Your Doom Waits... and Waits

It's a weekend of weddings for me. I just got back from attending one tonight, and I have another to attend tomorrow night. On the way to tonight's wedding, we drove past Elitch Gardens, the local amusement park. (Which used to be cool and historic and such before they relocated it about a decade ago. Now it just sucks. But that's off point...)

One of the rides they have, that's pretty common to amusement parks, is a tall tower where people are cranked up to the top and then freefall dropped to the bottom. Ours is called the "Tower of Doom," and is the one on the right here. (Ignore the skateboard looking ride.) It hoists riders on three or four sides -- I can't remember exactly which.

This afternoon, as we drove by on the highway, I saw the seats from one set of riders held up at the top of the tower. None of the other sets of seats were anywhere in sight. There were indeed riders in those seats at the top of the tower.

It took us maybe two minutes from the time the amusement park first came into view until we'd wound around on the highway to pass it and leave it behind. And in that time, those riders atop the Tower of Doom stayed right where they were. No one else came up; they didn't drop down.

Now, no one wants to suffer an amusement park ride malfunction. But I suppose this one not being instantly-throw-you-to-the-ground fatal is desirable, should you have to be stuck in one. But still... dangling at the top of this Tower for who knows how long? Just waiting for someone to figure something out? Yikes.

At least, I assume it was a ride malfunction. I checked a bunch of local news sites tonight when I got home, and didn't see anything about a problem at the amusement park.

But I certainly now have one fewer reason to visit the crummy Elitch Gardens.