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Took my teen daughter to our local family entertainment center, Sonny's Place (Somers, CT). I was surprised that their carousel has some historical info setup in the corner courtesy of the New England Carousel Museum. Equally surprised that they are keeping up with maintaining this 1925 beauty! It has zero missing lights (it is indoors, of course), the paint is nearly all perfect with the exception of the bench which is in the process of being repaired, and it has a working (but electrically powered) Wurlitzer!! No piped in music here! Enjoy the pics. I was inspired by Bert riding carousels around the world. ^ The museum itself is near Lake Compounce. Sonny's Place is on the road from my house to SFNE. ^Cool little display of the actual scroll for the band organ. ^Anatomy of a pole dancer ^Nice little corner display. Can't believe no one messes with it! ^Carousel sits in a very nice specially constructed pavilion. ^Horsies ^A holdover control lever from yore ^Music

The Erik and Smisty reports are always the highlight of my day.

American Dad review: My wife, three-year-old daughter, and I went to the park two days last week. Eve is just over 37", and SDC was perfect for her. It was hot as hell, but we didn't mind. The park has a ton of shade. Emily and I had been to the park multiple times prior to this. Eve came with us last year, but was too small to ride anything outside of the rides for very small children. She's still too little to tackle those hills and we didn't want to bring our stroller from home. It takes up a shit ton of space in our Forester. We rented one for around $20.00 at the park. It was fine. Fireman's landing is great. Mostly, because Emily and I could drink Nitro Coffee from the nearby Starbucks while sitting in the shade, while Eve was entertained by the splash pad. She was tall enough for several rides in that area. All of the kids loved the Dalmatian ride and the swings. The ride operators were enthusiastic. We never had a chance to mess around in the firehouse ball play area. Be prepared, the balloon spinning ride nearby is no joke when riding backwards. I wanted to puke. I'm now being subjected to all of the spinning rides I've been avoiding over the years. It's worth it, but damn. I think I am starting to build up a tolerance again, thank God. Sometimes Emily and I take turns, which helps a lot. Flooded mine was great. The guns didn't work for shit, but Eve wanted to just look at everything, anyway. The train was good. She called one of the robbers "Trash," just like I told her to. It was appropriate given the circumstances, so I had to take advantage of it. I also made sure to ask my wife if the people who did a barrel roll had to pay extra. It was not appropriate given the circumstances, but I hope at least a few people heard me. Pilgrim's Plunge scared the hell out of Eve, but she said she liked it. I don't think she wanted to ride it, but we did it anyway. This might offend people, but it clearly worked with me. As per usual, "I liked it, but it was scary." She was proud of herself for being brave, but she didn't want to ride it again. Still a win. I told her we'd never have to ride it again if she didn't want to. It's like trying food. You don't have to eat it again, but I want you to at least try it. However, that did NOT work with the kiddie roller coaster in the Grand Exposition area. She had a bad taste in her mouth from Howler at HW, which was her first roller coaster ever. It was brutally rough, and I was hoping it was isolated to that ride. Now, I officially hate these roller skaters. It beat the shit out of us, and I'm afraid Eve will never want to ride a roller coaster again. Because of this, on day two we let her ride whatever the hell she wanted to with zero pressure to ride anything she didn't want to. After she got the shit beat out of her on day one by the roller skater, I was surprised on day two when she decided to ride the elephant flying/spinning thing ride and the spinning pirate ships, which hauled ass. Unfortunately, we had to take turns and ride those multiple times. She wouldn't say a word on the pirate ship ride, which was by far the fastest thing she's ever been on, but as soon as we were done she wanted to ride again. We rode the splash battle and got totally screwed. No one sat behind us, which left our flank completely vulnerable. This park has an almost complete lack of shitty people, so no one sprayed Eve and everyone pretty much concentrated on me. As much as it made the next hour a miserable sopping wet shit show, I really appreciated it. One dad even made sure to tell his two little boys, "Don't spray the girl!" We did a lot of re-rides on the spinning crap over our two days. We closed out our time at the park in the Grand Exposition area, while crunched for time due to dinner reservations. We knew we were screwed when she saw the hopping frog ride, or whatever it was. We thought the other rides were closed, until the butterfly/caterpillar ride started going, which CRUSHED my legs. I'm a fit guy, but I have no idea how I got in that thing. I was staring at my watch and thought we were all done and ready to run for the exit when the God damned lady bug spinning ride started making loud beeps and whistling sounds. There was no escape, and Eve really wanted to ride it. After that, we had to double-time it while I carried her on our way to the car in order to make our dinner reservation. Both days Eve was passed out before we left the parking lot, leaving me carrying her into the restaurants with her sleeping on my shoulder at first. I rode Wildfire and Outlaw Run once during our visit. The lines were non-existent, so I went for it. Both were awesome. Outlaw run remains one of my favorite wooden coasters, and my favorite RMC. I didn't care to ride more coasters, as it would have taken time away from my family. Honestly, at this point it isn't about us at all anymore, and it's way more fun just to let Eve experience new things. We still try to eat healthy(er) during the day at parks. You can't find anything that great for you, but you can at least do better than chicken strips/burgers/pizza/etc. We had wraps at Buckshots day one. (wraps love pretending to be health food) Day two we ate at the BBQ place, which was decent. (meat/vegetables) We were in the area five days, so we also did the Dixie Stampede. I was bored out of my mind, but the kid was mesmerized, which is all that matters. We got the VIP seats in the front and my lap was numb by the time we left. Try eating food with your fingers with a kid propped up on your lap. At least we were able to eat 'kind of' healthy. We also did a Top of the Rock attraction where you could ride golf carts on a path through the woods. It went through several caves and down steep kills. There were also a few points near the waterfalls, where a few inches of water flowed over the path. Of course we went full throttle through it. The carts had a large mounted tablet on the dashboard. It had integrated GPS which told you where you were on the path and what was coming next. F*** the guy who decided having bear sounds in the first tunnel would be a good idea. We were frightfully asked the remainder of the time, "Is there a bear here?" I had to repeat countless time, "Eve, there's no bear here." The best part was when a bar menu popped up on the screen. Along the path you pulled up a bar in a cave and could buy a drink for the rest of the ride. After that, I let Eve control the accelerator. 10/10 would recommend the golf cart tour. It lasted about an hour. We stayed at a Hyatt resort in the past. This time they decided summer would be a good time to renovate their splash pad and pool area, so we stayed at Stormy Point. It's about ten minutes from SDC. It consists of mostly two bedroom cottages, and everything is themed to Nantucket. Ours was two-stories with an open living room area, full kitchen, shaded porch, etc. It had a massive pool/splash pad area with a pretty big water slide. It was too big for Eve, but luckily she only made me go down it twice. As a result, I also made her ask Emily to go down it, as well. The place also had a full bar and restaurant pool-side, with wait staff. We spent two days by the pool. We took Eve to the strip to ride in the go-karts on the last night. You can tell the shitty crowd rolls in at night, so I wish we'd gone during the day. It was fun for her. Emily did some research on local places to eat, instead of tourist traps. Here's what we ended up with: Downing Street Pour House, 20 minutes away in Hollister. It had some traditional English (I think) food, and other common bar foods. I got a pastrami platter, with cabbage and potatoes. I wanted to try something different, and it paid off huge. Little Hacienda: This was kind of a gourmet Mexican restaurant. The atmosphere was nice and the food was as good as I can remember it being in the southwest. I got a margarita flight. The guacamole was fresh and outstanding. The place wasn't your typical copy/paste quick serve Mexican restaurant that every town has. We did this place twice. Don't go in sweaty park clothes. We made that mistake the first night. It's not an upscale restaurant, but it is on the nicer side compared to a typical place on the strip. Mr. Gilberti's Place: I had no idea what this place is doing in the middle of the sticks in Hollister, Missouri. It's traditional Italian food with true authentic Chicago style pizza being the main focus. The Chicago style pan pizza was incredible. It's out of the way, but a must visit. We did it last year, and it was just as good. Call ahead, because it's a small place and it gets packed. It has the old style red/white striped table cloth dive atmosphere. We ended up leaving with several stuffed animals, because Dad buys her way too much crap. Next year we're doing Dollywood, as long as she's 39" for the family coasters. A quick trip to Great America is coming up in a couple weeks. I'm hoping Whizzer and Little Dipper will build some faith in roller coasters for Eve, if she will even get on them after the f***ing trash roller skaters. Cheers.

I don't have much of a trip report in terms of rides as Dollywood was absolutely slammed! Big Bear is a lot of fun and will only get better as the landscaping grows in around it. Caught an absolutely rare day with Lightning Rod where is opened 30 minutes late and I never saw it go down in the app. That is one hell of a coaster. The park is beautiful and have some of the friendliest employees I have come across.

Well, it did appear to run pretty consistently for at least the first two or three hours today. They were even running two trains, too! But again, its been closed since around 1 today. Maybe the closures are temperature-related? It did get into the mid 80s yesterday and today and that little set of LIMs at the base of the lift is always steaming something fierce. I was very happy to get my two laps on it when I first arrived to the park in the morning today. I'll save my full review for my TR, but in short: This is not the best ride in this park, in my opinion, and where it falls in the ranking will depend entirely on where you're seated. If you're in/towards the front, it'll be #2. If in the back, it's closer to #4. Not even the best RMC that I rode this week. If you don't get on it, you're not missing anything special aside from the credit. Temper your expectations.