Six Flags Great America
Gurnee, Illinois
April 10, 2009
Page One




With Bond being the coaster rider now I had to get him up to one of my favorite parks to do some more riding.  Since I pretty much grew up riding at Marriott's Great America before it became Six Flags I wanted to re-discover the coasters there through his eyes. 

Since he had the Friday before Easter off and I have a huge aversion to the crowds that are always at Great America I figured that would be a fantastic day to enjoy the park without the crowds.  After setting the date I started watching the weather and it sounded horrible.  It was supposed to be cloudy and in the 40's but the coaster Gods decided to favor us with a sunny day with temperatures in the 50's and absolutely no one at the park.  So Bond, my brother Kevin and I were off to the park.



 I find marketing departments at big corporate amusement parks amusing because they tend to make totally outlandish claims like when Six Flags Over Georgia marketed Mindbender as a 3 loop coaster when it only had 2 loops and a helix.  I'm pretty sure that someone in the marketing department pulled this claim that they were the cleanest theme park in the world  out of their neither regions because a certain beloved park about a 6 hour drive to the south called Holiday World has won the cleanest park Golden Ticket Award (basically the amusement park industry Academy Awards) for well over a decade. 



As soon as we were in the gates we were off to start our overindulgence of rides with a stop to the Whizzer.



Bond had actually been on the Whizzer before when Great America was planning on removing this so that they could put Superman where it was.  I couldn't let it get torn out without getting him one ride and back then he loved it but hadn't been back since.



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Paul B. Drabek