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"TIMBERRRRRRRS!"
If you've been following this adventure in its chronological sequence, then you know that I had just spent an afternoon at Fun Spot, and had planned to drive on to Grand Rapids to spend Sunday night. It turns out that there is one freeway exit in Grand Rapids which features a large number of chain motels. Unfortunately I was not aware of this when I drove right through Grand Rapids. I was well beyond the West side of town, well beyond the local motels, and I ended up going all the way to Muskegon.
It wasn't exactly in Muskegon, but in another nearby small town where I encountered a massive traffic jam. It was a carnival set up in a city park. I almost stopped to take a closer look, but midnight was fast approaching and I still didn't have a place to stay. I did end up with a room in Muskegon, right across the street from a Denny's, which was a good thing since I was hungry. Naturally, I stopped in. The 30' plume of water coming up from the lawn was not a good sign. Upon closer investigation, I noticed that a sprinkler head had simply popped off allowing the automatic sprinkler system to make a mess of the parking lot. At least it wasn't blocking the front door. I parked out of range of the geyser, walked to the door, and went insi--
Wait a minute. What does the sign say? "Denny's." Isn't their slogan, "Always open."? Then why is the door locked? The lights are on, but there is nobody home. No wonder the sprinklers haven't been turned off. Well, dammit, I'm hungry! Who ever heard of a closed Denny's? A few years ago the chain decided to close for Christmas, it was a big problem because most of the stores didn't even have locks on the doors. Clearly not a problem here! Yeesh! Welcome to Muskegon, hungry traveler! Welcome indeed.
Monday morning was hot and humid already. I checked out of the motel and headed out to the park. I was no more successful at finding breakfast than I was at finding dinner. Don't people eat in Muskegon? I did manage to find a Downtown city park where someone was giving a Memorial day address and describing President Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. I headed on out to the park, paid my $5 to park, and waited for the gate to open.
While I was waiting I looked at the Mad Mouse coaster. The ride appeared to be mostly complete, but with no cars on the track, clearly not operational. There was also no station platform. The ride position is a little odd, as it faces the parking lot. So from within the park the sign on top says, "ESUOM DAM". I think I'd have turned the ride around and put a Michigan's Adventure sign on the back, since it is right next to the new entrance, which is about to open up...
The park entrance has been moved and completely re-done. Well that isn't quite accurate...rather the park entrance has been moved and is being completely re-done. The arcade building has been remodeled, and some kind of new facility with plate-glass windows is being built at the outside corner. Lockers are being installed around the outside of the building, and for now, all traffic is being directed through the arcade to the midway. There, we are prevented from proceeding by a streamer of yellow tape. I wonder if the arcade might trade places with the gift shop within the next year to produce a configuration not unlike what we see at Dutch Wonderland.
Time passes.... Michigan's Adventure remains the Ugliest Amusement Park in the Country. The layout is odd, to say the least, reminding me of some of the tactics I see in RollerCoaster Tycoon, right down to the idea that trees are nuisances to be right-clicked into oblivion, and the absolutely-rectangular ponds situated within the park.
Finally, a park official tears down the yellow tape and wads it up in a ball. We all start hiking down the treeless midway, past the Thunder Bolt and a couple of kiddie rides. I look over at the Chance Sea Dragon, which sits on a tiny peninsula out in the middle of the pond in the middle of the park, and I realize I'm looking at something I've done in about half of the scenarios I've completed in Roller Coaster Tycoon. Our crowd of funseekers passes the Wolverine Wildcat and the flume, and begins forming a queue in front of the fence in front of Shivering Timbers.
We wait. An empty blue train leaves the station, heads up the lift, and vanishes. An empty green train follows a couple of minutes later. We are growing impatient. A ride attendant comes down the entrance ramp, drops the chain, and leads us to the platform. Much to my surprise, he RUNS up the entrance ramp to the station. I take a seat in the second row of the blue train, fasten the seat belt, pull the lap bar down to the second notch, and soon I am ascending that interminable lift hill. It's 125 feet to the top, and it takes quite a while to get there. This gives one ample time to consider those nagging questions, such as how will the ride run after a hard winter, and why hasn't Michigan's Adventure planted some trees alongside the coaster.
Coming down the first drop many of those questions are answered. Shivering Timbers is as smooth and as fast as ever, violating every principle of conservation of energy just as we have come to expect from CCI's coasters. Faster and faster it flies over all nine of its first drops. I was a little surprised to see that in spite of the articulated cars, the train still lifts the inside front wheel as the train heads into the swoop turnaround. Then there is the no-brake run (which, I am pleased to report, is still without brakes) and another long dive. Then there is that dual-angle drop that seems to go on forever, and the trick-track, which still rides more like a mistake than a tracking element. Finally, that inside front wheel pops up again for the wild helix. After more than a mile of track in two and a half minutes, the train slams into the safety brakes with plenty of energy to spare. It defies physics. Its riders defy gravity. Heck, it almost defies description. It's still a smooth ride, still an amazing ride, still a fun ride. Unfortunately, it is still six hours' drive from my house. Most of the doubts I had about the ride, given my experience with Wolverine Wildcat last year, melted away in the first couple of rides.
I decided to do a quick tour of the other available coasters, and I started with the Wolverine Wildcat. The ride is a bad copy of the Knoebel's Phoenix, but it is a pinched oval while Phoenix is a double figure-8. The pinched oval design gives the ride some really nasty lateral kicks in places where they really don't belong. But mostly the train doesn't track well. In fairness, the ride is a whole lot better than it was last spring, as several really bad spots were re-tracked. But there are still problems with the ride. A more extensive re-tracking might fix it, but for the moment the Wolverine Wildcat is too rough to be much fun.
Next in line from the Wolverine Wildcat is the Corkscrew. Corkscrew was out of service during my last visit to Michigan's Adventure, and now that I have seen the ride I can hardly imagine what could have possibly gone wrong. This Corkscrew is quite possibly the simplest Corkscrew I have ever seen. What caught my attention was the absolute lack of any kind of prox switch, trip switch, optical sensor, or other detector anywhere on the ride. This Corkscrew is run completely by hand, and it is the only Arrow looper I have ever seen that does not check the lap bar release pedals anywhere on the course. This is the more-or-less standard Arrow Corkscrew, with only the two-inversion full Corkscrew element. I noticed that the train has been fitted with the new-for-1999 safety bracket on its last axle, but that it feels like it could use replacement or adjustment of the guide wheels. It also occurred to me that by riding the Afterburner at Fun Spot, then riding the Corkscrew at Michigan's Adventure, I got the equivalent of one ride on the Cedar Point Corkscrew. [Footnote 1] 8-)
Oh, one important note...Now that Leap The Dips is running again, I understand that the ACE preservation efforts will now be focused on saving the Corkscrew station... [Footnote 2]
I already talked about the Mad Mouse; also new for 1999 is a Chance Big Dipper. This is a junior coaster which is significantly larger than the old Allan Herschell Big Dipper coasters. It has a pinch-drive lift, and one train...but on the day of my visit it had no station platform, no landscaping, no operator, and was clearly not ready to operate. I headed over to Zach's Zoomer.
Zach's Zoomer is one of the earliest CCI coasters ever built. It also happens to be essentially a copy of the Kings Island Beastie, perhaps a little taller and slightly narrower. The other interesting thing about this coaster is that while it has a junior-size train, it does not have the fully-articulated flanged-wheel running gear of most junior cars, instead this coaster has a scaled down version of the train that runs on Shivering Timbers. As on the bigger coaster, the train lifts its inside front wheel when it hits a banked curve. Interesting; Sea Dragon and Beastie don't do that...
Zach's Zoomer ran better than I had remembered. Yeah, it is a little ride, but it is a fun ride. The other neat thing about it is how everything around it is scaled down. All of the railings, for instance, are about 30" high instead of the customary 42". I presume that was about right for Zach back when the ride was built [Footnote 3].
Just for grins I wandered around the pond and through the waterpark. It has lots of slides, and three wave action pools. Interesting. Looked like the maximum water depth in any pool was about four feet, though. Also interesting. I did not choose to participate. I also did not ride the Shoot-The-Chute ride. I believe theirs is a Hopkins, but I am not sure.
Not being particularly interested in the waterpark activities, I returned to the main park for some coaster rides, mostly on the amazing Shivering Timbers. By this time, the blue train had been removed, making for a typical wait of three or four trains (about ten minutes). The crowd was generally well-behaved, except for one particularly idiotic individual.
"'Scuse me..." he bellowed, attempting to pass. I was standing on the Shivering Timbers entrance ramp. I had joined another coaster nut, and we stood side by side, between us completely filling the queue aisle. We continued our conversation.
A chorus of "Scuse me"'s, punctuated by unprintable obscenity, followed. Then things got a little violent as this idiot decided to simply push his way through. Remember, the ramp is completely blocked by a pair of coaster nuts. I'm about 6' tall, and while I'm only about 13" wide (38" waist) I do weigh about 240 pounds, with much of my weight below the belt line. So as I stand in the queue, I am fairly stable. Or so I thought. Suddenly I feel almost as though I am about to topple over the rail and into the flowerbed below as Idiot pushes past. Of course, what Idiot apparently does not know is that the ride operator is only a few feet away, and with only one train to worry about...one train which will be automatically parked in the station by the ride computer once it comes back...he is entertaining himself by watching the queue occupants. Before long, Idiot is being denied his new place in line and sent back to the back of the queue. Thank you, Michigan's Adventure for taking a stand on this issue. Of course, the other thing I should point out about this whole incident is that Idiot was apparently not attempting to push his way to the front of the queue, but rather to re-join someone else from whom he had been separated back at the queue entrance. But apparently it never occurred to him to merely ask politely if he could rejoin the rest of his group. Odds are pretty good that I'd have said 'yes'. But his choice to take the "demand and assault" route ultimately cost him his place in a line that wasn't very long in the first place. Oh, well...
With the light crowd, it was easy to ride and ride again. I was starting to think about getting some dinner before heading home when it began to rain. This made it easy for me to say goodbye to the park and its amazing coaster, even though the park still hadn't closed for the day. I had dinner in Muskegon as the rain POURED outside, then I headed home.
Ride List:
| Ride Name | Manufacturer | Common Name |
| Majors-- | ||
| Eli Bridge | Scrambler (SBNO) | |
| Chance | Carousel | |
| Adventure Falls | Hopkins? | Shoot-The-Chutes |
| Corkscrew | Arrow | Corkscrew coaster |
| Chance | Thunder Bolt | |
| Chance | Sea Dragon | |
| Flying Trapeeze | Chance | Yo-Yo |
| Chance | Chaos | |
| Chance | Falling Star | |
| Arrow | Mad Mouse (Under Construction) | |
| Wolverine Wildcat | Summers/Dinn | Wood Coaster |
| Shivering Timbers | Custom Coasters | Wood Coaster |
| Chance | Giant Wheel | |
| Logger's Run | Arrow | Flume |
| Sellner | Tilt-A-Whirl (E-7) | |
| Chance | Trabant | |
| Juniors-- | ||
| Zach's Zoomer | Custom Coasters - Wood Coaster | |
| Big Dipper | Chance | Family Coaster |
| Kiddies-- | ||
| Hampton | Combo | |
| Hampton | Jump Cycle | |
| Zamperla | Mini Jet 6 Elephants | |
| Zamperla | Mini Jet 6 Red Baron | |
| Rideworks | Winky the Whale | |
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: ...Well, plus that backwards vertical loop for good measure... [Return to text]
Footnote 2: It's a running gag. The Corkscrew station at Michigan's Adventure is a cinder block box with absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. If Mr. Jourdan were to remodel that station with a stick of dynamite I don't think anyone would care, so long as the coaster remains intact. [Return to text]
Footnote 3: Zach, after whom the coaster was named, is
a young member of a family responsible for Michigan's Adventure. I don't know
if he is a Jourdan or not. [Return to text]
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