Author's Note & Introduction

My parents started bringing me to this new amusement park that was built when I was 2 years old called Marriott's Great America in Gurnee, IL. It was only a 20 minute drive from my house and they had a great kids section with fun houses, things to climb on and... rides! I'm sure you couldn't keep me off of them. My first pictures of me at the park are from 1978, the year my baby brother Stevie was born.

There was another amusement park, located approximately an hour from our house called Santa's Village in Dundee, IL that we used to go to with my best friend Jodi also. They have this great fire truck ride where you would sit on your parent's lap and put out fires when you'd ride up to them. Jodi and I begged our parents to go back to Santa's Village whenever we could.

Even after we'd "outgrown" Santa's Village, the trips to Marriott's became a yearly (if not more) stop. I think my first actual roller coaster was either the Tidal Wave or Willard's Whizzer at Marriott's. I just couldn't get enough of them! A couple years later, I was tall enough to tackle the big coaster - the Turn of The Century! A big person's coaster with corkscrews and a big drop!! Come on now, where does the line start?

I remember in the 1980 when they painted the Turn of The Century black and renamed it the Demon. I was a little upset that they altered my coaster, but the Demon was even more exciting. They added 2 loops and some great special effects that even left me scared! "The Demon... is gonna getcha!" What a promotion! The lines had never been so long as when they premiered the Demon.

When they built the American Eagle in the 1981, I had never seen a wooden roller coaster before, so I didn't know what to expect. I think my dad and I went alone that year, and we carved our name in the wood in the queue. (I know, we're bad.) But, we kind of claimed that coaster that year. The drop was the steepest thing I'd ever seen and it was really scary. But I loved it.

Through the years, my dad would let Stevie and I bring a friend along every year and the 5 of us would spend the day. (My mom stopped coming after she rode the Edge, a freefall ride. I think that scared her too much because she kept declining our invitations to join us. She hadn't been on a coaster until our recent trip to Big Chief Karts & Coasters this summer.) When Six Flags Great America "SFGAm" (as it was renamed) offered their "Twicket" where you could come back the next day for a dollar, we would come for the weekend. I usually invited my friend Missy (who tragically passed away in 1993, a month after her 20th birthday), and we would usually come again by ourselves a second time during the summer. To this day, the park still reminds me of her...

I've been to other amusement parks over the years, such as the defunct Baseball and Boardwalk in Florida and rode a great coaster there, similar to the Tidal Wave at SFGAm. I went to a park near St. Louis with my band, and a park near Washington D.C. and another near Toronto with my choir. But I never took pictures! Hello!

I've always wanted to make a trip to a different amusement park every year and plan my vacation around it. It hasn't been until I met Geoff in 1997 that I was able to do it. And this time I decided I'd better take some pictures and collect something from every park to document it.

So, I became an official coaster enthusiast. Geoff and I took our first trip to Cedar Point this year, and are planning on our first trip to Paramount's King's Island in mid-October. If there has been a coaster within 100 miles of our home, I've found it and took pictures of it!

That's why I decided to build this web site. I love the way my pictures have turned out and I wanted to be able to show them to you, and let you get a feel of the different parks I've been to this year.

Well, that's me in a nutshell. Geoff has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I've never found such a caring man who shares almost the exact same interests as me. I'm tellin' you, it's literally a dream come true! (And to think, I met him online!) I even took Geoff on his first ride on the American Eagle and made him ride in the front seat with me so I could get a good picture! I hope you enjoy your visit and I invite you to come again and see my additions every summer!