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Messages - spinetingler

#1
Thanks for the log flume pic - that brings back some good memories (and some bad) of the season that I worked there (circa 80/81) mostly running that ride, but also sometimes supervising the disgusting ball pit or running the small carousel (which I loved doing (met some hot MILFs - long before they were called that, and some hot babysitters)).

While the flume wasn't especially exciting, some operators often made the last ride of the day more lively (and dangerous) by turning off the water pumps when the last boat went out. The water level would drop below the rails at the bottom of the plunge (thus not slowing the boat down) and the boat would shoot off of the end of the rails and either submarine straight to the bottom or skip like a rock on the water and slam into the end curve hard enough to rattle teeth and bones. On several occasions I was sure that the boat was going to climb over the end curve and hurtle into the crowd of departing park-goers, including one trip where I was riding with a cute girl/park groupie and I'm absolutely certain that I could have reached out of the boat and touched an old lady standing outside the flume.

Good times.

The other big deal with the flume was the frequent failure of the lift motors, which required all of the operators to run across the swamp to the lift to pull guests out of the boats (and send them down an escape ladder) as the boats piled up in front of the unmoving lift, creating a dam in the water. The boats then had to be lifted by hand up onto the belt lift. If the boats were left blocking the water, the water would continue to rise until the trailing boats (and the guests) would be spilled over the sides of the flume (a 10-12 foot drop in many places). A spill never happened during my summer, but it was a close thing several times.