(I forgot - Tejay once mentioned I should put my trip reports here, even though they are in English!)
I had the bottle of Tylenol next to me all day today at work, too... man am I still buzzin'! Tooo much wood in too little time.
I headed down to Indiana by myself, but met up with my buddy Brandon in Indianapolis, and my parents who were at Cedar Point for the week, but jetted over to Indiana for the weekend.
Headin' down to Indiana....
This time I packed a spare, one of my winter tires. It was a bit of a tight fit, because the tire is so wide there's no place really that it will fit except behind the passenger seat, which I normally leave flipped down. So I had to flip that up, and now my interior reeks like rubber! I think I'll be investing in a thin rim and tire bag if I want to make a habit of this - hopefully before my big Florida trek in October.
Spare winter tire behind the passenger seat.
The trek to the border was uneventful and boring... I left about 9am and was anticipating being at Indiana Beach around 5pm. Border crossing was a breeze - the guard (as usual) was more interested in my car than what my business was down South. I started answering his questions about the car when he wanted to sit in it. He slid back the door.... whooooooah! 450 lbs of mean lean border-crossin' machine. When I told him the steering wheel doesn't tilt he decided he wasn't going to try and sit in my car, and let me on my way. Really nice guy though.
Told me to be careful and "not crash".
Hey, is that a vertical wiper park mod I see?? :biglaugh:
So I'm cruzing along rte. 69 (tee hee!) and up ahead I see someone towing a glider.. cool! Most gliders are white, right? Well, this one was red. The car in front must have the wings... or so I thought. I noticed it was towing a glider, too. A blue one. As I got a bit closer, I noticed that the gliders had... exhausts... from motorcycles. Motorcycle exhausts?? And licence plates?! What the HECK?!
I nearly drove off the road when I sped up and followed along side. My mouth just hit the floor, I was in complete shock. What I was looking at was a car. The coolest car I have
ever seen in my life. The only branding on the side was "PULSE"... a different kind of pulse from mine, that's for sure!!
Needless to say, when I got back home the first thing I looked up was this car and found out tons of information. The owner's club was meeting in Marion - which I drove right past on my way there and back, argh!! If only I had known before. The car is a
Litestar/Pulse and it was made from 1985 to 1990. Only 360 or so were built. They are powered by motorcycle engines and are classified as such, claim 75-100 mi/gal, can go over 200 km/h and seat two.
MY. NEXT. CAR! I am already drawing sketches of building my own, using a 150 CC Honda Elite scooter (for efficiency) and bicycle wheels... 1.5 L/100 km, here I come!!
The incredible Litestar/Pulse.
I waved, smiled, gave the thumbs up... the drivers were old (!) and just kind of... nodded... they must get way more looks than we do. I can't beleive they wern't driving them, though - who TOWS a car like that?! DRIVE IT!!!
I got an SMS from my parents that they were on their way to Indiana, too, and not far ahead of me. They had come across from Cedar Point in Ohio and were at a rest stop, so they stopped for lunch and I caught up.
Pulled up behind our camper and found this... har har, momz
After a quick lunch were were back on our way to Indiana Beach in Montecello. The speed limits were driving me nuts. All through Michigan it's 70 mi/h which when I'm doing that according to my GPS is 120 on the spedo... that SUCKS! My mileage was horrible and I was pretty bummed. Do any slower and people blow past you, even trucks limited to 65 mi/h were going way faster than that.
The usual, though... camera phones everywhere, smiles, waves, and the finger from a fuel tanker, which was hilarious... I just smiled and waved
The only negative comment I got wasnt' really a comment, more of a "show" by two separate trucks in southern Indiana later on. My dad tells me about guys on his Diesel Place forum that make mods to their trucks just to make them smoke more. Well, buddy must have had that because a huge pickup oncoming on a country road about 100 m in front of me hammered it and made a huge massive smoke cloud right as I went by... yah, that's so cool!
Shortly after though a riced out Civic blew past me, slammed on the brakes, and gave me a huge thumbs up with a head-bangin' grin... yeahhhh! That's what I'm talkin' about... its awesome to me when the youngin's approve.
Once we arrived at the campground, I couldnt' even help my dad set up the camper. So many people came over and wanted to talk to me about the car, one guy asked me how much I wanted on the spot for it. I woke up the next morning to hear kids outside the the window (I sleep at the back there) saying how cool it was...
Nosedive enjoys the campsite...
But Indiana BEACH! The IB! This is where it's at. It started out like a hundred years ago as a... beach. And then they put in a ride, and people liked it, so they put in more rides.. and so on and so on, and now they're so landlocked that every ride is practically on top of one another! The rides are all layered (if you've played RCT before, it's just like that) and the coasters share support structures, things are built into and on top of other things.... it's amazing!
Indiana Beach at Night.
The atmosphere there is so incredible, I can't even describe it. It's perfect, it's so laid back, relaxing - the perfect place to go for a first date, to unwind with friends and family, have a corndog, and go on some rides. We rode Cornball Express 13 times without getting off. I played tons of DDR (They had two great machines, Extreme - my fav). Had lots of ice cream... and I can't even start talking about Lost Coaster, MAN! Talk about a lesson in physics.
Soon my body was ailing me though and I felt as though it was time to move on... so Saturday afternoon I bid farewell to my parents and headed to my buddy Brandon's place in Indianapolis.
Takin' the long route along country roads to Indianapolis...
There may be more than Corn in Indiana... but there sure is a lot of corn!
Once I got to Brandon's we headed to STEAK AND SHAKE!!!!!!!!!!! Where I had steak and shake... sooooo good. We completed the evening by watching the entire first season of
Wonder Showzen. I had only seen one episode before and after seeing the entire season I can't say I've ever been in so much disbelief before in my life. What a show.
What a way to start the morning.
We headed out to Holiday World in Santa Claus (ugh), Indiana, which would take about 2 and a half hours. I was so excited... my buddy Mike designed their new wood coaster Voyage and I was very eager to try it out after riding his other creation,
Hades, last year.
I had never been to Holiday World but had heard the legendary reports that it was off the hook as far as wood coasters go. They have 3 there - Raven, their first coaster, then Legend... and now Voyage. The entire park has free pop everywhere, you just grab a cup and walk up to a soft drink fountain! I have never seen anything like that before. It is really great...
Legend stands proudly in the centre of the park.
Raven was great, Legend was even more intense than any other coaster I have been on... but then came Voyage. And I can't... really even begin to describe it. The whole time I was riding it, I was thinking
"How can I explain this to someone. How can I possibly explain how many orders of magnitude this is above everything else on the face of the earth."
And I just can't.
Voyage is beyond all realms of comprehension. Halfway through ride 6, I became so terrofied, so absolutely certain that the train was going to leave the track - that the train was going to crumple and destroy itself in a pile of splintered wood and steel, and that we were all going to die... I decided I was done with riding for the day and we just had to leave, there was nothing more that could be done.
It was
THAT GOOD. And you can't see any of it from the park, all you see is that first, massive hill, and the insane finale that hints at what's going on back there out in the woods, and
underground...
Voyage - the ultimate tease. You have no idea.
Destroyed, battered, and abused, Brandon and I popped the last remaining Tylenol that I had in my car (we'd stopped back twice during the day for pills for the pain), said bye to my folks (we'd met up with them there again that day) and headed back to Indianapolis.
...at which point we made the fatal decision to stop at a KFC. I was dying to try their new dish, some kind of mashed potatoe/poutine/popcorn chicken hybrid. But Brandon lives in a ghetto part of Indianapolis and their KFC was... interesting.
After I placed the odrer at the drive through and was inf ormed there was no mashed potatoes!!! we pulled up to the window. I asked the girl if I could verify she had heard our order correctly since she was talking over me on the speakerphone. She asks what we'd ordered... and when I start to say, she looks at me and goes "Um we can't even ORDER here at this window." and shuts the glass on us. Unbeliveable... I said "Excuse me??" and brandon told me to shut up lest we get shot. We took our chickenz, watched some more Wonder Showzen and hit the sack.
The drive home was long and boring and I was so sore, and didn't even consume any Monster!! Despite me buying a can of XXL just in case.
I really hope we get it in Canada soon...
The drive home.
The border going back into the USA was backed up for ~5 km into CANADA. I felt so bad for them, I had like a 2 car wait coming back, 3 questions and I was off. Man I love coming home. People keep saying "Get a passport" but I still have never had an issue with just my birf certificate/licence and I cross probably 10-20 times a year. Oh well, I should get a Passport I guess... it's finding the time off work that is the bugger.
ANYWAY! So in conclusion:
-Americans love smarts
-The Litestar/Pulse is by far the coolest thing in the world
-Voyage is da bomb
-Avoid KFC in Indianapolis
-Wonder Shozen teaches us new things
Thanks for reading!!
-Iain
!
.. What a kid..
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