Invertalon

This one looks far better than a lot of the other smaller RMCs. Less of the abrupt jerky airtime and more fluid elements. I dig it.

Wrapped up night 1 of HHN last night. Really good time overall, was able to get through every house (and two we did twice) without express. Crowds were quite manageable for a HHN, surprisingly enough. The main houses peaked at 120-130 minute, but died down late and most others stuck between 30-45 most of the time between surges. As usual, wait times are typically inflated and end up 10-15 shorter than posted. Our max wait was Halloween at the very end of the night at 40 minutes (85 posted), but otherwise longest was 30-35 prior to that. Of course, Stay and Scream allowed us to get half the houses done in the first hour and a half, so that is always a must. Overall, my biggest complaint is having to hear the Weekend non-stop everywhere. Like seriously, it's horrible. The house is also OK at very best (same with Hollywood), but to play his music everywhere in the park is maximum level annoyance. Keep it in the specific house queue, sheesh. I must have heard Save Your Tears a solid dozen times or more. Anywayyyyyy. My three top houses were Descendants, Pier and Chupacabras. Bottom was Halloween and (first half) of Blumhouse. Rehashing of Halloween over and over does nothing for me and the house itself was very meh. The Black Phone portion of Blumhouse was really good, though. Should have been it's own full house. Zones are weak again this year. Not really much to say there. Love the food options, spent some time trying a few items and they were all quite good. Planning on more stuff tonight we didn't get to try yet. Back tonight for the final night and hoping crowds are like last night, or better!

Last night's NY Style Pizzas... Full 18" pies! Since trying them out proper in NYC, I began working on my NY style pies a bit more to mimic the appropriate textures/flavors. I ordered in the flour known to be mostly used (Trumps B&B flour), and I found an online company selling 50 lb bags at a fair price. It is a really great flour to work with! One was just three cheese (provolone, mozz and asiago) and the other banana pepper, olive and fresh fennel sausage. I was not originally planning on 18" (made the dough to make 2x 16"), but my new pizza screens arrived in and wanted to try them out. The dough worked out nicely into the full size needed, just on the thinner side, and I launched the screened pies directly onto the pizza steel in my oven at 550F (steel was reading 640F via IR thermometer). After a few minutes, removed the pizza from the screen and placed directly onto the steel to finish another few minutes. The texture was incredible. Super great crunch on the complete underside of the pie. A touch thin, as expected, but otherwise it was near perfect otherwise. The sauce was just crushed San Marzanos, sugar, oregano and a touch of garlic. Simple and delicious. We also did this one on Saturday... A proper Sicilian. Of course, had to buy a new pan for it (14x14" Lloyd) and did a 3-day sourdough fermented dough. Layers of provolone right on top of the dough, followed by a heavy dose of sauce (a bit too much, but we were in a saucy mood that day... haha) and of course the toppings. Next time I plan to get the good pepperoni and hand-cut them to make wonderful little thick pepperoni cups. But the bagged variants had to do this day! The crust was just phenomenal... Airy with a beautiful crunch on the bottom. It was next level!

Does Hollywood not sell express passes only on the website like Orlando? Am I missing something? It all looks like combo tickets only, with no option to just buy express for whatever night. We already have our tickets, so just wanted to look into what the express options were. We may look into that after 11pm express if we need it. Not sure it's worth (from what it appears) is $200+ for normal express passes per person... If we miss a house or two, so be it. But for the 11pm express option, can you buy those earlier in the night or do they go on sale at 11pm in the park?

For those who frequent USH often for HHN... We are taking our first trip out to HHN in Hollywood on Thursday Oct 27th and bought the early-entry type deal thing so we can be in the park at the start of the event. We have not bought express, and debate if we want/need to, so my question is... Even if the event should sell out ticket wise, do express passes often sell out as well? We have run into that in Orlando before where express was sold out, but to be honest we have only really got express 2 or 3 times since 2004 (going almost every year). We basically know the drill and get all the houses done in a single night most of the time with stay and scream and hustling around the park from the get-go, so it's really non-issue there for us. We have been to USH before, so no real concern about riding anything. We really are just there for HHN alone. In my mind I see USH being an 'easier' HHN event to tackle, but perhaps that is not the case. Thoughts/opinions? Right now, we are thinking on seeing how it is once there and buying express if we absolutely need it. We only have the single night, and going to SFMM the next day to conclude our short 2 day trip to LA before flying to MCO for HHN in Orlando.

We just got back from NYC for the first time ever (went for a concert at MSG!) but we had the entire first day we were there plus two half days to explore and well... Find and eat the best pizza the city has to offer! So we did a bunch of research and I made a wish list of spots (which was about 6 or 7 places, but we finished with 9!). And wow, NYC did not disappoint.. The pizza was incredible, as was the city as a whole. We had a BLAST and will absolutely will be back! As far as our favorite? That's really hard... I would just say the top 3 that stuck out in my head most... Joe's, Mama's Too and John's of Bleecker... Oh, and that pepperoni sicilian from Prince's... Yum. It is REALLY close though, they are all fantastic. I also had to get one $1 slice, just because, and you absolutely can tell it wasn't in the same league as the others... But I still liked it for what it was. Pictures are more fun than a bunch of text, so here is just a list of all of our stops with the pics to follow: 1.) Joe's 2.) Prince Street 3.) Di Fara 4.) Mama's Too 5.) John's of Bleecker Street 6.) 99c Fresh Pizza 7.) Ben's Pizza of SoHo 8.) Scarr's 9.) Pizza Suprema 10.) Joe's (again!)

Lightning Rod has entered the chat. (I know, more on the structure and whatnot than the launch system itself, but I couldn't resist...)

Yeah, not sure why I read it the way I did. Was thinking it was more "could launch in any direction", thinking 360 and not front or backwards. My mistake.

So sounds like Mack is doing the re-track with the Spinning trains like Time Traveler? Cool, I dig it if that's the case. EDIT: Nevermind, I see I misread what was going on. Oops!

Woo, should look nice. Not a huge fan of the orange/yellow color combo on the mouse, but otherwise it looks good. I'm sure the pitchforks will be out for this one, folks. WHERE IS MY 2ND RMC??

So here is our the latest NY-style attempt from last night. First up, the dough… This was just over a 5-day fermented dough, the longest I have done yet. The crisp/texture, workability and overall flavor was just spot on. I think aside from adjusting the yeast/ferment time as needed depending how long in advance I prep, I am perfectly happy with this dough for this style of pizza and don't plan changes. Sauce … For this one, I bumped up the oregano, sugar and cayenne to give it some robustness. Of course, fresh garlic too. A splash of red wine vinegar for acidity. I didn’t really take notes when I made up the sauce, so next time I will have to keep record so I can be consistent the next time I make it! Cheese blend on both was a heaping pinch of pecorino romano right over the sauce first, followed by a blend of mozzarella/provolone and small parts of munster and asiago for added sharpness. This has been my absolute favorite cheese blend to date and will be my go-to blend on these types of pizza. I’m a fan of sharper cheese flavors on pizza compared to just mozzarella for example (except on margherita’s!). Toppings on the one was bacon, olive and red pepper (can’t see the bacon as I placed it under the cheese). The second was just Italian sausage I made and rolled into little meatballs and par-baked before going on the pizzas. Cooked in the Ooni with an adjusted bake technique… Full pre-heat to a stone temp of 700-800F and then when the pizza was launched the flame was off. Let the dough set for about 2.5 minutes before kicking the flame back on low for another 2-3 minutes until the pizza was done. A bit slower so the bottom/crust could crisp up a bit more with the additional time on the stone. Came out perfect! The crust texture was just SO good... A light crispy shell on the outside, but delicate/soft chew. No soggy/flop going on in the main body of the pizza underneath. We both agree, this may have been some of the best pizzas made to date. Def top 5 material! The crust, cheese blend, toppings and overall flavors going on was just right. Happy we have leftovers to enjoy later this week! This coming weekend, we plan to make traditional margherita pizzas this time around with just the fresh mozz, basil and olive oil.

Pizza's from Sunday night. Overnight fermented dough, trying out a few different canned tomato options to see which we like best. This time, was Bianco Dinapoli with a touch of salt, fresh garlic, olive oil and fresh basil added at mashing. Cheese wise, the pepperoni featured a mix of Munster and Asiago cheese. The margherita was just low moisture mozzerella. The asiago/munster cheese combo was just incredible! But I am a fan of more sharp, robust cheese blends. Asiago is one of my favorites. Really great tomatoes, but I think I do prefer the Cento San Marzano's I usually use for the natural sweetness/balance of those. I have four other canned tomatoes to try I picked up over the coming weeks, curious to see if one really stands out over the rest! This weekend, we are going to make more NYC-style pizzas (thinner, changes to dough recipe, cheese selection, etc...).

Same here. I tell people who ask me about Disney that the parks themselves are beautiful, the food is great and they have some really solid/fun rides. But then I admit I simply won't go to the parks without comp tickets (and may decline those depending on our trip length) because we really don't enjoy spending the day at Disney parks. It's simply not worth the cost to have a hindered experience due to terrible reservation systems, the need for planning months in advance to eat at restaurants, crowds, limited worthwhile attractions at a single park, etc... The "experience" once within the park just doesn't do it for me. But I do appreciate what they are and why people love to visit. But at the end of the day, I'd pick other local options without question. Europa on the flipside took the best parts of Disney and 'fixed' all the bad parts. Once in the park, we could ride/experience everything offered for one... We enjoyed two different resort restaurants without reservations after the park closed for the day. The ride collection was great, the park theming was stellar and overall, it was just a far more fulfilling/magical park than any Disney visit.

So as big fans of Detroit-style pizza, it was time we make the trek to Detroit to try the original Pizzerias that kicked it off! We went to both Loui's and Buddy's (original location) on this day trip. Buddy's is really the OG of the style, creating back in the 1946. Loui's was started by a cook that worked at Buddy's who branched off to open their own pizzeria. Little know fact is that Detroit is really considered the "Pizza Capital" of the US, and actually boasts the most pizza places per capita, even over Chicago, NYC, etc... Who knew! Not to mention, was the origin of many popular chain pizza places (Little Cesears, Dominos, Jet's, Hungry Howies). Welcome to Michigan! Detroit is just shy of a 2.5 hour drive from us in Cleveland. First up, Loui's Pizza! Lots of historical articles and such all over the walls, cool vibe! The main dining room. It's empty because it literally opened just about 15 minutes before our arrival. People start flowing in shortly after. Our pizza! Pepperoni, green pepper and black olives. Tons of brick cheese goodness. This was seriously cheesy stuff! The crust was to die for, as expected, the best part of Detroit-style pizza! Sauce, although light, was really fresh and loaded with herbs. The beautiful edge! Now the Original... THE start of Detroit pizza! Walking in, some awesome murals and of course, a bunch of articles/front page and other write ups. Some history and what makes Detroit style pizza so special! One of the dining rooms (there is a bar/dining section at the bottom of the steps through the double doors there, and another third room off from that). Not too busy, which surprised me, but it was set to close in about an hour, so likely why! Our future?? Love the appreciation for the history of these pies! Our order... Two 4-piece Detroit pizzas... On the left, just old world pepperoni and on the right, a Mediterranean which featured a cheese blend, red onions, spinach, beets, feta cheese, fresh dill and tomato basil sauce. It was SO good. But the pepperoni is hard to beat for a 'classic' pizza. So good... The sauce was nice and bright in flavor/acidity. Not as herby as Loui's, nor is the pizza as cheesy. However, it's more balanced and overall, we both think this took with the win between them. However, if you like LOADS of cheese, Loui's would be the winner. Both have a fantastic crust texture, nice crispy bottom with a light/fluffy top. Then of course, the cheese coated/crispy edges are just pure heaven. Yum! The dill really shined on this pizza and beets were a great topping. The infamous mural! We can't wait to get back and try a few more of their fantastic pizzerias! Such as Cloverleaf and Supino, among others. Highly recommend if in the area to stop by and try these iconic places!

We spent two days at Europa in 2019 and we fell in love with it! Easily one of the best parks we have stepped foot into. Solid collection of rides, fantastic theming and the overall 'experience' of the place. We stayed at Hotel Krønasår just a few weeks after it opened and it was stunning. Even jumping around hotel to hotel bar hopping is a great time after hours. Also not a big fan of Disney parks, but Europa far exceeded the overall experience in comparison for me. It is a complete package all-around. Just stunning! I just love all the parks we visited in Germany/Netherlands (Holiday Park may have been the only ho-hum one, Expedition GeForce aside...). Just a whole different experience from those in the US, we can't wait to get back over to Europe to go visit more! Fantastic TR, look forward to the next parts!

Boo. Hopefully RMC does something a bit more unique this time around. Only so many variants of barrel roll I can take.

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.

Made a few neapoletin style pizzas today. Two with pepperoni and two traditional... Two of these are for coworkers tomorrow as a little surprise!

Completely agree on both Storm Chaser and Lightning Run... The small bunny hills mixed with the trains are just brutal for me. We rode LR once and I literally could not do it again, it was horrendous. I was able to manage a few more on Storm Chaser, but the ending sequence is what ruins the ride for me (much like the endings on most RMC's...). The trains are comfy/fine on RMC's until you hit any ejector airtime and any potential fun turns into terrible discomfort, if not pain for me. I don't like the sensation of my shins being snapped in two, I guess. Twisted Timbers and Steel Vengeance are two other perfect examples of this, where the front half of the rides are great, no issue... But then the back half just ruins it. After a single ride on Twisted Timbers I had visible bruising on my shins, it's crazy. If they designed the rides with a touch less intensity in the airtime department, they would be much better off for it.

Thats actually my Kamado Grill I use for my wood fired pizzas (among other things). It's a ceramic outdoor grill, either charcoal or hardwood lump for the fuel. That first picture is just looking down in while it's cooking through the flue.

Appreciate it! Time to add a few more to the collection... haha Our pies from yesterday... Did three total, two were traditional Margherita-style (with slight variance between them) and one was a classic pepperoni. Wood fired around 700-800F. Dough for all of them was a 3 day cold ferment Neapolitan dough (just yeast, water and salt). For the two Margherita's, the sauce was a simple rough mash of San Marzano tomatoes with a touch of salt and fresh garlic. The pepperoni featured a more 'classic' sauce I had leftover from last week, so it had fairly heavy oregano, garlic/onion, chili flake, some sugar and overall a bit more concentrated/rich due to the use of some tomato paste as well. So completely different from the San Marzano based sauce. Margherita #1 was just the sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil and a swirl of extra virgin olive oil. Margherita #2 was the same, but with the addition of Pecorino Romano to give a touch more Umami/richness. While both were stunning, #2 took the edge! But I love a nice sharper cheese accent, so I assumed I would at least. But man, simplicity is best here... Still easily our favorite pizza to make/eat. When the dough, sauce and cook method is just right... Can't get any better. The pepperoni was fantastic as well, a complete 180 from the previous two. Salty, zesty/herby. Just plain old pre-cut pepperoni from the store, so no 'cups' this time! I have a 25 LB bag of Italian 00 flour incoming tomorrow that will be utilizing for my Neapolitan style pizzas this summer, so I can't wait to try that out.

I primarily use my oven with a pizza steel most of the time, but I also use my kamado grill with lump charcoal outside with a pizza stone when doing 'wood fired' pizzas and want higher temps. My oven will go to 550F, but I can get my kamado up to 800F or so! So it depends on the pizza style and what we are after! Recently I even tried my propane grill, just to see the results with a pizza steel on the rack. It did OK, but the pizza steel gets too hot and burns the crust quickly (just like when I tried it in the kamado). But the next time I did it using my pizza stone (ceramic) and it worked out much better, but not as nice as the oven or kamado. But it is a nice third option if lazy to fire up the kamado or it's super hot/muggy out and don't want to run my oven at 550F for 1.5-2hrs inside the house (1hr preheat to get the stone nice and hot!). Not the best pics, but our most recent pizzas! Was actually trying to make "Chicago Tavern" style for the first time, but need to make some tweaks to how thin I roll the dough (touch thick here), but the texture and everything else was incredible! Dough was soft yet had a delicate crispy crunch on the bottom. Just needs to be a thinner. So will do another trial this week or coming weekend, maybe a par-bake of the crust itself to get it a touch more crackery. But one was simply italian sausage, onion and bell pepper. The other was (turkey) pepperoni and black olives, so no little pepperoni cups this time with the turkey variant, haha. For those 'cups', I buy a pepperoni log and cut my own pepperoni. The cups are actually caused by how the pepperoni is cased, actually. You can buy pepperoni already pre-cut that will do it as well, but cutting your own a touch thicker than those pre-cut options results in even better 'cups'! Also a few from the past few weeks: 1.) Sausage and red onion with fresh mozzarella. 2.) Cheese primarily with a pepperoni added on each slice. Red chili flakes. 3.) Gyro pizza - I seasoned raw sausage with greek/gyro seasonings and then we had red onions on there as well. Finished with fresh made tzatziki sauce and cilantro! Was madness how good this was! Next time, I want to make a proper gyro meat (beef/pork mix, made into a compressed 'log' and sliced). But this was a great trial!

Stopped at the park Friday evening (arrived 6pm), primarily to walk around the park and grab a ride on MF and Raptor... First visit since pre-COVID, actually, so it's been a minute! Park was busier than I would anticipate in the midways at least, but ride lines were not bad. Waited 30min for MF (2 train op with weird stagger from when unload train would advance into loading once train was at top of lift). Was running a bit slow, for sure. Cooler temps and winds did it no favor, but was running smoothly. Decided to try SV again, since I have not ridden it since media day and didn't exactly love it at the time, but as we arrived it stopped at the top of lift... Sooooo, figured it wasn't worth waiting around for given we had about an hour left until close. Headed back to up the front of the park and walked on front seat of Gatekeeper (also chugging along) and 2x front seat walk on Raptor to close out the quick stop... Still the best ride in the park for me, no question. After all these years, this ride still delivers the perfect experience. Love it! Park looked good, the new restaurant back by Maverick looks nice. Magnum was down due to wind, but otherwise everything was open at the end of the day until SV broke down. Hope to stop back again within a few weeks after work or for early entry, before peak season picks up. It was nice to be back in the park again after our hiatus a few years.

It will be RMC... And that sucks, IMO... Sorry, but I for one am good with the amount of RMC's we have already. People complained back when B&M built looping coasters that all had the same pattern (loop, dive loop, g-roll, etc....), so this is my turn to vent! haha. I can only take so many RMC barrel rolls and their attempt to snap my shin in two on every airtime hill. Wildcat is my version of others "Magnum" and "Beast" with nostalgia and appreciation... So I get why people would be excited to overhaul Wildcat, much like I would be if ANYTHING took the place of Magnum and maybe a huge overhaul by GCI on Beast, I'd be perfectly happy with... So I get it...! Hershey will lose a gem, that's for sure. But man, I would have been MUCH more happy if they invested the money for a complete overhaul/retracking than reprofile it to be another RMC... Maybe they will do something different this time around? Who knows. But I can bet it will be uncomfortable, that's for certain.

Thanks!! Appreciate the compliments. Cooking is one of my big hobbies/enjoyments (focus on BBQ and Pizza if you didn’t notice!). Some people question or don’t understand why we never go out to eat unless on vacation, but we just have so much more fun cooking up whatever we want at home. Usually tastes better, too! So here are the pies from last night… This time, dough utilizes a touch of dark rye flour. Overnight ferment, high hydration to give it a bit more of that ‘Neapolitan’ style texture. It was so delicate/soft, minimal chew and just was like a pillow. Heavenly! Will likely make this again, but with a touch less yeast and perhaps a 2-day ferment to see how it influences the flavor/texture. Tried some new tomatoes I found at the store as well. While I typically use the Cento San Marzano tomatoes as my go-to base, tried out Bianco Organic California Tomatoes (with some fresh extra virgin olive oil, garlic, salt and oregano/basil added). So delicious! Nice acidity and freshness, bright flavor. Big fan! Cheese mix was whole-milk mozzarella, asiago and monterey jack blend. One pizza had broccoli, olives and italian sausage (ground pork with salt, paprika, fennel, garlic, onion, black pepper, Italian seasoning and chili flakes added). The other was pepperoni and black olive. Home run on these two. We couldn’t pick the favorite.