I stand, feet firmly planted on the ground, next to my two kids, a large, looping rollercoaster looming above our heads. Sawyer, 9, has zero interest in being thrust upside-down — no thank you, sir! Emmy, 8 and not yet tall enough to board, watches wistfully as my husband, Chris, hands me his baseball cap and makes his way alone to the line for the 97-degree drop of Fahrenheit, one of Hersheypark’s wildest rides

Like Emmy, I was the second of two children and much more the thrill seeker than my older brother, Dana. He was no scaredy-cat, but he wasn’t leaping in blindly either. Meanwhile, I boarded the jankiest of old wooden coasters, not an ounce of concern for my safety. If others had ridden before — and walked away OK — that was enough for me. As my height inched slowly up, so did the rides. No more wimpy-hilled kid coasters for me, I was ready to be thrown upside-down-and-around at great speeds and even greater heights.

Thankfully, the summer I turned 11, my parents planned a vacation that would scratch everyone’s itch, a road trip from our home in Massachusetts to Virginia. My father sat on our family-room sofa, knees splayed and a road atlas opened on the coffee table in front of him, sketching out our route on a yellow legal pad. This was the 1980s after all, before the days of Waze.

We took a rolling scenic route through the Blue Ridge Mountains on the way down. Dad’s always been interested in nature photography. In fact, a photo he shot graces the cover of the fall 2009 Chesapeake Magazine. And Mom? Colonial Williamsburg was top of her list. For Dana and me, 12 and 10 at the time, there was bicycling along the Virginia Beach boardwalk and — my thrill-loving heart pitter-pattered at the very thought of it — Busch Gardens, an amusement park where roller coasters, whirling, spinning rides and a white-water-rafting adventure awaited.

After waiting in line, Dad and I buckled into the Kelly-green seats of the school-bus-yellow Loch Ness Monster ride, which has been thrilling passengers for just as long as I’ve been taking my parents and brother on a wild ride, since 1978. I can’t even tell you what happened, it went so fast. All I know is, as soon as my feet hit the ground, I was shouting, “Again!” Dana joined me for my second ride.

While the Loch Ness was a hard pass for Mom, she put on a brave face for The Big Bad Wolf, a suspension-seat rollercoaster with zero loops. I opted for the very front car and Dana took the seat next to me. Mom sat behind us with another woman, probably mother to some other pair of kiddos. After the Nessie, the Wolf seemed rather tame. However, Mom howled the entire time, screaming as if an actual wolf was chasing her over the entire German-inspired village below. Dana and I were mortified.

But now, standing at Hersheypark with my own two kids, I understand. Something in me changed when I had kids and, at the very thought of a wild rollercoaster ride, my knees quake.

Windswept, Chris returns to where Sawyer, Emmy and I stand. I hand him back his hat to cover the mess his hair has become. “That,” he says with a dramatic pause, “was incredible!” His eyebrows inch up at me. “You want me to stay with the kids so you can have a turn?”

I look him in the eye as a spark of adventure passes briefly through me. I answer confidently, “Not in a million years.”