June 09, 2004

Emily's 25th Birthday at Great Adventure

Emily and I grew up in New Jersey together. So in order to celebrate her 25th birthday (25??? Holy cuh-rap!) Em, Ben and I decided to take the day off and head down to Six Flag's Great Adventure!

emily — Emily and I met up on the corner of Bowery and Broome and waited for Bev to drive down from midtown (where she keeps her car) and pick us up.

We bought two delicious cans of Coke because if you bring an empty can of Coke and give it to the ticket lady, you get one ticket for FREE!

bev, emily — Bev picked us up and we hit the Turnpike (Exit 7a, baby).

emily — Emily shows off the tattoo she'd gotten last night at some new pizza restaurant on 4th Ave. (Pizza parlor temporary tattoos??)

We arrived at Great Adventure around 10:30am - we'd gotten a much later start then we'd planned and we were really nervous that the park was going to be mobbed.

Fortunately, most people (ie - those clearly more sane than us) saw that the forecast called for 100+°F temperatures and decided to stay home. I mean, look at how fucking deserted the place was!

bev, me — We were screaming with joy until we stepped out of the AC-cooled car and got punched in the face by the heat.

bev, emily — Four hour wait for Batman the Ride? I don't think so!

How about nine minutes?

bev, me — Yay, heatwave!

After Batman, we headed over to check out Nitro - which at 230ft (over 20 storeys!!!) is the largest traditional roller coaster on the entire east coast.

This picture does the size of this coaster no justice. It's insanely tall.

bev, emily — The line for this one seemed like it might be long....

...yet eleven short minutes later we nearly crapping our pants.

bev, emily, me — Here's a picture of us pretending we're not scared shitless.

After Nitro, we went over to check out the newly opened Superman ride, but there was an actual multi-hour wait.

bev, me — So instead we decided to check out the Sponge Bob Square Pants 3-D Action Movie Adventure. (Hey pal, fuck you. The theater was air conditioned, ok?)

emily — Who loves 3-D? That's right, the birthday girl does!

After the movie it was back out into the brutal 100°F heat. Ugh.

But nothing a breeze on Rolling Thunder (the sketchy-ass wooden roller coaster) couldn't fix.

After walking around all day, we were all ready to relax, rejuvinate and revive ourselves with some sweet, sweet Footsie Wootsie action.

Who knew $.25 could feel so good?

I now it's got a shitty name, but if you ever see one of these machines, sit the fuck down and check it out. God bless you, Wootsie, you saved the day.

emily — Emily, who is clearly a player, was allowed beyond the point.

My player status was being questioned until I dropped my shades and coldlamped a bit. Boo-yah. Player status confirmed.

bev — The recently engaged Bev has had her Player status revoked and was not allowed beyond the point. Sorry, Charlie. Enjoy the rest of your married life.

bev, emily — If you ever find yourself at Great Adventure, do not, I repeat, DO NOT ride this ride. Sure, you'll be saying to yourself "But look at the cool-ass sign! There's a fucking Viper on it for Christ's sake." But trust me, after this shitty ass ride slams your skull into the about-as-soft-as-pavement head "guards" about, oh, 150 times in 60 seconds you're going to be cursing that oh-so-cool viper sign (that is if you can even remember what a viper, a curse or a sign is).

Afterwards I ate three hot dogs to replace all the precious nitrates that were shaken out of my body by the Viper.

Hey, check it out: POO.

emily — After our hot dogs, we decided we all needed some Dippin' Dots (aka - THE ICE CREAM OF THE FUTURE). We were so hot and sweaty that the little frozen ice cream pellets stuck to our lips.

See?

After sampling all of the other coasters, we all agreed that Nitro was our favorite by far. So we went back and rode it again.

bev, emily — And again and again and again. Six more times in total. (We were going to ride it a seventh, but after a while our insides felt all shifty and weird and I remember how if you're exposed to too much g-force you can tear some of the connective tissue in your abdomen that holds all of your organs in place and then you poop blood. This actually happened to my little brother when were visiting my aunt down in South Carolina years and years ago. They had just gotten a huge trampoline and he spent over 5 hours a day jumping up and down on it, by the fourth or fifth day: Blood poop.) So, six is enough, right? No one wants blood poop. Especially not on your birthday.

emily — In lieu of internal bleeded, we decided to get AIRBRUSHED TATTOOS! Woooo!

emily — Emily opted for the oh so apropos "Foxy."

bev — Bev, being a star, got...

bev — ...uh, a star.

And me? I went for a good ol' fashioned...

...muthafucking anchor on my forearm.

Just so I could tell the ladies to "blow me down."

emily, rachel — Back in the city we met up with Rachael at Luca Lounge for some Italian food and some pitchers of sangria. After wishing the birthday girl a found farewell...

leigh — ...I met up with the Tins on my walk home for some pink champagne (yes, pink champagne) up on her roof. Happy 25th Birthday, Emily!