It's always held some sort of mystical charm for me and as we approached it by taking that winding snake of a road, Highway 17, I found that it had been far too long since I had done the Dipper's sister.

Allow me to 'splain.

See, many people consider the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk Giant Dipper to be the twin sister of the San Diego Giant Dipper. The latter was built a year later by Prior and Church while the Santa Cruz coaster was designed by Arthur Loof and has a personality all its own.

When we arrived, it was time to hook up with Paulina Stone and start hitting some coaster tracks. The Dipper didn't disappoint; while waiting in the station, the anxiety levels soar as the train rumbles overhead, you can see the boards in the wall trembling. If that's not enough then that first disorientating plunge into darkness is a sure-fire screamer for the un-initiated. Once you rise, blinking into the sunlight, you're afforded a glorious view of the Pacific Ocean off to the right and the quaint hills of Santa Cruz to your left. Soak it all in, cause you've got about 20 seconds to sightsee.

Built at a cost of $50,000, it combines the sensations of "earthquake, balloon ascension and aeroplane drop", according to its designer, and he pretty much got what he aimed for. Pushing off 70 feet above the ground and providing a foamy sea-view, you fly down the first drop and into the famous fan curve that slams you right back into the action and over a series of air-time inducing dips. That little plateau at the end looks benign, but take in the sights quickly, loosen up the wrists, you're going down again.

With a top speed of 55 m.p.h., you're bound to hop in line and do it again, especially if you've got one of those cool bracelets that give you unlimited rides.

I struck up a sort of kinship with one of the operators, a relationship had to follow after the amount of time spent trading words while in the queue. Coasters make people happy, we were pretty happy. So happy that we took a mid-afternoon break and went looking for a funky place to snack. We found it in Positively Front Street, a definitely Bay Area kind-of place where a two roving hippies spotted me as I hopped out of the convertible.

"Wow, you are like, sooo beautiful..." a girl wearing a rainbow skirt called to me from the sidewalk. Her guy friend smiled at me.

"Thanks," I said, smiling and heading into the restaraunt. To think, we had another day in this area--reason enough for smiling. With the rest of the day on the Boardwalk to ride the Cave Train and take a spin on the Hurricane, it was shaping up to be a pleasant wrap-up to this part of our tour.

For tomorrow, we'd start hunting inland, where the parks were bigger. Like Paramount's Great America.