Sterling Silverwood

After a few minutes of being in line for a roller coaster called Tremors, you almost expect to encounter an Oz-ian sign saying “I’d turn back if I were you.”

What you do see is one that declares, “It is imperative that you stay seated on this ride. Do not attempt to raise up in your seat.”

Then there is the repeated public-address message. It stresses that this is “a high-intensity ride,” and you had darn well better be in good health, et cetera.

Add to that the fact that, at this very moment, the waiting area sound system is pumping out the Beatles’ “Help!” and, well, you probably wouldn’t be the first to entertain second thoughts about this particular brand of classic summertime fun.

But let’s not jump ahead. Let’s go back to the beginning, back to where you first heard the screams of previous riders.

Welcome to North Idaho’s Silverwood Theme Park, just south of Athol. If you have never been there, here is what you have missed. (Well, here’s what you might have missed for a few hours last weekend, anyway.)

After paying $4, you find a space in a Delaware-sized parking lot dotted with license plates from all over. Practically the moment you step out of your car, you hear roller coaster riders in the distance calling for their mommas as they rocket along on elevated tracks.

To get to Silverwood, you walk under Highway 95 through a tunnel. Admission for one adult is $41.99.

After passing through the gate you emerge in a simulated old-time village. Several things become immediately apparent:

• The population of Silverwood visitors is more diverse than North Idaho’s, at least on this one weekend in July.

• Almost every family-cluster configuration known to humankind can be spotted in about five seconds.

• Flotillas of strollers and waiting lines outside women’s restrooms are the universal indicators of a successful all-ages attraction.

• Grandmothers who read every sign aloud will always be with us.

• And it quickly becomes clear that only one person in a crowd that must be in the thousands is wearing long pants.

Actually, the way Silverwood is laid out, you seldom have a sense of stumbling about in a sprawling 200-acre complex. There is a lot to see. But you have to follow several different paths and make your way around various landscaping features to take it all in.

Some visitors eventually do get tired and downshift into that zombie shuffle and thousand-mile stare. Wrangling toddlers or balky in-laws can do that to people.

Still, Silverwood doesn’t really overwhelm visitors with its considerable scale.

No doubt, the Boulder Beach water park, the train, the dozens of shops, live entertainment venues, snack shacks – huckleberry milkshakes, $3.99 – and medium-intensity carnival rides have their devoted fans.

And for teens, the presence of others their age is a crucial part of the appeal as they scurry about in perfume clouds, giggle fits and flip-flops going slap-slap-slap.

But what makes Silverwood unlike anything else around here? It’s not kettle corn and cotton candy. It’s not RV parking and souvenir hats.

Perhaps we could agree: It’s the thrill rides.

That, my friends, is where you will find the rapidly beating heart of summer. Well, artificial heart, maybe.

The signs for Coaster Alley lead to the Panic Plunge.

“Patty and them guys are going on it,” announced a wide-eyed girl in some sports team shirt.

Riders take seats on the outside of a ring fit around a 140-foot tower. That ring is hoisted up to near the top and then dropped.

It’s a big-gulp freefall at first. The shouts and shrieks sound absolutely involuntary.

That lasts about a second. Then, of course, there is a soft, cushioned landing.

“I’m not going on that,” said a woman in a “Sturgis Rally” T-shirt, to no one in particular.

Nonetheless, virtually all of the disembarking riders seem to be smiling. Survival must be a rush.

Or maybe in these digital, desensitized times, it’s a treat to feel something, anything.

At the other end of Coaster Alley looms the Aftershock. Maybe you have seen it from the road. It looks like a blue-and-green array of connected missile gantries or a place someone would be taken in handcuffs after special rendition.

Riders and their digestive tracks get hurled high, fast, upside down and backwards.

There’s a peaceful little courtyard-like area near the base. This is an excellent place to observe the Aftershock from a safe distance and make eye contact with other onlookers – eye contact that whispers, “No way.”

But who could resist a traditional roller coaster?

So there you are, waiting to board Tremors. Most of the others in line appear to range in age from 21 to 22.

Following emphatic advice, you hand your glasses to one of the kids operating the ride.

Belted in and semi-secured by a pull-down pad that partly fits over your lap, you try to recall the last time you had ridden a roller coaster.

Then the little conga-line of open cars is on its way, and soon your fellow riders are screaming loud enough to be heard over in the parking lot across the highway.

You can’t blame them, for surely something is seriously wrong. It’s quite obvious that the roller coaster cars have become unattached from the track and you are all plummeting at great speed toward your imminent demise.

You experience that disquieting sensation several times.

But before you can compose a headline capturing the certain carnage, the amusement ordeal is over.

You share giddy laughter and ride-analysis with a young Canadian couple in the car behind you.

“Man!”

“Yeah!”

Later, while strolling around Silverwood, you hear the screaming of roller coaster riders over and over. It’s as if it is the theme song of your day.

Funny how certain summer sounds can make you smile.