Peak 8

Imagine flying down a mountain so fast that you think your hair is going to fly off. Imagine flying down a mountain so fast that you totally forget that you were at a stand still just a few moments ago. Imagine that you are in one of the best theme parks in the Rocky Mountains riding on what seems like a piece of wood on four wheels and a brake.
This is a short story about one of my family vacations to Colorado and we go to a theme park called Peak 8. It is about what we did there and the experiences we had. This trip I will never forget.
It had only been a few days since we arrived in northern Colorado that my mom said that we were going to Peak 8. Neither my brother or I new what Peak 8 was or where it was. We soon found out that it was a theme park on a mountain. The first thing I noticed was some gray colored slide things zigzagging down the mountain. I had no idea what they were until I saw people going down them on little cart like things. When I saw this, I knew it was going to be my favorite rides.
“We should get the family four pack with the full day rides because it is cheaper than buying individual passes,” argued my dad when we were trying to decide which kind of passes to buy. We all agreed with him. “Okay then, we’ll get take the family four pack,” he told the cashier. After we bought the passes, mom wanted to make some rules, like staying together, not going anywhere without telling somebody, and all the other basic stuff.
“I call middle!” I declared to my brother and dad as we got ready to go on the chair lift that would take us to the top. It was my first time on a chair lift so it was weird being up so high without anything below me. When we got to the top, we had four courses to choose from, easy, medium, hard and extra hard.
“I think I’ll go down the medium first because the easy doesn’t look to fun,” I said.
“I’m going to go down easy with Matthew” said dad.
“But I don’t want to go down easy with you, I want to go by myself‼” Matthew complained
“You and I are going down together, if you keep arguing with me, we’ll do it again.” Threatened dad, which was enough of a threat to shut my brother up.
“Race you to the bottom‼!” I yelled as we both went down at the same time.
After doing each of the levels at least three times each, I decided that I wanted to try some of the other rides in the park. “How bout we go to the other side of the park?” I proposed to my family, “Sure” agreed my dad. On our way over, we stopped by mom to tell her where we were going, we ask her to come with us and she said,
“I’ll come with to take pictures, but I’m not going to go on any rides.”
My mom doesn’t do so well on any kind of ride. In the other area, there was one of those things that have a trampoline with bungee cord and you bounce up and down so you go really high. The cords were adjustable so you could make them tighter or looser. There was also a playground and a zip line.
“I am soooooo going on that thing!” I said pointing at the bungee cord trampoline combo thing. “Me too” Matthew added. We then quickly got in line for it before anyone else could get there. The longer we waited, the more we wanted to go on it. Finally it was our turn. The people that worked there strapped us in to a belt that looked like a rock climbing belt. At the highest point of our jumps, we could see the little town below us nestled in a valley between Peak 8 and the mountain on the other side. Looking beyond the town, I could see the snow capped tips of the Rocky Mountains.
The only bad thing about the ride was that I couldn’t do a front flip. The best part was when we were so high up that we could look down into the little town below nestled in the little valley in-between Peak 8 and the mountain on the other side. And if you looked beyond that, you would be looking into the beautiful Colorado Rockies with their snow covered peaks and tree covered sides with a very distinct tree line. It was one of the most spectacular views I had ever seen.
“Hey guys, storms come over the mountains at about noon every day, so if you want to do anything else, you’d better do it now!” dad warned us as we got off the bungee cord trampoline combo.
“Okay. Hey, let’s go try the zip line for a little bit,” I suggested.
“Sure, I’ve wanted to try that for a while,” Matthew said, “then we can go back over to the slide thing until it starts to rain. I just hope we don’t get caught on top! But I’m just going to do this one more time, this time as high as I can.”
“Fine, how ‘bout Mom goes over with Joshua while I stay here with Matthew, and we’ll come over when we are done here.”
“Hurry over when you’re done though, I have a feeling that Matthew is going to like the zip line.” I told Dad.
When we were done with the zip line, we decided to head back over to the Mountain slide. It was about 11:45 when we did, so we were kind of starting to worry about the rain. Sure enough, at 12:15, rain clouds started to creep over the mountain. Turning a bright, warm, sunshiny day into a cloudy cool one. Then the lightning started to flicker through the sky like spider webs. Thinking I could get another run in before the clouds broke open, I got back on the chair lift praying that it wouldn’t start to rain. With my kind of luck, it did start to sprinkle a little bit, then I started to hear thunder in the distance, that’s when I began thinking, “Houston, we have a problem.”
“Houston, we have a problem” was kind of an under statement because when Matthew, Dad and I got to the top, they had just stopped letting people go down because smooth plastic the slides were getting too wet and people couldn’t stop. “I don’t think this could get any worse,” I told them. As soon as I said that, it started to rain like you wouldn’t believe. It wasn’t raining cats and dogs, it was like Hoover dam broke over us. We all scurried like ants over a picnic to the shelter near by. It was a good thing that there was a shelter nearby, otherwise we would’ve been drenched instantly. “Wow,” I said. I had no idea that so much water could come down in so little time.
“Anybody have any ideas to get down?”
“We could walk.” Somebody pointed out.
That idea I instantly put in my mental trash bin, because walking around in the open at 93000 feet during a thunderstorm wasn’t the smartest idea in the world.
“Anybody got a better idea?” I asked.
Our question was soon answered by the roar of two huge vans. The bigger of the two was named Beluga. The smaller one was named Baby Beluga. They could both fit about eleven people. “It was going to be a ruff ride down in these things,” I thought as soon as I saw them.
Wile we were zig zaging down the hairpin turns and the switch backs, with the lightning threateningly close over head, we noticed little streams of water forming in the dirt and gravel road.
“Hasn’t it only been raining for like, seven minutes?” I wondered out loud.
“Yes”
“Wow” Mother Nature really must be mad about something, maybe it was that soda bottle I forgot to throw away and left out the other day.
About a quarter of the way down, we unwillingly heard a POP!! And the front right side of the van went down a few inches. A flat tire, the last thing we needed in this situation. After saying some things that aren’t exactly school appropriate, the driver went out into the down pour to inspect the damage. After getting back into the van muttering about low quality this and should’ve been replaced that, he called for the other van to be sent back up to get us. Being behind the other van, it didn’t even know what had happened.
Listening to the rain pound on the roof of the van, it sounded like we were in a giant tin can on wheels. After waiting patiently for about fifteen minutes, the other van finally came to “rescue” us all. Climbing out of the van onto the muddy road I say “What a great closing to an even greater day.”
“You bet” agreed Dad. Fitting twelve people into a ten person van wasn’t to fun. The smaller kids had to sit on laps, and everybody else had to squish together like a sandwich. Surprisingly, the rest of the way down was fun in a way. Bouncing down the mountain like a car with hydraulics was the best part. We finally made it down to the bottom of the mountain safe and sound, a little wobbly though from all the bouncing in the crowded van.
A trip that would normally take us about five minutes round trip, ended up taking us around 45 minutes. It was a rare problem that we had though, and would normally never happen.
“Wow, that was quite a surprise we had there at the end there wasn’t it,” my dad said on the way back to the hotel.
“It sure was,” Matthew agreed.
“I was worried sick that you wouldn’t be able to get down until the rain stopped,” Mom added, “The workers started to put towels down on the track so people could stop.”
“We are all here now though,” I reassured her.
“Yes you are, and I’m happy for that.”