Worlds of Fun.Org: Mamba Poised to Strike: 20 Years Later March 1998-2018

Back in September, I started with such high hopes of covering 20 years of Mamba construction over the eight months that it took from announcement to reality. Of course, what I didn't expect, is that building and moving to a new house during that time would involve ALL of my time. Once we got moved in and started unpacking boxes that had been "lost" in storage for two years I began to think, if we are going to do this we should do it right and actually scan all the original photos instead of sharing the poor quality, low-resolution store scanned files.

Finally, last week I bought a new scanner and my very first scan was a Mamba construction photo, followed by, to date, about 120 more. Which is why you are reading what you are reading right now. However, before we get into what was going on exactly twenty years ago, I thought I would stop and reminiscence on the fact as to WHY it took so long to get the photos up.

Twenty years ago there were very few digital cameras, they existed yes, but cost far out of the range of the normal photographer, and consisted of a dollar amount that could easily buy a decent car. Twenty years ago, there were also no smartphones, no camera phones, no Facebook or Twitter or even YouTube (gasp!), and the internet was in its infancy. In fact, the PalmPilot the archaic predecessor of the smartphone had only come out a year earlier! Mamba construction was not shot digitally it was shot using a film camera, in which the film had to be bought, placed in the camera, shot, rewound, taken out (but not before it was rewound or you would ruin the photo!), driven to a photography store that would take the film and develop it rather quickly compared to the old days (only two days!). When you went to pick up photos, the store would then hand you back an envelope of photos, with the negatives and a CD with "high resolution" DIGITAL photos! Of course, "high resolution" then was on par with a gigantic ONE Gigabyte harddrive then too. Which is why those high-resolution photos then are crummy, grainy low-resolution photos in this day in age. So when I wanted to provide quality Mamba construction photos from twenty years ago, it meant I had to re-scan the paper photos form twenty years ago too. Today, I can easily shoot a photo on my iPhone and post it online in a matter of seconds. I wrote that last paragraph not only to remind this writer but everyone else how great technological leap forward we have made in the last twenty years and WHY it has taken me so long to finally start getting these photos online!

Consider that last paragraph a prequel to the editorial to come on April 26th, because Mamba itself, just like the film camera that shot its construction would quite literally straddle the world of the old and new.

However that's looking into the future, lets once again look back to the past, in this case, twenty years exactly, March 1998.

No major action, but just an awesomely large wrench.

The second hill takes shape.

A few weeks later the second hill is done, shot from the top of Timberwolf.

The station starting to become vertical.

The base of the lift hill, incomplete and without a chain or lift drive.

Moving on to the helix, an "oops" shot, or what we like to jokingly refer to the "A Perfect

Fit Every Time" since that was Morgan Manufacturing's advertising line at the time. Obviously not always. Obviously, this was fixed before Mamba ever ran!