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Agreed it's pretty short but for the location and the park, reasonable. For those wondering what it looks like from in town here you go.

Appears to have been closed the last couple of days. https://queue-times.com/parks/42/rides/3475

Stop using logic.

So excited for this and Parc Asterix's new Intamin. I feel like we're in another golden age of coasters at the moment with so many manufacturers at the absolute top of their game.

I think the problem is you care too much about something so insignificant you're letting it affect your enjoyment of the ride. First world problems indeed.

I'm all for the refresh, let's get that out of the way. The name, though, is bad and boring. Tiana's Creole Catastrophe Tiana's Cajun Chaos Frogger In The Bayou Jazz RazMatazz Splishy Splashy Jazzy Snazzy All of these are better options. Tiana's Bayou Adventure is snore-inducing.

It's not 4th of July without... Pizza?! So last week we picked up a new toy for making pizza... An Ooni Koda 16, an outdoor oven! So instead of using our normal oven which is limited to about 550F (or a bit hotter at the pizza steel utilizing broil) and requires 1hr preheat or so before cooking, or the outdoor Kamado Grill which I can get up to about 700-800F at the expense of a bit of fuel (charcoal/wood lump) and a 1hr preheat/prep as well... This Ooni runs propane and can get to 900F+ in about 25-30 minutes and be ready to go. A big perk is when its hot outside and you are not warming the inside of the house for 1.5hrs with the oven during preheat and cool down! So this means for Neapolitan style pizzas at this high of heat, they are done in about 60-90 seconds! For this style in particular, you ideally need that intense heat and very hot stone to cook the dough just right. A touch of very light char, a super delicate poofy/airy crust and the toppings don't dry out. It's amazing! I had really good results with my normal oven with this style, using a pizza steel on the very top rack, preheating a long time and using broil to get a bit more heat into it... But the Ooni just does it quicker/better/faster. As they say, right tool for the job! Much like I won't be using the Ooni when doing Chicago deep dish, Detroit style or other pan pizzas. Or, if I want more intense smoke/wood flavor, that will still be on the Kamado. Used it a few times already and LOVE it! Great tool to have for all our pizza adventures... Without further ado, our pizzas from yesterday included a classic Margherita with fresh basil and buffalo mozzarella (can't go wrong!) and then a bacon, pickle and buttermilk ranch pizza with mozzarella and provolone. The bacon/pickle/ranch pizza was PHENOMENAL! One of the best specialty pizzas we have done, to be honest! Can't wait to do it again.

Somehow today was my first time ever visiting Funtown. I feel like I've been reading about Excalibur for 20 years and kept telling myself I would drive up but just haven't ended up making the trip until today. Due to poor staffing, the park is only open until 6 for all but three "fireworks days" this summer, today being one of the three. I knew I wanted night rides on Excalibur, so I decided to brave what I knew would be a very busy day (especially with gorgeous weather) in order to guarantee myself night rides. Arrived around 5:30 and decided to head right over to Excalibur and that's when I learned the layout of this place is really damn messed up. Despite parking right next to it and the entrance not being far away, you have to basically walk around the perimeter of the park to the very end to get to it. I was reminded of Dinky Park on RCT when you have to start building paths over rides because you literally have to walk through a French Fry restaurant, over the Antique Cars, and through the Log Flume entrance to get back to Excalibur. After finally getting to the thing we were greeted with 3 lines, one for the back, one for all of the middle, and one for the front. All three were about even and we figured that meant the front and back lines would be stupid long, so we ended up dead center in the train. The operations on this ride are painfully slow (minimum 4 minutes on each load) with one train. Then some dipsh*t threw a basketball onto the tracks which took even more time (there were a LOT of knuckleheads in this park tonight) but finally we got on and my first impression from the middle was that it was decently smooth with some floater air moments and good laterals, including a whiplashing second turn which caught me off guard. I've seen people compare it to Legend and I have to agree, it's just much more out in the woods obviously. Got the flume credit next. This is one of the few rides in this park with a somewhat normal capacity, so despite the queue being almost full I was on in 10 minutes or so. This remained me of Canobie's flume but only 1 hill. Lots of fast low to the ground action. Very minor splashdown but there were 6 water cannons that were getting a LOT of use and there was no escaping getting drenched by those. Overall a thumbs up for the flume. Went to get the other credit in this park, the Wild Mouse. Standard Maurer-Sohne layout, only this one runs THREE cars on the whole damn track. So yeah, the line crawls but after 15 minutes we enjoyed the standard mousy affair. After a quick dinner at the chicken place next to the Mouse, I got in the full queue for the Astrodome. It was about a 3 cycle wait. Not bad, right? Well, when they're running THIRTEEN MINUTE load times, it's bad. I know most of the ops are kind of new and all, but god damn. You go into a room where they go over this long schpiel (....for a Scrambler) then you finally get on the thing and after they check your bar 3 times, it finally starts. Can't complain about the music choice (Fire on High by ELO) and the bizarre projections were interesting, but this is the second slowest Scrambler I've ever ridden (the SFNE edition runs in Grandma mode, I swear) and the building doesn't really get that dark. I remember liking PsychoDrome at Canobie a lot better. When it's over, they make everyone stand in a group before leading you through the exit (which is like 10 feet away) leaving you wondering where the last 45 minutes of your life went. Went up front to hit Dragon's Descent, an S&S turbo drop. 20 minute wait but thankfully this thing had way more normal load times than the rest of the park. It was 9:00 by then so headed back to Excalibur to finish with some night rides. The fireworks started at 9:30 so on my first ride they were going off to our,right while going up the lift. Rode in the front row of the back car which provided some great air on the first couple drops. This thing has Beast-style total darkness on most of the layout and the disorienting nature of the second half is really awesome at night. Had time for one more ride so rode in the second row and the first couple turnaround hills absolutely launch you to the stratosphere. Then you get a couple more ejector air moments and strong laterals all in total darkness. Just a damn good coaster and glad I finally got here to ride it. If only they could do something about the ~200 rider per hour throughput. Park was closed after that so headed out to the clusterf*ck of a parking lot which took 45 minutes to get out of. This place is worth visiting just for Excalibur alone. But the operations can be mind numbingly bad in some aspects and it was only made worse by a big holiday crowd. Hopefully they can kind of get that under control a bit. Canobie is a vastly better park but Excalibur blows away anything in that park. But if you're ever in northern NE, hit both in the same day!

James Caan died last night at 82.