The Vine: October 17, 2008
Hi, Sars —
I need to find out if I’m making something from my childhood up (as my brother claims) or if it really happened, and I haven’t had much luck finding supporting facts online.
Here’s what I think happened…
My Army family and I moved back to the U.S. in the late 1970s. I was 6. We had a couple of weeks before Dad had to report in to his new assignment, and we spent it in North Carolina with Mom’s family and then vacationing in the Maggie Valley area. Among the things that we did were visit the Land of Oz, Tweetsie Railroad and Ghost Town Mountain in the Sky. (Dear Brother agrees with all of this so far.)
While we were at GTMitS (I think), somehow my brother (who was 7) and I convinced my parents to let us go on a ride that I remember this way: a flat giant circle with a pole in the center and spokes to a circular car (like a squat mug on its side). You sat in the car opposite each other, no seat belts, and a bar across the opening of the circle. The ride started with the big outer circle spinning counterclockwise (the riders are moving on a horizontal plane). Then the cars started to rock individually back and forth until they start turning in complete circles (the riders are also now moving in a vertical plane). And to top it all off, this is on the edge of a cliff with a 3000-foot drop.
Dear Brother says I’m crazy — there’s no way 1) Mom would have let us on said ride; 2) that anyone would be crazy enough to make said ride; 3) that anyone would be sadistic enough to put said ride on the edge of a cliff; and 4) that he wouldn’t have thrown up on me if we did go on said ride (he didn’t). Mom and Dad say that was so long ago they don’t remember.
So what I’m asking is, has anyone else been to GTMitS before it was closed for safety issues, and remembers this ride? Does anyone know of a similar ride somewhere else? Help, please!
Roadside Theme Park Girl
Dear Park,
That sounds too horrible to have actually existed, but I’m someone who barely survived the Cyclone and vowed never to go on another amusement-park ride ever again, so what do I know.
Readers?
Tags: Ask The Readers rando the fam
Wikipedia’s “Ghost Town in the Sky” entry describes “All of the rides are situated at the edge of the mountain, and one, “The Gun Slinger”, swings out over the mountainside giving riders an extra sense of exposure when riding. There are many great views of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains from the top of the park as well.”
I’m not sure what the Gunslinger ride is, or if it is similar to what you rode, but it may fit the bill. Sounds like an interesting amusement park, aside from all the safety issues. :)
Sounds like a Tilt-a-Whirl to me, I used to love those as a kid. I never went to GTMitS, we always stopped after Tweetsie, but the description sounds right. I just couldn’t imagine one of those on the edge of a cliff. . .
They’re pretty common, although the fearlessness of youth has long since departed and I couldn’t ride one now. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt-A-Whirl
Has the OP looked at:
http://discovermaggievalley.com/_ghost/aaghotow.htm
http://www.ghosttowninthesky.com/
Yeah, from looking at the pictures, The Gun Slinger seems likely. And terrifying. No thanks.
Is it the Dream Catcher from this page?
http://www.ghosttowninthesky.com/rides/rides.html
In the photo, it looks like it’s on the side of a mountain, which might seem like the edge of a cliff to a kid, and it has a thrill level of “2 Moderate.” The thrills might scale up if you’re six years old.
Rocky Point in Rhode Island had something that sounds a bit similar, although I think there were seatbelts. It was like a Ferris Wheel, so it spun on a vertical rather than horizontal plane, but instead of Ferris Wheel seats there were enclosed cars that also rotated 360 degrees left to right or right to left. I’m pretty sure whether you spun on that plane was controlled by the riders in the car. The cars were also not hinged like a Ferris Wheel so you would be upside down at the top of the wheel.
Here’s an image.
I’ve never been go GTMiS, but I have absolutely been on rides similar to that; I actually remember going on one with my dad. As to whether such things exist in North Carolina theme parks, I can’t be much help …
You’d be upside down at the top if you didn’t spin, I mean.
The Gunslinger appears to be your basic flying swings ride, at the edge of a cliff! I can feel the screams rising up in my throat just thinking about it…
http://tinyurl.com/6juo7v is Wikipedia’s entry & includes descriptions of discontinued rides. And the 2nd link from Blopper includes pics of rides, except the “Round-Up” so maybe that’s it?
I think I may have nightmares about this place ;-) …broken-down amusement parks are soooo creeeepy!!!
It sounds to me like the OP’s memory might have conflated the Tilt-A-Whirl with the Round-Up. Although looking at the web site linked above, the Dream Catcher looks like it might be a close match.
I have pictures of my sister and I on the very same ride! I was probably 7 at the time, and we I distinctly remember riding it on the same weekend that we went to Babyland General (where Cabbage Patch kids were “born”). I’ll try to dig the photos up and can email them to you if you’d like, but the same ride exists in Seaside Heights on the boardwalk–I don’t remember the name to it, either, but it sits on the very side of the boardwalk over the water.
You’re definitely not dreaming this ride up. I remember the ride because it remains to this day (20+ years later) the only ride i have EVER gotten sick on.
That’s a Tilt-a-Whirl, for certain, sort of the tilted-platform version of the teacups at Disneyland. My stomach lurches a bit at the mere thought of one, having fallen victim to its charms many a time as a youth.
Was it the Dreamcatcher?
http://www.ghosttowninthesky.com/
Is it this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round_up
Is it the Tornado? Here’s a picture:
http://tinyurl.com/6dnmrq
Sounds like it’s something like one of these two, starting horizontally and lifting to a vertical spin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_(ride)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(ride)
I have no idea whether any of the parks you went to on that trip had either (probably under a different name) but I do recall going on an Octopus when I was a small child, and it was terrifying, even without being on the side of a mountain or the edge of a cliff.
Sounds like it was an “octopus” type ride:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_(ride)
Was it a Rok-n-Rol?
http://www.flatrides.com/Ride%20Index%20Pages/roknroll.html
I also remember one of these at Rocky Point in RI. The one and only time I rode it there were two friends sitting across from me. The weight was unbalanced so I would go 3/4 of the way over and with the seatbelt in my gut. Then it would roll completely over in the other direction. One of the few rides to ever make me sick!
The Octopus forever haunts my dreams. That’s the only ride that my parents convinced me to go on as a child that caused me to scream and sob so much that they stopped it to let me off. No wonder I have a horrible aversion to people convincing me to ride things at parks.
It sure sounds like the “Tilt-A-Whirl” to me. It came to my little town when I was a pre-teen, and I thought I was going to get pitched out of it. I thought it was going to be an easy ride, meant for little kids, or I wouldn’t have gotten on it! It gave me the horrors then, and still does.
The Tilt-A-Whirl doesn’t fit the description at all. There are no spokes and the cars don’t rotate vertically at all.
That Rok-n-Rol looks right on the money.
I’m just thrilled to find some other folks with memories of Rocky Point. I miss the rides, but I miss the giant feed barn even more.
Sounds like a slightly less safe version than the “Witch’s Wheel” at Cedar Point:
http://www.cedarpoint.com/public/park/rides/thrill/witches_wheel/index.cfm
@LTG – I just found out there is a documentary about Rocky Point! http://www.rockypointmovie.com/
I haven’t seen it yet, but it looks interesting! I think I only went to Rocky Point once or twice as a kid. I remember being terrified by the idea of the Freefall (and stories/urban legends of girls being scalped on such rides because their hair got caught in something at the top as the car dropped). Also, it was the late 80s/early 90s when the big amusement park fad was those “recording studios” that you could record your own version of hit songs, and I believe a friend convinced me into doing the Beach Boys “California Girls” with her for some reason.
Apparently, there’s a Rocky Point documentary. I’m curious to see it now.
And now that you mention it, the Rok N Roll sounds more like RTPG’s description. I remember that bar in my stomach very well.
OMG GHOST TOWN IN MAGGIE VALLEY!
That is, without a doubt, the sketchiest amusement park I have ever been to. I was a counselor at a nearby sleepaway camp back in ’00, and I swear, I have never been so frightened as when I herded the girls through that place. The rides were horror-movie creaky, and the people were… horror-movie creepy. Parents-beating-their-children-in-public-creepy. Ugh. I think mine was the last year the camp did a Ghost Town field trip; too many of us complained.
ANYWAY. I just wanted to rant, clearly. I don’t recall the ride that the letter mentions, but if it ever existed, it existed at Ghost Town. Damn.
Amie: Yes! Before karaoke really hit. The junior high girls in my school (’90-’91) recorded “Wind Beneath My Wings” or nothing at all (at Cedar Point, above).
I agree that it sounds a lot like the “Whiches’ Wheel”, as Cedar Point’s site calls it in the page title. Which wheel? Exaaaaactly.
Thank you, Marsha! That’s the ride that I was thinking of based on the description. They had one at the State Fair of Texas many, many years ago (I wish I could follow that with “when I was but a wee pup,” but I can’t). The one at the fair had cars designed to look like Conestoga Wagons, and I think they named it “Wagon Wheels,” or something twee like that. The local daily did a “scandal(!)” story about how parents were shocked (SHOCKED I tell you!) after they put their kids on the ride and it flipped them upside down.
Like they didn’t have time to watch the ride — that was right in front of them — before committing their darling, precious offspring to it.
Yeppers, it does sound like Marsha nailed it with the Rok-N-Rol. Here’s a video of one running (the cars start to spin vertically at about :35). Apparently, it used to be made so that the riders operated a foot pedal that allowed the car to spin or not, but in newer models, it’s up to the ride operator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2tTSNXTJI&feature=related.
I’m so close to passing out in terror just looking at these rides. Do people actually ENJOY these?!
You must see the Rocky Point documentary. It made me cry a little bit. Oh, Rocky Point, I miss your clamcakes!
Yeah, a Vine I can actually answer! Too bad everyone else beat me to it. Rok n Roll!
I’ve been on that ride– at Funland in Rehoboth Beach, DE.
Jed!!! Yeah! It was called the “Wagon Wheeler” (No google results for this version sadly) and is no longer there. As you flip upside down over and over, you also see your mom whipping by as the whole ride spins – hi mom! … hi mom! …hi mom! …hi mom! The first time I rode it is burned in my memory – my aunt took me because my mom gets motion sick and doesn’t do rides, my cousin was too young, and my macho older brother was too chicken. I was the only one brave enough to go. Booyaa. I loved it when I was 6-8, but now I get sick on even baby rides, just like my ma. Booo.
Dude I can’t believe Funland has a website. I freaking love Funland. Whenever I do get to go back (my family has a house there) I ride the Sea Dragon. WOO! http://www.funlandrehoboth.com
Oh my god, I remember the Rok-N-Rol! I had fun on it when I was in high school, but as a little kid… let me just say, no small child should ride that with a sadistic older sister. There were some tears involved.
RTPG: You think you have strange memories of Ghost Town in the Sky? I’m pretty sure that we saw Harry Anderson performing his magician act there in the late 70s…
All my terror rides involved Canobie Lake Park in NH – and Riverside(?) in MA. I did not succumb to peer pressure with the Rok and Roll, thank gawd, though if I recall, the top 40 music was definitely a siren call.
The Turkish Twist was my first and last venture on one of the ‘centrifugal force’ type rides. I preferred the old fashioned roller coasters and ferris wheels, thank-you-very-much.
Thank you all so much!! It was absolutely the Rok-N-Rol. They had it mounted to go out over the edge of the cliff, which was fun on the Swing ride, not so much on this. I’d forgotten about the sound of it till I watched one of the YouTube clips – it brought the queasiness back oh-so-quick.
After this, I was never bothered by a Tilt-A-Whirl or Octupus type ride.
Hee! I’m off to relentlessly mock my brother that I was right! (almost 30 years later, and we can be instantly 6 & 7 again!)
@ Caitlin – I’d love to see some photos!