Waving Goodbye

“I wish you’d stay”

— Alien Ant Farm, “(Happy) Death Day”

Who at Wild Waves thought this was a good idea? Countdown clocks usually mark events you’re looking forward to: the fresh start of a new year, a movie premiere, opening day. Wild Waves placed one on its website, counting down to the final seconds before the park closes forever.

It feels like counting down to the moment someone important is about to leave your life. And when the clock reaches zero, people will lose their jobs and the community will be left with a gaping hole. The message it sends is that the emotional weight of the closure never entered the equation. The decision was simply reduced to dollars on a balance sheet.

As a newcomer to the area, I don’t have the ties to the park that long-time locals do, but I have grown attached to its charm. It may have once been owned by Six Flags, but it feels far from corporate and, at times, refreshingly hokey. The dream of making years of new memories with my grandsons will disappear when the gates close for the last time on November 1st.

Wanting to spend at least one last day at the park, we debated when to go. We considered going during the summer, before the water park closed, but decided instead on Halloween. My grandson loves the holiday, and it has become a family tradition in California to embark on a Halloween adventure each year. Besides, there was something wonderfully morbid about kicking off Halloween season at a park living out its final days.

Lacking the suggested reservations because of the way we purchased our tickets, we made sure to arrive before the park opened at 2:00. We shuffled through security with a small crowd and encountered an employee who acted as if she would be out of work in another twenty-eight days. I hoped it wouldn't be a sign of what the rest of the day would bring.

With a three-year-old and his one-year-old brother in tow, we headed to the Halloween celebration for kids, arriving just in time for the “Bubble Witch” to appear. Bubbles are one of his favorite things, so this set a great precedent for the day.

The decor was expectedly low-key, with hand-painted props and blow-ups you can buy at the store. That didn’t matter to the kids. They were having fun.

How could they not? There was face painting, coloring, and a hay bale maze with candy at the end. The one-year-old let out happy squeals while his brother led us from booth to booth.

We were making some of Wild Waves' final memories, and I will treasure them.

For a coaster nerd like me, the day's most meaningful moment was sharing my oldest grandson's first riding credit. When we went to the Washington State Fair, he had dragged me to the roller coaster, but the height sign towered over him. This park has a Zamperla-powered kiddie coaster that allows him to ride with an adult.

We let him watch, and I smiled as he led me to the entrance. We had our first lesson about waiting in line, patience, and keeping our feet on the floor rather than climbing the queue rails. Luckily, we only had to wait one cycle.

He climbed aboard first and had to be reminded to make room for Poppy. Once we were buckled in, we had to wait for the safety check. We had another lesson in patience.

The first circuit went well, but my grandson started to get scared as we rounded the helix, so on the second circuit he nestled against me. I talked him through the last one and told him how brave he was as we pulled into the station.

As we exited the ride, he dragged me right to the Frog Hopper.

The sun began to set, the kiddie rides closed, and the park transformed itself for the scarier part of Halloween. There were hugs, kisses, and waves goodbye. Then it was time for big-kid thrills.

The first mission was a final ride on Timberhawk: Ride of Prey. As we crested the lift hill and approached the tree line, I found myself wondering how much of the landscape before me would disappear when the park is transformed from a family playground into what has been publicly proposed as a warehouse development, though some residents worry the project could evolve into a data center.

How many trees were sacrificed for this wooden coaster, only to see its life cut short in the name of "progress"?

We then entered a very slow-moving line for the first of the park’s two haunted mazes. It was worth the wait.

Maybe it was the freshness of opening weekend. Perhaps the team behind the event wanted to go out with a bang. Either way, it was better than I remembered from our visit last year.

This park, nestled in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, has two advantages over the Halloween events we attended in California: space and location. And they took advantage of both.

The maze began with nothing going on, just a long, dimly lit path. It made the jump scare toward the end that much more satisfying.

As we meandered through the various sets, I couldn’t help but notice that the props were better than I expected, given the homemade feel of Booville, the children’s event. The tops of the tents housing the sets had been removed, allowing the well-paced scares to take place beneath an open sky.

The best part was how the groups were separated. The maze never felt like an extension of the queue. That was why the line had taken so long, but it also made the price worth it.

Toward the end, a scareactor managed to surprise me, and I jumped. He looked at me and, still in character, proudly announced his victory:

“I got you.”

As we made our way toward the exit, it was time for a final ride on Wild Thing. This aging coaster is tame by today’s standards, but I’ve grown attached to it in the short time I’ve been here. Not only is it the dominant feature when passing the park on the freeway, but it also reminds me of Python, my first looping credit from a boyhood trip to Florida.

With no line, we hopped right on and made our way through the course. The clanking ascent. The opening loop. The corkscrews. The brief moment of disorientation as the train hit the brake run. It was perfect.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little emotional as the train pulled into the station.

With no wait, I was tempted to take one more ride, but closing time was quickly approaching, and we still had one more maze to do before going home.

What surprised me first as we passed through the entrance to the last maze was that they had changed the layout. Last year, my wife had gotten stuck in a giant inflatable bladder that served as the finale. The maze was intended to be ADA accessible, but the feature ended up pressing against the brake lever on her mobility device. It didn’t help that she was already anxious from making her way through the maze.

This year, my wife waited out front, and the bladder was the first thing we encountered. Even though they knew this would be the final season, they had invested in creating a new experience.

The exit was strange. Instead of depositing you back where you entered the maze, it sent you on a long walk around the lake. This included a section through the water park, where the slides had already sent their final riders downhill and would soon be dismantled.

It was almost like a Halloween walk through a graveyard. The fake fog drifting from the maze helped set the mood.

Wild Waves is a park that had probably seen its best days long before I ever visited. Abandoned ride pads indicate that the ride count was once higher, and even with the limited selection, a few attractions were closed. We visited several times over the past couple of years, and the Shoot the Chutes ride was closed every time.

But the park still has a family-friendly feel and a setting that can’t be beat. And it is the only park with full-fledged thrills within a few hours’ drive. To get my coaster fix when the fair isn’t operating, I’ll now either have to drive to Oaks Amusement Park in Oregon or Silverwood in Idaho.

When we moved here, I expected a long-term relationship with Wild Waves. Instead, I got a Tinder hookup.

Maybe that's why saying goodbye hurts more than it should. Just as the park started to feel like part of our family's journey, the story ended.

I'm going to miss it.

“Over, finished, gone, done, out”

— Anthrax, “Fīnalē”

Carl Petersen is a former Green Party candidate for the LAUSD School Board and a longtime advocate for public education and special needs families. Now based in Washington State, he writes about politics, culture, and their intersections at TheDifrntDrmr.