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Knott's Berry Farm just held one of the most unique media previews ever for Knott's Scary Farm! 2022 is going to be an *awesome* year for Scary Farm, starting Sept. 22! TPR is ready to preview everything that Scary Farm has in store for this season! We enjoyed a pre-dinner reception featuring artwork from this year's Beyond the Fog art show, featuring artwork inspired by all generations of Halloween Haunt. Also enjoyed the "I Vant Your Blood", a syringe drink with vodka and Strawberry Lemonade. Yes please! We were then asked to find seats in the main dining space, for a legit Haunt banquet comprised of samples of a ton of the food and drinks that will be available throughout the park this year. "Kindly find your seats..." Here is what we sampled! Some of the photos were better at the preview table, so here they are! The Spooky Crabby Sushi Roll was on point! So was the Canine Candy Corn! Is "one of everything" too much? A look at some of the merchandise available this year. Haunt + Tiki = Yes, yes, yes! Take your pick! Which is your favorite maze represented? Oh hey, Snoopy! We can't wait for September 22, and seeing one of the new mazes this year: The Grimoire! Plan your visit: https://www.knotts.com/events/scary-farm/calendar

First time in Vermont? Lol I went to college in Northeastern VT (about another hour north of WRJ) and, as you saw, just about the entire state rolls in the sidewalks at 6pm or so every night. Maybe one out of every 5 exits on 91 has a 24 hour gas station with a bathroom, but other than that you're out of luck driving in VT at night (especially if you hit a large animal which happens too often). If I was travelling to school at night, I would actually take the 15-20 minute longer route from my house up 93 in NH instead. Canobie is largely ignored on this forum because it lacks in terms of coasters, but by small family park standards it is a fantastic place. It's a much much better experience than Lake Compounce IMO. Tons of good flats and generally has a great atmosphere, except it can get very crowded due to being the closest amusement park to Boston. I used to visit at least once a year but unfortunately haven't been in almost 10 years. They have an 80 foot height limit unfortunately so they'll never get much better in the coaster department, but maybe someday they'll get a good GCI or something to draw more folks north. Excalibur is a good coaster during the day, but amazing at night. Like...pitch black Beast style night rides. New England used to have two fantastic woodies with legendary night rides, but Lake Compounce decided they wanted to turn into a dump and stop taking care of Boulder Dash so...yeah. But if you ever get the chance to visit Funtown at night, it's worth it for Excalibur alone. Portland is an awesome eating and drinking town too. Oh...you missed a credit or two in Old Orchard Beach ME at Palace Playland. Not far from Funtown if you ever go back.

^ No worries, both hypers are running today smart guy.

RMC and GCI will reimagine whatever they get paid to reimagine.

Went to SFSL today. The positives: crowds were very light so nearly everything was a walk on. American Thunder was running great. And my tickets were free. The negatives: The Boss and Screamin Eagle both just had one train operations today; multiple rides were closed (Thunder River, Joker, Supergirl, Dragon's Wing, Tsunami Soaker, of course the normal Xcalibur and carousel, Boomerang and Fireball were also closed until mid afternoon); The Boss was very rough, not sure if it was the row, but it was almost the rougest coaster I have been on; the only landscaping I saw was overgrown weeds. The only ride my group re-rode was American Thunder. We were actually able to just stay on because the queue had nobody in it.

So after my long day trekking through most of the New England States, I arrived at what was easily the largest Best Western branded hotel I'd ever seen. 6 Stories tall with two restaurants, a bar, conference and event rooms, it played host to some sort of teenage hockey tournament as well as a Quinceanera party, so yeah I thought it wouldn't be all that quiet. Thankfully, I was adequately separated from all the crowds and was able to get a solid night's sleep. The next morning I was on the road for my second trip ever to... Six Flags New England, Agawam MA As pretty much everyone has been here multiple times, and my goal today was just to get the credits I missed on my 2017 trip I didn't take any photos worth posting, My rides here were: -Pandemonium, two-train wait. Plenty of spinning but the course made it better, much more so than a spinning mouse. Still, 6/10. -Gotham City Gauntlet, walk-on. Whatever, it's a mouse; no rating. -Catwoman (no-apostrophe-S) Whip, walk on for row 16. Same ride as Rudy's Rapid Transit at Santa's Village and Harley Blackbeard's Lost Crazy Treasure Train at SFGAdv; no rating. -Riddler (no-apostrophe-S) Revenge, 6 minutes for front row. It has the new vest restraints, which are nice, but still not quite as smooth as as Great Nor'Easter. 6/10. -Joker, 10 minute wait for back row. One and a half flips. I still don't really like these, but due to the limited flipping, 4/10. -The Great Escape, walk on for back row. One pop of air in the back row, but otherwise it's a kiddie coaster; no rating. -Flashback, 4 minutes for front row. Possibly the worst boomerang I'd ever been on to that point. 0/10. I also grabbed a front row ride on Superman (30 minute wait) and can safely say that his has dropped to the bottom of my Top 10 steel coasters, entirely due to the restraints. Wicked Cyclone was posting a 60 minute wait, and it looked it, and Thunderbolt's line was way too long, so I beat feet out of there and was on the road to my next credit-makeup stop... Lake Compounce, Bristol CT Wildcat was down for refurbishment during my 2017 trip, and I had skipped Zoomerang then too, so I had these two to make up. First up was Wildcat. A nice homage to the past... And the ride sure is photogenic.... Don't mind the half-a-brake (look close; it's missing one of the pads). New wood right where it matters most. (/s) The little black cat prop was the best part of this ride. So what did I think of this 1927 classic? After a 40 (yes, 40!) minute wait for the front row, for a while there (the lift through the second turn), I thought, "Hey, this might not be so bad." Then the pain began. The restraints just clamped super hard (Millennium Flyers did not help this coaster) and the train just jackhammered all over the place. To quote my notes video, "Absolutely horrible, burn it to the fucking ground. Horrible, horrible ride." Negative-Infinity/10 Oh, wait, there was actually an awesome part of this, but it happened in the queue. The ride op at the panel was on their game when it came to catching line cutters. So many people would use the old "joining up with the rest of their party" trick, and if the ride op didn't call them out while they were doing it and send them back, they waited until they lined up at a gate and told them "You're not riding, walk on through. If you sit down, I'm not dispatching the train and I'm calling security." It was absolutely beautiful. I also rode Zoomerang here, a 6 minute wait for row 5. It was slightly better than the Boomerang at SFNE, but not by much. 1/10. At least the new paint job looks nice. And that about did it for this park. I thought about taking a lap on Boulder Dash (it is in my Top 10 woodies, after all), but having read recent reports and not wanting to sully my memory of it, I skipped it. That about wraps up my two-day blitz through almost every park New England has to offer; I only skipped Quassy due to nothing new since my 2017 trip, and Edaville, since they never reopened post-COVID. If I had to do it again, I'd definitely budget more days into the trip, and spend a lot more time at Canobie Lake Park, which was easily the star of this trip despite only having one solid coaster. I do have a question if there's any Vermont natives on here: Why is there only one actual rest area on I-91, and why does it close at 7 PM? Seriously it's a three hour ride from the MA border to Canada and there is just that one place on the highway with a bathroom. Those stupid "parking areas" with no facilities do not count. But wait, there's more! After fighting my way through the Cross Bronx Expressway and GW Bridge back into NJ, I decided to try to hit two Jersey boardwalk parks where I missed credits during my 2021 quest to get them all. The first stop was in Keansburg, to be greeted by a still-closed Looping Star and a Sea Serpent kiddie coaster that I was told adults couldn't ride. At least I could take in their classic haunted walk-through, right? Sadly, no. When I walked by it, it was open, but after I bought tickets and went back, a chain was across the entrance and there was no staff in sight. So back in my car I got, and down to Seaside Heights I went, for Xola Loco, that had opened since my last trip. Unfortunately, the flipping hamster-wheel cars line was about 10 times the length of the spinning cars line, so I just rode in a spinner after a one train wait, but hey, it's a credit. I also tried unsuccessfully for a ride on their indoor scrambler, Centrifuge, but was denied - No Single Riders, for some stupid reason. I grabbed a slice of Three Brothers Pizza, and made my way back home to Delaware. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed reading. This about gets me caught up on TRs from this summer...my next trips won't be until the Haunt events start at the CF Parks in a few weeks. Take care!

The next stop on my agenda for Saturday was.... Story Land, Intervale NH This is another family-focused park, with not too much for adult thrill seekers (besides Roar-O-Saurus). Thankfully, this place was included on my Palace Entertainment Platinum Pass, but I did find a lot of the kids stuff to be super cute. On with the report! First, the very bare-bones entrance plaza... ...and some sorely missed corporate sponsorship. So the first thing you come across here (if you go to the right, anyway), is life-size recreations of all of your favorite fairy tales. Here in the "kingdom" themed area, you have a few more classic examples... Including a pumpkin coach ride to... ...Cinderella's castle, complete with meet-n'-greets and photo ops. They also had this cool "assisted dress up" where staff would help your kid become a princess, knight, or whatever. There was a very small pirate themed area.... ...with a riverboat ride... ...and climbing structure (identical to one that used to be at an elementary school near my parent's house in Central NJ)... ...and a pretend jail. There was a "tales from around the world" section. This was apparently some sort of dark ride or walk through experience, but was closed. And finally, we come across the first coaster...Polar Coaster. Sadly not air conditioned on this very hot day. Anyway, this is a Hopkins/Morgan family coaster. About a 20 minute wait for the back row. Some decent forces throughout, especially on the final helix...kinda surprising for an obvious kiddie coaster. Some of the rest of the park.... ...including a splash battle... ...and their own version of a flying shoe ride. They even have a ball pit, sort of! Finally, it was time for the crown jewel of this park (or was it?), Roar-O-Saurus. It definitely is photogenic. 28 minute wait for the back row. It had a couple of nice pops of air, but it suffers from the same problem that Mine Blower does - on any kind of a turn, it jackhammers and shuffles around like its the trains job, slamming you every which way. Not fun. 3/10. Rounding out this park, here are some of the final pictures. And I'll close this par of the report with a truth-telling bag seen in the gift shop, featuring an insightful quote from a true legend.

SF is done spending huge amounts of money for a while. I think for many years a lot of parks in the chain have been lucky for getting new major rides or roller coasters. The economy these days does not allow for so many new rides I think. And most SF parks already have a lot of attractions, but yesI agree those need upgrades and proper maintenance. The amusement industrie in general may be reaching a plateau IMO. With SF not purchasing a lot of new attractions, CF could eventually follow that trend as well. I am not saying the new CEO is completely doing everything right but he is trying hard to make the company money, and that is what counts for any business.