Lomography

Hersheypark
written by vtayeh on October 30th, 2009 , 5 comments (2 votes)

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Hersheypark is located in Hershey PA, about a 2 hour drive from Baltimore, MD thru Amish Country. Something I did not know but Hershey has this huge complex than consist of an indoor area, an outdoor area, a zoo, the theme park, and the Hershey Chocolate Center with a Hershey store, IMAX, and a Hershey chocolate ride than gives you free chocolate when you are finish the ride.

I was scheduled to go to Hersheypark the second weekend of the race and it just so happened to be rainy and cloudy all day. But of course we didn’t let that dampen our spirits. All the rides were still operating and one of the great benefits of going to a theme park in the rain is that the lines were very short and we got on all the best rides more than once, sometimes even back to back without getting out of our seats! There are over ten major roller coasters and my favorite ride was the Comet. This was one of the park’s first wooden roller coaster rides and in my opinion, still the best. The first time we got on the ride the rain started to pick up as the coaster left the station and traveling in open seated car at around 50-60 mph in the rain was an interesting experience: fun but painful at the same time :)

One of my other favorites was a wooden coaster called the Lightning Race. This coaster features two separate wooden tracks, where two cars race each other to the finish line. The race starts off as the cars are side by side, by then the track become interweaves during the race and cross paths several times in the race. One thing I tried with my friends was that we split into two teams to race each other. During the race when the cars cross paths we would yell, wave, put up a certain finger at the other team… it’s definitely a blast!

Here’s a tip for those of you who plan to go and try to take pictures while riding a coaster: Hersheypark employees won’t let you bring a camera (or any lose articles) on the super fast, newer coasters like the ones that you’re feet hang or that require chest constraints. However, I was able to bring in on the Comet, since it’s just a lap constraint and those are the shots you see in this location. Even though the Lighting Race is a lap constraint coaster, I wouldn’t recommend bringing a camera on that one because it’s pretty jerky and you move around a bit too much to hold on to your seat and your camera (without damaging it.)