Godwyn

Would these be them? If so, those are the Twisted Twins cars that have been there for years.

Wow, way to tear things up for other people. It really annoys me when people do stuff like this. Do you carve your initials and stick gum all over your room? Then why would you do this on a coaster? Sorry for the rant. It's just that I have to deal with the stupidity of the public at work and I just hate it when I see it at a park.

So they changed the name from BoomeRANG to BoomerBANG?

If Dio (which I approve) is going to be listed, I must list iRon Maiden!

That haunted mini golf looked pretty cool. Will have to check that out when we go on our credit whoring trip up to Chicago. I've actually been inside of Safari Land years ago, but we didn't get the credit. That was before we became whores.

If we do, we do. But I'm going to look on the bright side. SDC is only a 3 more hour drive away!

Speaking of music, how 'bout those tunes in Thanksgiving!

Thanks for the report. I was wondering what kind of show they put on. We might have to check it out the next time we head in that direction.

^^It made a HUGE difference! I was there for Holiwood Nights last year and this year. Last year I think I maybe rode it 3 times during the 2 day event. This year I rode it about 5 times in a row at one point (right as it started to rain and ride just got insane with airtime ). It will be even better as soon as the last part gets re-tracked, as it was still a little rough.

I'll have to remember that for the next time we go there! It was so eerie seeing those clouds roll in over the mountains, and how fast they moved. We stopped at the gift shop on the way down, and while we were in there, a crack of thunder went on for about 45 seconds. The lady working in there said that she wouldn't want to be up on top of the mountain during this storm. Then Chris said "It's a good thing we are on our way down!". Then she proceeded to tell us how some guy got struck by lightning in the parking lot. That made us feel better.

Ok, time to finish this trip report up. On our site seeing day we were planning on going up to Clingman's Dome. After seeing it in Erik Johnson's trip report, I wanted to go see it for myself. Our friends were planning on going to The Forbidden Caverns and then hit up Gatlinburg. So we went to the cave with them and then split up from there. And later on, we ended up meeting with Enjen and her boyfriend to do some credit whoring. Sadly, I didn't take many pictures of that. The Forbidden Caverns The formation on the left looks like a bat hanging upside down with it's tongue sticking out. This part here looks like the surface of the moon. This was looking straight up. This is a river that runs through the cave. Replica of a moonshine still that used to be there. This looks like a dragon or a gargoyle. Heading down 50 stairs to take us over 600 feet underground. Another section of the river. You are able to drink this water out of the water fountain that is located in the gift shop of the cave. And here is our friend Libby drinking some of that cave water. Now it's time to head to the top of the mountain. Long way to go before we get there. After about 45 minutes of really twisty roads, we finally made it to the top. Almost. But we still had a half mile to walk going up this steep path. My gps shows that we are almost to the top. This picture doesn't do justice to just how steep this path is. Although it will be faster walking down the mountain! Almost there! We finally made it! What a view! That's us. Final altitude reading on the gps. Me "bee"ing artistic. Ok... that was bad. Our view from the parking lot... And less that a minute later, this is what that same view looked like. On the way back down the mountain, we stopped off at several places to take pictures. Bad thing is that it was raining so I couldn't get as close to the river as I wanted to without falling in. Woo Hoo! A little bit of credit whoring time! Sadly these were the only 2 pictures I took. We were too busy catching up with Jenn that I forgot to take pictures. I didn't even get a picture of all of us together. Well this pretty much concludes my trip report. Hope everyone enjoyed it. We sure enjoyed living it!

I like how everyone is looking up at the I-305 while I'm the only one walking away from it and into the crowd.

^I'm sure the parks won't have a problem with that.

^

I was nice just being able to sit out on the balcony, listen to the water and watch the ducks swim around in the river. Mountain Slidewinder was pretty fun. Not the normal log flume that is everywhere and I liked the racing aspect of it. I told Chris that we had to ride it this time since we missed out on it 2 years ago. We must have walked around for about 30 minutes trying to find it before we found out that it was closed for construction of Barnstormer.

I don't think he means a "roll down". He means a "roll" that is down in the valley.

It was the Creekstone Inn.

So after a couple of hours at Beech Bend we headed off on the rest of the road trip to our hotel in Pigeon Forge. Our hotel was located right on the Little Pigeon River. There were even a little rapids section which made a nice relaxing sound while sitting on our balcony. The hotel even had tubes that we could use. Here is Chris and our friend Libby floating down the river. It is time for Dollywood. We actually went on 2 different days, but I'm just going to put it all into one installment. So you know what that means, right? Yep, cinnamon bread! Oh, and Wild Eagle. And here it is! Oh, sorry, wrong eagle. Here's the right Wild Eagle we came here for! It really is a photogenic coaster. I think the guy on the right lost all control of his bottom lip. The rest of the park is really beautiful also. Pot head. KID ON A LEASH! Kind of scary seeing how far you go up on the sides. But its nice to see that the ride ops still smile while riding. The guy in the back. Looks like some happy riders. Of coarse we had to take the train. Yup, that's us on the train. Mmm... Thunderhead. My favorite coaster in the park. Although Mystery Mine is pretty good too. You can catch some pretty good facial expressions from here. Next installment -- From 650 feet underground to almost 6700 feet above sea level. And some credit whoring.

In 2010, my wife and I went on the TPR IntimidaTour and visited Dollywood. After Chris was talking to one of our friends, they decided that they wanted to make a road trip back there. So I figured since we were driving by, we should stop off at Beech Bend since we haven't been there since 2007 with the TPR Midwest trip. You can tell we aren't in central Illinois anymore. The road isn't lined with corn fields on both sides. Ah, the Wabash River. That means we aren't in Illinois anymore! So that means. Fireworks! While doing some Geocaching along the way to break up the drive, we seen what has to be the coolest Denny's made. Seen this in the parking lot of Beech Bend. There was hardly anyone here. Which was good cause we only had a couple of hours before we had to head out. Not sure if this had anything to do with the lack of crowds. Guess they figured they would go ahead and get wet if its going to rain. The main reason we were here. Kentucky Rumbler. Loved the ride in 2007 and was curious how well it has held up. Still an awesome ride. It rattles a little bit in the back but nothing major. After several rides on Rumbler, we hit up a couple of other rides. Last time I was there they had a pretty good drop tower. They replaced it with this one. I think this is one of the better ones I've been on. It's not the tallest, but you get great air. My butt was off the seat and shoulders hitting the restraint the whole way down. Apparently I'm the only one brave enough to go hands up. He's prepared, rain or shine. Off to the Wild Mouse. In 2007 we spun like crazy. Figured that wouldn't happen again watching everyone else hardly moving. We thought wrong. We both exited dizzy. This ride made me think of Kidtums. Went to the petting zoo there, which was nothing but goats that wanted to eat my shoes and shorts. This little guy was only 3 weeks old. After hitting up the Hauted House, Bumper Cars, and Antique Cars, we headed back to Rumbler for a few more rides before we headed out. Some first drop fun.

Here's some pictures of Zero-G at Beech Bend. They didn't have a sign for it but I got a close-up of the emblem on the ride.

The water framed him so well that it almost looks like it was photoshopped!

Cars Land looks great at night. Were a lot of those photos taken as the park was closing or was it just not busy that late?

Is it just me or does the new title change sound like Chad is hitting up strip clubs instead of theme parks? Love the pictures of Great America. I'm really hoping to make it back up there later this year.

So it just wasn't me. I haven't received any emails for the last two or three days, and then I got about 30 within a half hour! I was just thinking it was my e-mail again, since for some reason, my main address won't accept TPR emails anymore and I had to create another account.

1. Not sure. 2. Might not be a bad idea. You can get in there before it gets too busy. When it does get busy, you can then leave and go to the dry park and the lines aren't as bad. 3. I wouldn't say rough. Legend does have a lot of laterals. 4. If you get there early and are by the rope, I would hit up Raven first. It gets a line pretty quick being the first coaster you come across. If not it might not be a bad idea to hit up Voyage first as it is in the back of the park and work your way to the front. 5. Google maps is your friend. 6. There are lo.ckers at the front of the park and in the waterpark. You can rent your waterpark lo.cker at the rental station in the main park so you won't have to fight everyone else getting a lo.cker in the waterpark. 7. They have shelves at all the rides to put stuff in and they also have lo.ckers you can use free of charge at the station if you need to lock something up. I used them all the time to lock my camera up. 8. Have fun!