
Epilogue
Joshua left before the end of summer and returned to Universal Orlando. He also looked into a certificate program. His last job was the manager of Chef’s de France in EPCOT.
Courtney stayed with Food and Bev until the start of the 2023 season
Grant continued working at Cedar Point, mostly in Camp Snoopy, with this year being his last as he begins his specialization in Bioengineering-with the next 6 semesters swapping between class and co-ops. Trust me, I looked into engineering and didn’t think I had the capacity for a career and I enjoy history, writing, and producing (acting to a slightly lesser extent)-so I know what he’s doing
Meghan did her final project with Cedar Point on a better method to power wash the midways (something along those lines). She moved in, and is at present engaged, to Rachel. They have nice starter home that I wish more small to medium-sized cities were building in their suburbs-but we should be building at least 5-7 over 1’s within five miles of downtown, and more missing middle around major nodes at least another 5 and where will persists23
Santino, who now resides in Sandusky, and Savannah still work at the park. Santino has kept rotating between rides and merch over the years
I did keep an eye, and technically still follow, Tommy’s Twitch. After Cedar Point, he was at Hobby Lobby for a hot minute
After getting an internship at her home park, Six Flags Great America, in 2022-2023, Ella now works for nonprofit-again thanks Linkedin #notsponsored #notstockingijustcheckitonceinabluemoon
Lourdes actually completed a degree along the lines of a dental tech/assistant, but returned to the park for the 2024 season
We all move on, and remember different summers, but some years change us forever. Sure, 2020 screwed everyone over, but its what went down going into 2021 and working at Cedar Point that changed me. All those engineers are going to hopefully not make atomic weapons, except for another guy named Josh who shares his birthday with Meghan-he’s probably an air force mechanic because his old sister is in the air force, but that’s kind of different.
For those who are unfamiliar, most of my meme templates are from Tokusatsu series
Basically Cleveland north of I-480 and west of I-271 to the Big Met Golf Course just feels right
Their names were changed to Merida (mixed with a bit of Zoe and taking her maiden name) and Taryn (who’s backstory is made up and goes to college in Arkansas instead) in Kamen Rider Literary Guardians (Kamen Rider Saber), but her backstory remains unchanged. Merida ends up with Universal Creative working at the Orlando resort and a new park in the late 2020’s/early 2030’s (Universal GB?). She is the mother of Kamen Rider Sabela (adapted as Kamen Rider Zadra)