Last week, we took the kids in the program — who have been really working hard on their social skills of late and making great progress — to Carowinds, a theme park on the North/South Carolina border.

It had been years since I’d been to an amusement park. And it certainly showed me how much I’ve aged — within about an hour, after having ridden one or two coasters with the kids, I was thinking, “Well, if we were to leave right now, I’d be perfectly content.”

And then one of the kids got the idea to go on the “Drop Zone Stunt Tower.” A tower with seats that pull you up to some relatively impressive height — at least it seems that way at the moment — and then drops you. Fairly simple.

The specs are not all that impressive:

• Tower Height:174 feet
• Maximum Height Reached by Transports: 160 feet
• Length of Freefall Before Braking: 100 feet
• Highest Speed: 56 M.P.H.
• Lift Speed: 16 feet/second

But the overall experience is — weightlessness for just a few moments.

And I must admit that I, another staff, and one of the kids (we split up for a while) rode it more times than we could later remember.

Imagine that — in my mid-thirties and still able to have fun in a park.

Still, I couldn’t help but think the unavoidable, the predictable: I can’t wait until we take L to such places…