Today we arrived at Grona Lund in Stockholm, Sweden, which remains one of my top favorite parks in the world, and the park has allowed a few of us to do something VERY interesting... See that giant tower in the middle? That's Eclipse, the parks 400-foot Starflyer ride...we are going to climb it and crawl into that dome at the top!

As a fundraiser for Give Kids The World, 30 of our trip participants raised $6,134 as we auctioned off spots to climb the tower. That money went to our Team TPR riders participating in Coasting For Kids that benefits Give Kids The World. To learn more about the charity, please visit their website:

Yup, that dome is where groups of us will be standing later today!

The climb to the top was quite the process! It's starts by getting suited up in the safety harnesses that the maintenance department uses to check the ride every morning.

Yup, I am suited up and ready to go!

Now starts the initial climb up to the ride gondola.

In maintenance mode, the gondola sits about 30 feet off the ground, so it's a pretty long climb, straight up, to get on the platform.

Once we complete that climb, we all stand on the top of the ride vehicle. There isn't much room up here!

With us all hugging what little bars their are to hang on to, we start riding the gondola up in "elevator mode."

And that is pretty much what it looked like while we were riding up the tower!

You can see, there isn't much room to stand here! There's about a 10 inch platform that is between me and falling 400 feet to the ground!

And we now go UP! Really HIGH up!!!

Here's a look at the inside of the structure as we are going up.

We got some really amazing views of the park while riding the gondola up to the top!

Up we go...like a lazy susan of TPR riders attached around the ring of the ride vehicle!

The ride vehicle doesn't go all the way to the top, though. It goes about 375 feet in the air, and then you have to step off the gondola onto the ladder again and climb another 25 feet straight up!...nearly 400 feet off the ground! This was probably the most terrifying part of the entire experience! We are literally climbing through the ride structure with only the harness holding us on!

Once you climb the latter, you enter the machine room which has this hatch that brings you up to the very top of the dome.

Here we are! Checking out Stockholm from 400 feet in the air!

"Hey, you know...I'm just sitting on the side of a tower...400 feet of the ground...enjoying the view..." =)

This was probably the craziest thing we've ever done with TPR! But it was AWESOME!!!

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