Vacation 1984: Six Flags over Vacation

In 1984, on our last day of vacation before the long drive home, we went to Six Flags over Georgia in suburban Atlanta. If you count water parks, this would have been the fifth amusement park the Gillespie family visited on the trip. On paper, it sounds like a blast. In reality, there was a little amusement park fatigue. We may have just been tired from the long trip or had it with waiting in lines. But there was none of the excitement we should have been feeling to spend a whole day at a Six Flags.

Make no mistake: We had a lot of fun. My favorite ride was the wooden rollercoaster that reminded me a little of the Eagle at Great America. We went on a few rollercoasters that day and the first rapids ride we've ever experienced (Great America's similar ride didn't open until later that summer. We saw a live Shirt Tales show (remember the Shirt Tales from Saturday morning cartoon?) that Jenny liked. I missed going on a pirate ship ride after going to the restroom or something, which in retrospect, was a brilliant move -- I have come to hate swinging pirate ships. We saw this cool Olympic video experience in advance of the L.A. Games -- a bit of a portend to the Games that Atlanta would get. And I remember being in line for a rollercoaster and seeing a girl that looked like Brooke from "All My Children."

I think the day would have been more memorable if it had been in the middle of the trip. I've noticed that on our vacations back to the Midwest, the last couple days are mellow, a winding down. I can appreciate that we split the drive back into two parts and got to experience one more day of fun before it was over. It was just could what have been an awesome day was merely pretty good, through no fault of anyone's. We had simply expended all our vacation energy. It was time to go home.

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