Yesterday I got to go to Six Flags for the first time. I know what your thinking you’ve lived in Chicago how long and never been to Six Flags? Well the answer to that is I have never had a car and so was unable to go. Also the several times that my friends were going I was unable because of stupid work. Well yesterday I had a friend with a car(Meredith) and no work. Meredith got the tickets through work which was awesome. And all I had to do for them was visit the Army’s Virtual Army Tour. What you ask is the Virtual Army Tour or VAE? Well it’s this giant tent set up in the parking lot of Six Flags. When you enter you have to “register”, which is basically a way for the Army to get your information. Then you are escorted into the briefing room where you are told about the mission that you will be on. Your separated into groups of 5 or 6. After your briefing you are taken to this big room that has vehicles and guns that look a lot like the things that the army uses. Finally a video starts and your in the middle of the action. Our mission was a convoy to help get supplies to a village. Of course there were bad guys trying to stop us. The guns vibrate and sound pretty real. And when things blow up near you it is pretty loud. As a game it was fun, I know that I wouldn’t be able to do it in real life though. I admire the courage and determination that the people in our military have, but the life is not for me. At the end we got a CD that is supposed to be similar to the one we played. I haven’t loaded on my computer yet. I’ll let you know what I think when I do.

The VAE wasn’t the only thing that we did yesterday. Just the first thing of an awesome day! After that we headed straight for the new Batman ride, Dark Knight. Dark Knight was a lot of fun. It was an inside ride and mostly in the dark. The fact that it was in the dark made it impossible to see the track in front of you. So when you went down a hill or around a corner it was a great surprise. While we were waiting in line we kept on seeing people walking past us with this Flash Pass thing. While waiting in the super long line for Dark Knight we decided we would check it out and see if it was worth it. So worth it!

There are two different types of Flash Pass, the regular and the gold. They give you this little device that’s sorta like a pager. With the regular your wait time it about as long as everyone else, but basically your spot is reserved. It’s sort of like someone is holding your place in line. Then when it’s your turn your pager buzzes and you can go through to the front of the line. The pager tells you hold long it is until your turn so you can go through other rides that aren’t as long and then head over the awesome ride that you wanted to go on. We got the regular Flash Pass so we pretty much went on twice as many rides as we would have if we’d been waiting in line all day. The gold pass means that you can go straight through to the next ride without waiting. The cost is about twice as much for the gold as the regular, but it’s worth it either way. From now on when ever I go to Six Flags I’m going to purchase a Flash Pass.

The one thing that was kind or an annoyance, besides the many people at the park wearing clothes that they should know better to wear was the fact that a certain country music singer that won American Idol seemed to be following me and Meredith. Well she was at two rides that we were going to. Both times right when we were about to get on the ride her entourage walked to the front of the line and commandeered the car, giving the shaft to all of the people that were waiting in line. Personally I have no problem with her getting the the head of the line. I mean Meredith and I paid for that privilege, but we still had to wait for our turn to get on the ride. That wait was maybe 5 minutes. It would seem to me that a much better way to give a good impression of you would be to wait the 5 minutes or so with the people that you want to purchase your tickets and CDs. After all for many people a day at Six Flags is possibly the only vacation that they get all year. Why would you want to annoy these hardworking people? It makes sense to me, but I don’t know I could be crazy.

All in all it was a great time and I hope I get to go back again. Meredith and I were talking abut going to Wisconsin Dells too. That would be a lot of fun. I haven’t been to a water park since I was a kid. And I’ve never been to The Dells.