Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH

We all have dreams, some big & some small, some irrational, some crazy, some unattainable, some within our reach.
Literally from the moment I met Derrick, I have known about his love of roller coasters. Within the first 5 minutes of our first conversation, he asked if I liked roller coasters & theme parks. Of course, I said yes! Who doesn’t? That was the first “green light” in his mind that I would be okay to date. Crazy? Maybe, but think about it this way: I’m sure you have a passion – maybe it’s sports or gardening or hiking or music or traveling – and in your search for a soul mate, if you found someone who didn’t at least like your passion, well, that relationship wouldn’t get very far, would it? So, if roller coasters are tough for you to grasp or wrap your head around, just pretend I’m talking about your passion.

I can’t even explain to you how much Derrick loves roller coasters. And it’s not just riding roller coasters, because let’s be honest, most of us love riding them! He’s obsessed with every aspect of them: their design, how they’re built, how much they cost, how long it takes, the mechanics, the trains, the inversions, the launch systems, the g-forces, and the statistics. Like some of us faithfully check Facebook or Yahoo News every morning, Derrick checks roller coaster news. He watches roller coaster YouTube videos every day. He designs his own rides (you can find his designs & YouTube channel here!). He has an Instagram feed where he posts daily facts, trivia, and top 5s every day. Seriously folks, this is his passion. And someday, I’m confident, it will become his primary source of income. We just haven’t figured out how yet.

So, what does one get for such a person’s 30th birthday? A trip to the Roller Coaster Capital of the World, of course! Last Monday, we went to Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH and had a blast riding and re-riding some of the tallest and fastest coasters in the world (even if they don’t currently hold those titles, so many of them did at one time or another!)

Of course, pair a roller coaster fanatic with a professional photographer and we simply couldn’t leave without taking one last loop around the park with my DSLR to get some awesome shots of each coaster! Below are some of my favorites! We walked away asking ourselves the question: how do we do this for a living? Photographing roller coasters? Literally – so much fun!