Skyscraper Ride of Death

Shannon and I went to Gatlinburg this past week for her church's staff retreat. We decided to take advantage of Jacob-less setting (he was with my parents) and go to a late showing of Spider-Man 3.

On the way to the theater, I saw one of those mini-amusement parks with go-karts and a few big thrill rides. On a whim, I pulled in to see about doing one of the rides. They had a special for $35 to do a 70' bungy jump, a giant swing (not featured on their site) and a 150' Skyscraper ride which spins you around in circle perpendicular to the ground while you are at the end of the arm in a harness which spins from the force of the twirling arm.

I am out with my baby with no kid to come home to and I just turned 32 this week. I was feeling young and spry so I bought the special and headed to the bungy jump. It was my first bungy, and I enjoyed it. I admit when I first looked down and realized that I was supposed to fall face first toward the ground from 70 feet up that I had serious second thoughts (and thirds and fourths...). But, I told myself I could do it and made myself fall forward.

I liked it and would do it again but it is over with very quickly. I next went to the giant swing. It puts some strong G-force pressure on you, and it does take you parallel to the ground, looking straight to the ground from about 25' up. The swing was fun, but I pulled over to ride the Skyscraper.

Rather than describing the experience of riding the Skyscraper, let me show through a video they recorded. Notice my relative lack of yelling and smiling. I did scream out a couple of times, mostly to convince myself I was having fun, show others I was not scared and did not make colossal mistake. Shannon said it best that she got nauseous just from watching me on the video.