Canada's Wonderland

The summer was turning out to be a scorcher, 1988 was shooting by and the grass on Ajax field was dry and parched.

We had bought season passes to a place North of Toronto called Canada's Wonderland, a sort of much bigger Alton Towers, Canada's version of Disneyland. The journey from Ajax involved highway 401 towards Toronto then (hopefully) a short drive up Highway 400 towards Barrie.

It was about an hours drive and we would arrive there early on a Saturday morning, when the carpark was empty, and wear ourselves out on the rollercoaster rides. As years went by they added a major ride, or two, each year, however, two of my favorites were the corkscrew Dragon Fire and the old rollercoaster, the Great Canadian Minebuster which was reported as being the largest and longest wooden coaster in Canada.

It usually gave me an instant headache as it rattled the hell out of my brain.

In the later months of summer, we extended our day into the evening with the free concerts that they presented at their fantastic open air venue, usually reasonable acts like Billy Ocean and Brenda Russell.

It was after that particular concert that we had an accident in the Mustang, we were driving home along some of the back roads (to beat the congestion of the 400 series highways) when I took a right hand corner too fast, the Mustang did not have the handling of the XR2 and I realized that quite quickly as I slid the back end into a curb with a violent thump.

Karen, in a dreamy summer party skirt, stood shivering as the light was fading, I struggled at the side of the road to replace the rear wheel, the tire had been popped from the rim, which was bent, and eventually we were on our way again.

Insert relevant and amusing 1988 Billy Ocean song title here...