Day 1:
I’ve been on enough so-called “scenic train rides” to know that they aren’t all worthwhile. So, I only ride those that sound truly unique. This morning, I could find nothing in my notes or in my head to explain what was special about the Heber Valley Railroad. I just knew that I had seen fit to buy myself a ticket on it. Arriving at the train station around lunch time, I realized they were running a modern diesel-electric locomotive (not steam). Once I was onboard, I quickly found the passenger cars were at least old, if not historic. See for yourself:
Looking at the mountains around Heber City, I was initially underimpressed by the scenery. But once we got started on our 90-minute journey, the scenery improved and I was able to snap the following pics:
Then I learned what truly makes this train ride different from all the rest: Live music! Yes, there was a trio of bluegrass musicians wandering around the train. Oddly, they did NOT play the song, “Chicken Train“.
Verdict: If you’re going to be in Heber City with time to kill, definitely kill that time on the Heber Valley Railroad. But don’t go out of your way to get there unless you are a super rail geek. I am not quite a super rail geek, but I’m close….
I’m a super habitrail geek! So, my next stop was Utah’s biggest pinball collection. The arcade chain known as Nickel Mania has at least three locations. Each of the three has a nice collection of pinball games, but the largest collection by far is at their location in the town of West Jordan, where they have 68 pinball games!
And we’re not just talking about recent games here. Yes, they do have new releases, but they also have loads of games from the 1980s and 1990s…including some of my old favorites that I hadn’t seen for years. NOTE: Leave your quarters at home. This is one of those places where you pay to load credits onto a card, which you then swipe at the game. I purchased $10.00 to start with. Surprisingly, this was far more than I needed. Y’see, the charge for each pinball game is four credits. But, remember this place is called Nickel Mania…each “credit” is a nickel, not a quarter. So each game costs 20 cents.
As for the actual game play, a few of the games had a weak flipper or other common malady, but at 20 cents per game, I was not about to complain. Have I seen machines that are maintained better? Yes. But I’ve also seen machines that were MUCH worse.
That evening, I chose to try another of the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives web site‘s picks for the Salt Lake area. This time it was Curry Pizza. To me, this sounded a bit odd. As it turns out, they basically just take a typical Indian (or Thai) entree and serve it on a circular naan “crust”. The only resemblance to pizza is the shape. Well, OK, they add some mozzarella, too.
I went with the Thai Peanut Curry Pizza. It was friggin’ delicious! The peanut sauce was incredibly tasty, and the mozzarella just built upon that yumminess! Holy cow, my spell checker thinks “yumminess” is a perfectly cromulent word.
Day Two:
And on the second day, he rested. Because he was much lazier than God.
Day Three:
Time for this trip’s one and only amusement park! I was anticipating a potentially miserable day due to the weather forecast and the fact that Salt Lake City has virtually no trees and thus, no shade. I was pleasantly surprised.
Y’see, Salt Lake’s amusement park (which is known simply as Lagoon) is one of the oldest in the U.S. Having been in operation since 1886, they’ve had plenty of time to plant, water, and grow an impressive forest. That combined with a moderate breeze throughout the day made for rather a lovely time.
I came to this amusement park with one primary goal: to ride the Roller Coaster. This park has ELEVEN operating roller coasters, but one of them is so old that they never gave it a name. It’s still officially known as just “Roller Coaster”. This bad boy opened in 1921 and was designed by the fabled John A. Miller, who is credited with designing over 150 roller coasters during the first few decades of the 20th Century. Sadly, only eight of these remain.
This Roller Coaster features an oval-shaped out-and-back layout, which is not unusual. What I found to be rather unusual is that, after completing the oval, the track drops under the lift hill, and you complete the oval again. But the second traversal of the oval is entirely underneath the track you just rode on to complete the first traversal. This makes for two very different ride experiences in one coaster. I preferred the second experience. The hills are much lower the second time around, providing some nice negative G-force moments.
Another surprising aspect of this park is that it contains a historical “village” consisting of historic buildings that have been moved to the site and filled with historic artifacts. To me, it compared to Pioneer Village in Nebraska and to South Park City in Colorado. There’s also a small zoo, which seems to only be viewable from the park’s railroad train ride.
All in all, I rode seven of the park’s eleven coasters, including the wonderfully named “Cannibal”. This thing is one of a broad class of rides that I call Insanicoasters, which tend to have your body weight hanging against the shoulder harness for at least a second or two. This one actually throws you at the restraints as you hurtle down the 116-degree angle of the first drop. This is a feeling I remember from when I crashed my mountain bike. Except the mountain bike didn’t have restraints.
Despite the partial respite provided by the trees-n-breeze, by late afternoon I was exhausted and ready to leave. After half an hour in my rental car’s AC, I felt good enough to go back to Nickel Mania. Once there, I got Lost In The Zone. For those of you who aren’t pinball freaks, “Lost In The Zone” is the “Wizard Mode” on the Twighlight Zone pinball game. For that same group of you, a “Wizard Mode” is a special bonus game that can only be reached by pinball gods. And it’s damned hard to be a pinball god when you’ve got Parkinson’s. This was my first wizard mode in YEARS. I returned to the hotel and slept like Cthulu.
Voyages with Parkinson's 