Americans -- my family among them -- love amusement parks.

Our family and friends drove 10 hours one way -- and shelled out tons of money for gas -- just to spend the Memorial Day weekend riding roller coasters on the shore of Lake Erie in Ohio.

The Cedar Point amusement park is home to 17 roller coasters. There are actually 18 if you count the dual coasters on one of the rides as my younger daughter, Bailey, does.

And, contrary to a recent Associated Press story, the latest roller coaster at the amusement park is up and running. We were among those who braved long lines to ride "The Maverick" coaster during its inaugural weekend.

The first 3,000 riders each of the first three days of operation received "Maverick" T-shirts. Our whole vacationing group received T-shirts.

It's amazing how the opportunity to get a free T-shirt motivates us.

It rained our first day in the park. Cedar Point made a killing selling blue plastic ponchos to the park's visitors. Even with the ponchos, we were pretty well waterlogged by the end of the first day.

But the wet weather couldn't dampen our spirits.

Several of our party road on the Top-Thrill Dragster roller coaster over the weekend. I wasn't one of them. Maybe next year. If only I can get over that little problem called gravity.

My wife, Joni, rode on it. So did Bailey and our older daughter, Becca.

The coaster shoots its passengers down a track at 120 mph and then vertically up about 400 feet before racing down the other side of the giant horseshoe-shaped track, and all of this in 17 seconds.

There's even a viewing stand where friends and family can watch their loved ones being shot skyward and wonder if they'll return to Earth.

Joni says she had a great view of the park from the high point of the ride, however briefly. It might be a Kodak moment, except you probably couldn't hold onto a camera.

Riders are required to store loose items in lockers before boarding the ride. Even then, people lose hats and wallets to the power of gravity.

The IRS would love to have such a device to recover back taxes.

It's amazing what Americans will do to get their adrenaline going.

In UFO-crazed Roswell, N.M., city officials are seeking to boost tourism with the possible creation of a UFO-themed amusement park, complete with an indoor roller coaster that would take passengers on a simulated alien abduction.

"Nobody will be harmed and everybody will be returned, hopefully, in the same shape," concept designer Bryan Temmer told the Associated Press recently.

The park, dubbed Alien Apex Resort, could open as early as 2010. City officials say the park will address the complaint from tourists that there's not enough to do in the town of 50,000 people.

Unlike the horrors depicted by Hollywood, it's nice to know that aliens can be good for economic development, provided that they come from other planets.

Illegal aliens from our own planet clearly are unwelcome, politicians will tell you. No one in Congress suggests we start an amusement park with an illegal-alien theme. But perhaps we should.

After all, Americans seem to come together when there are roller coasters to ride. When you're spinning and rolling and plummeting down a metal track and your stomach is churning, you tend to find a lot in common with your fellow man.

In that context, a simulated alien abduction might be just the thing to spur economic development in Roswell.

If it succeeds there, economic development officials around the nation will be seeking their own alien encounters.

Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.