Make Amerika Great again - 19/05/2016
The day began in the middle of the night with a wake up snore of a roommate and the happy breeze of the air conditioning. After turning both off a good night sleep was enjoyed with the opportunity of sleeping in till eight o’clock, one hour more than normal! A quick and simple breakfast was enjoyed after which we took off to California’s Great America. California’s Great America has been in business since 1976 with a current revenue of 200 million dollars and approximately 2000 staff members.
California’s great America is specialized in large steel machines capable of hoisting heavy objects with minor precision to great heights and letting them descent along a given trajectory by using gravitational forces. These devices were used to test the human body to the max. by means of acceleration forces and mental stamina similar to those used for NASA's astronauts. The tallest machine had a height of 108.2 feet, hence 33 meters if a normal ‘feet’ would be taken and accelerates to a speed of 86 km/h. When however one Bob unit feet is taken the structure would stand an incredible 47 meters above ground, hence Bob’s shoe size. To ensure everybody’s safety on their vast 100-acre, metal detectors were used similar to those at an airport and bags were briefly checked upon arrival. Additionally each test run was checked by two employees before departure. Compared to their Dutch test facility (Walibi, #hardgaan) which most of us visited at least once in their live, the number of ran test was significantly lower due to the less efficient approach, but since the Californian weather was nice nobody seemed to bother. In the end we had a nice day in the amusement park, used a bunch of sunscreen, created a lot of bad hair days and forced some people with fear of heights into rollercoasters. For dinner some people went eating steaks and others went to a Chinese restaurant across the street of the hotel to enjoy food that includes a decent amount of vegetables.
By: Max Vervoort