The summer carnival at St. Mary’s Church in Grand Forks, ND is usually just a standard-fare church carnival consisting of small rides and basic games, but the church just upped the ante in a major way: They somehow managed to get an actual goddamn roller coaster this year.
What!! How the hell did they swing that one?
Although it doesn’t go very fast and the track is basically just a dinky metal circle with a couple of little hills, it is by all accounts a real honest-to-god roller coaster, albeit one that is clearly designed for small children as the cars are painted to resemble a happy dragon. But despite the fact that the coaster doesn’t have any loops or huge drops like the ones at Six Flags, it’s nonetheless a major step up from the tilt-a-whirl and spinning teacup sort of rides they usually have at the carnival, and seeing this thing in the church parking lot next to the statue of the Blessed Mother is a totally unexpected surprise. St. Mary’s really pulled out all the stops this time around!
Unfortunately, the roller coaster costs a whopping 10 tickets to ride, which, at a price of 50 cents a ticket, is a really steep fare to pony up just to zip around in circles for 90 seconds—especially considering that most of the other rides only cost two tickets. But the hefty price of admission doesn’t seem to be scaring people off as the line to ride it is currently stretching all the way back to the funnel cake stand, and the only other line that’s even close to that long is the one for beer. Then again, when a legit, real-ass roller coaster shows up at your church, you pretty much have to go on it, right? Opportunities like this don’t come around very often.
It’s unclear whether the church was able to get the roller coaster through the usual ride rental company or if they had to pull some special strings to make it happen, but whatever the case, it’s taking the carnival to a whole new level of fun, and anyone who lives nearby should definitely come check it out. St. Mary’s is doin’ it up big this year!
