Flying with Frankie

In 1994, five-year-old Frankie Gobel begged his father to ride the wooden roller coaster, Rolling Thunder, just once. That one ride was enough to hook the pair on the exhilaration and excitement of riding roller coasters. In this memoir, author Charles F. Gobel describes the pair’s fifteen-year adventure of traveling to amusement parks around the United States to experience the thrill of the ride.

From their inaugural season, Charles and Frankie traveled by car, plane, and sleeper train to ride coasters of all sizes and heart-thumping capabilities. Flying with Frankie narrates their journey as the duo spend more than 300 days in forty different amusement parks, conquering 150 diverse thrill rides and thousands of roller coasters. This travelogue details the adventures and describes the wide variety of coaster rides they experienced. Just as important as the rides, however, are the heartfelt memories created through all of their adventures and the steadfast bond that developed between the two as they followed the quest to take that one perfect ride.