Rastuso

Coastermania – June 5th and 6th, 2009 My mom left for Detroit and we got ready to go. First stop today was the Root Beer Stand in Sharonville. They make their own Root Beer and Orange drink. The Root Beer is awesome, and the orange is pretty good too, although very sweet. The burgers are decent. This is a great roadside stop. The place is full of hats hanging from the ceiling. It was Friday around noon and the place was packed. We make the long, uneventful trek to Sandusky and arrive at the Hampton Inn to find out that it is also bike week. It didn’t take long for the sound of a revving motor cycle to get really old. We ate and my son and I headed off to the Point. This was his first trip ever. My mom said Cedar Point was my first amusement park when I was an infant. We visited quite often as I grew up, and I have fond memories of the Pirate ride, the San Francisco Fire ride, and the Funhouse. It’s sad that all three are gone. I also have a memory of one of the log rides being themed to the Nestea Plunge and running the logs backwards, although I haven’t seen photographic evidence of this yet. We arrive at a pretty decently empty parking lot, get our Coastermania lanyards, and head on in. We choose to ride the skyride to start out. My son looks at Raptor and decides to pass, which is a bummer. But he does agree to go to Millennium Force to start out. I love MilF, but my last visit it was down. When it had its issues a week ago, I was quite upset, thinking I’d miss it again. Luckily, it was running well. The wait was only into the first cattle area and went by fast. We get in around the middle to see how my son takes it. The ride is a bit more rattly then I remember, but still awesome. Massive speed throughout with a perfect drop and some good airtime hills. Still one of the best anywhere. My son is a bit shocked, but really likes it. I see the inner thrill rider coming out of him. We head on back the Frontier Trail towards Maverick. The line is advertised as 1.25 hours, so we skip it for now. We hit Mean Streak instead for the credit for my son. This thing is running pretty rough and isn’t much fun. I used to sort of enjoy the ride, but not today. My son is not impressed. We then hit the Mine Train for a super jerky ride, again not really impressing my son. He sees a swing and runs over for a quick spin. As I wait, 4 little kids are running in circles on some benches. After one of them falls and gets hurt, a parent finally decides they should stop. We continue on to Gemini. I have a picture of me, my brother, and my dad waiting in line for this in I believe opening year in 1979 when I was my son’s age. We reminisce a bit, and talk about how we miss my dad, and how we’d never wait 2 hours for this ride now. But hey, it was the biggest in the world back then. Today, it’s a walk-on with only one side running. How the mighty have fallen. The girl behind us thinks she’s cute by screaming on the hills. I turn around and scream on one of the turnarounds. My son says “good one, dad”, and she is stunned. I absolutely hate these bitches that do this shit, and I always love the looks on their faces when I scream right at them. She screamed a bit once more, but was fairly quite for the rest of the ride. We note that the Muffleheads are invading, horror movie style. You can see huge swarms, including one near the top of Gemini’s lift. They look as if they are spewing out of the trees in little tornados. We head to Magnum, and the station roof is covered with them. We arrive as they are cleaning puke off the ride. Someone apparently ate too many muffleheads. My son was a bit scared by the very small tunnels on the ride, and is unimpressed with the triangle hills on the return run. Magnum definitely can’t compete with newer rides. I remember riding it during its opening year about 20 times when Coastermania was just Magnum-mania. I sure couldn’t do that now. We go check out the Dragster line and see it is quite short, at the base of the ramp. The crowds are definitely small. It’s only about 70 degrees out which may have kept some folks away, but I’m enjoying the weather, since it’s in the mid 90s in Houston. My son says he’s not going to ride it. I try my best to convince him, but he heads down the station stairs as I get strapped in. I love this ride. It’s pure adrenaline. I’ve never ridden at night and like the few seconds at the top, looking out on the park in eerie quietness. My son is still a bit spooked from Magnum, so we head out. There was Maverick ERT tonight, but I decide I’ll try and get it during Joe Cool time tomorrow. I find out later this was a very good choice since the ERT had huge lines since the night ERT schedules really didn’t make much sense, mostly containing second tier rides. I wake up Saturday, really dragging ass. I finally get to the park around 8, and figure I’ve missed MilF ERT, so I head to Dragster which has about the same wait as last night, about 20 minutes. After the 120 mph wakeup, I see that MilF is still running trains, so I ask a guy in a tie. He says it’s running, which makes sense, since it will be running for Joe Cool in an hour anyway. I ask about Marverick, but he says that is hotel ERT, and we’re supposed to take a break then. I wonder if this will be enforced, or if it is just an attempt at a Jedi Mind Trick. I go over to MilF where there is only a station wait. After the first ride, I see they are letting folks go right back into the station. Woohoo! I get 3 quick MilF rides, and feel a bit woozie from the g’s. It’s almost 9 anyway, so I head to Maverick. The Jedi Mind Trick didn’t work, and I head into the queue with tons of other Coastermania folks. I’d be pissed if I was a hotel guest. By the time I was to the station, the whole inside queue was filled, and the line was to the entrance, which is probably 1.5 hours. I get in a ride that I really didn’t know much about. I’ve never really studied the layout. The first drop was a bit crazy, really not very fun. The first half is pretty smooth, despite the crazy loops and turns. The hidden launch is fun, but then things go a bit awry. Right after the launch, they slow you down. WTF??? I’d guess this wasn’t the plan originally. I also think this is around where they removed loop was. There is a really bad neck punch before you go through the rocks. After that, the rest is pretty good. Overall, a unique fun ride that would be awesome if that neck punch as smoothed out. A bit of an odd ride overall. It takes up a huge piece of land, but does seem quite popular since it’s line was longer than Dragster and Milf all the time. I decide to head back to the hotel, since I fear the worst for Saturday at Cedar Point. We go to Goofy Golf to check it out. I recall there being a few other go kart places a few years ago, but they all seem to be gone now. Only Goofy Golf remains, complete with it’s totally 80s main building that was probably one hell of an arcade in its heydey. Now it’s a sad redemption room. The golf courses don’t look that great. It’s sad that so few places still have classic 80s miniature golf courses full of weird holes with tons of large obstructions and stuff. We decide to do the gokarts, since my son can drive on the middle course. I envision him slamming into wall after wall. We get our tickets and wait forever for them to remove 4 karts from the track since they don’t have a separate load area. We get in, and we’re off for some true life Mario Kart. My son does amazingly well, probably because of the hours playing various incarnations of MK. After one lap, he comes to a stop, thinking that was it. I scream past him, throw a turtle shell, and head around the first turn. He keeps up very well, and passes me on the inside of a turn. He does slam into a wall once, but quickly gets turned around by the ops. Ultimately, he did win, since I slowed down when we were told to stop and he still plows through the finish area, almost taking out an employee before stopping. We hit the Amish shop next door that had some pretty good cheese and sausage. I’m just exhausted so we head back and I take a rare nap. When I get up, I feel pretty good. We head back to the park. We’re hungry, so we first hit Toft’s dairy, which I just found out about from a fellow TPR poster. We get there to see tons of flavors. My son get a small Cookie Dough ice cream with cookie dough chunks. I get Black Cherry ice cream with black cherries in it. I was surprised that they weren’t overly sweet, although they are definitely overly creamy. The “small” serving is actually enormous. At $2.50 you get more ice cream then you can even get at Baskin Robbins in their largest serving, that would be more than twice the price. There were a few ice chunks in the ice cream, which was a bit of disappointment, but overall this is easily the best value of kick ass ice cream I’ve ever had. We head out the peninsula, and I’m expecting to see the main lot almost filled. Amazingly, the crowd looks smaller than last night! WOW, a Saturday crowd smaller than a Friday night crowd? Amazing. We head in and go by Disaster Transport to find a line out the door. I’m sure it’ll be shorter later, so we bail and hit Blue Streak. I haven’t ridden this one in a while. It delivers a fun ride, for sure. I pay respects to the remnants of the Pirate ride. We take some Halloween pics in the Snoopy store, and we head to Draggin Iron for a walkon ride. This is always fun, but nothing spectacular. I’m just glad they keep it. My son sorta wanted to ride Corkscrew, but I wasn’t really wanting to. We hit Power Tower instead. As I warned him, it’s not as fun as Drop Zone, but still fun, and hardly any wait. We decide to ride MilF next, which has a shorter line Saturday night than Friday night. We decide to get an onride photo, since we were both giving Isaacs. They also give out a keychain dongle with the photo. I saw from Power Tower that Dragster’s line is just to the bottom of the ramp. I tell my son I’m going to ride, and amazingly he says he’ll ride too. Hells yeah! We get in line, and he’s not too scared. We get to the launch area and his voice is a bit shaky, but still not too bad. Off we go for another great ride. My son cheers wildly at the end, loving the ride just as I had expected. We get another onride photo, although there aren’t any good pictures with both of us in it. We get some souveniers including a dragster shirt for my son, and some cool Cedar Point poker chips. We found four different ones. I was also shocked that the large park maps are only 99 cents!! WOW, some parks charge almost $10 for these. We head up for a now walkon ride for Dispatch Master Transport. My son likes it. It is fun and quirky, although I do wish there was a little light in the final room, because not knowing what is coming up is a bit jarring on this type of coaster. We do one last quick reride. We get some pics in front of the Magnum 20th sign at the entrance. I can’t believe it’s been that long. My son is quite sad we’re leaving. He’s become a serious thrill rider these past 3 days. He’s more of a thrill rider than I was at his age, that’s for sure. He’s still not ready for mega loopers, but I sure wouldn’t have gotten on Dragster at age 10 if Beast was too intimidating. I can't believe my son conquered the mighty Dragster. He's asking when we're going to SFGAdv now. The Isaac. The universal sign of "hey man, how you doin!" Luckily, my son never picked up a blue turtle shell. That's a small!!! Cedar Point does a good job for Coastermania, although I wish they would have had more than XL T-shirts. I probably could have sold them for $25 each. Those little tornados that look like a bat spot in the picture, yeah those are Mufflehead swarms. Still probably my number one, and a lot closer to Texas than the two in Korea and one in Japan that give it competition I thought this pic looks cool. A great way to start the day.

Interesting, the Season Pass is no longer there. Perhaps it was claimed by the loser. -R

King’s Island, June 4th, 2009 This year’s Summer vacation is a delay from last Summer, when my work trip to Asia totally screwed up everything. Lot’s of parks got some new coasters, so a trip from Ohio to Canada was in order. My son had a pool party after his last day of school, where he stole his first kiss from his girlfriend. As soon as his party was over, we headed to the airport and flew to Cincinnati. We head to our excellent Townplace Suites where my mom had already checked in. We stop at Steak n Shake and crash. First on the trip is King’s Island, a park I’ve visited my whole life. It’s been 3 years since I was there, and my son has only been once before when he was very little. I get a CF pass for our vacation, since it gives free parking and other perks. We flash our ACE cards and are denied entry to the early rides. I go to guest services where someone was upset since they had apparently came just to ride Diamondback, which wasn’t open yet, and he wanted a refund since he had just came for an early ride before heading out on an airplane. Talk about hardcore! The guy at GS went with us and got us past the old guy and on to coaster riding. As I mentioned, Diamondback wasn’t open yet, so we head to Beast, which was a walkon. Still a shadow of it’s once great self, but my son did like the helix. We go back to Diamondback which is still DDM due to an apparent midcourse problem, so we do another Beast ride. Diamondback is coming to life a bit, so we get in line as the GP show up. It starts up soon after and delivers one hell of a ride full of airtime and only one slight brake. They should have put this in instead of SOB years ago. A quick spin on Reptar follows, as a hopeful lead up to my son riding Raptor tomorrow. I had to play the old basketball game next to the Beast I always won when I lived in Cincinnati. I got my wife and son a puppy in one game. We head to Stunt Coaster, which is a fun little ride. I decide to wait for the relocated flying coaster, which was dispatching trains fairly reliably, so the wait wasn’t too bad. These Vekoma flyers are quite intense, especially with you lying with your head below your body in the station to start out. My son discovered bumper cars while I was waiting. He rode them about 8 times. Then he asks me to ride the swings with him. That ain’t happenin’, so he decides to ride by himself and keeps running back to the entrance for another ride. I get some Skyline coneys for lunch. I’m not a big fan, but every few years, it hits the spot. We do a quick Racer ride, which is uneventful, and do some shopping. They had lots of 75% off stuff in a store in Coney Mall. We then head off to Top Gun, or whatever it is now. We make a wrong turn and I ask my son if he’ll do the Drop Zone, surprisingly he says yes. We wait two cycles and hop on. After our drop, my son goes crazy. I think he has discovered adrenaline, he loved it. We then make our way out for a fun ride on the coaster formerly known as Top Gun for a fun ride and see the Great Wolf Lodge from the lift. My son really wants a caricature, but there is someone there already. We go ride Adventure Express where we see the obligatory little black girl run across the grass to cut in front of us for a ride that never has a line. Even when we get to the station, she’s still cutting in front of people to get on a coaster that has no line. My wife confronts her, and she denies she cut, and gets mouthy. Gotta love 10 year old girls that can lie at will and talk back to adults when caught. My son starts getting a caricature. I realize that I could go get another Diamondback ride in the single rider line, so I head off. I get there right when they start allowing folks in the single rider line again, and basically walk right on. I really like this ride, it’s got lots of air, and is really smooth. Plus, it’s got a nice setting, and really was placed well in the park. I then head to the Nick store for more stuff on sale, but it was only 50% and was mostly Dora stuff. I decide to finally get some blue ice cream. I remember when it was Smurf flavored, now it is apparently blueberry flavored, although not very strong. It is amazingly cold and hard. Very difficult to split up into a cup. It was nice that the guy working there was honest enough to say the regular cone came with more ice cream than the waffle cone, and was cheaper. The workers at KI in general were VERY nice. My son’s caricature was finally done, I couldn’t believe how long it took, and his face wasn’t really well done. I’d guess it took about 30 minutes. We did skip the Fairly Odd Coaster because they were dispatching trains painfully slow, the one bad case of operations I saw all day. So, we ended the day with the Scooby dark ride. Of the three guns on our car, one was dead and the other two were barely working. I pick up the groovy Beast 30th t-shirt. Since I’m old, I was there that first year, but chickened out and didn’t ride it until the next year, waiting over 3 hours for a ride. The shirt is quite cool. I get my 10 dollar parking fee back after getting my season pass processed. I’m quite surprised they do this. I could see this being abused by people getting their friends their parking fees back. KI had a lot of specials going on. All the upcharge rides were about half price, the awesome $10 unlimited drinks paid off well too. Again, I’m sure this gets abused, as even I was getting drinks for 4 people. Of course, since they charge ridiculous sums for their drinks, I didn’t feel too bad. Season pass holders get double tries for some games too, although it wasn’t real obvious. All in all, a very good day at the first park I remember going to, really sharing it with my son for the first time, enjoying the excellent Diamondback and the other average rides at King’s Island. I head to Maverick’s comics to see my friend and talk comics and cards for a few hours. We then head to Montgomery Inn for some always excellent BBQ ribs and a Ted’s Ale to wash it down. I do miss Cincinnati in the Summer, the weather was about 20 degrees less than Houston is right now, and we have a grand total of 1 coaster in a hundred mile radius. Nothing like a slab of the best ribs in the world to end a great day. Reeking havoc at Mavericks. This was when Leo had a nervous breakdown. Tell him CCM sent you. Although I'd give anything to ride Enchanted Voyage, even the Smurfy version, this Scooby facade kicks ass. OMFG!! A ghost ate my son's head. Like, Zoinks (yeah, my nickname was Shaggy at the plant I used to work at.) 2 hours into having his caricature drawn, all excitement and adrenaline was gone. Braving this was a good omen for how much fun my son was to have on this trip. He was high on adrenaline for quite some time afterwards. Since I ate at Skyline once, their super secret addictive ingrediant that has all of Cincinnati under its spell, makes me buy at least 3 coneys when I'm in town. My son is now a spin an puke enthusiast. SOmething he will NOT share with his awesome dad. Just another Diamondback pictures. Gee, had KI built this instead of SOB, maybe they wouldn't have been bought by Cedar Point. The first time I saw the Beast, I was my son's age. Yeah, I'm old. But not as old as JJ, thank God.

THe Soda Straws are on the East end of the old part, aren't they? They dump into the river water pool that is the end of the Hillside Tube Chute. THere isn't a lazy river there. The only lazy river in the old park is the one on the West side, by the resort cabins. That is the one that was rethemed. Yes, it was pretty empty usually. That whole end of the park was usually dead, with the only people there being little kids and folks being dumped out of tube chutes walking back to get in another one. Schotze's central park is over in this same area. I also think they totally repainted the Hansel and Gretle area recently. They are really trying to breath life in this area. Congo will do that for sure. -RO

We returned to go to the dinner, which was German sausage, chicken, and hot dogs. They gave out a free Schlitterbahn cooler to everyone, and gave prizes to the to folks in the scavenger hunt and the quiz hunt. We placed I guess 3rd in the scavenger hunt, although the winner was actually a team of many folks, including a very hot babe that was wearing a very skimpy bikini I saw asking all the lifeguards if they knew where some cards were. The number two guy was pissed, saying that the winner cheats, and he saw him going over fences into unopened areas to grab signs before anyone could even get there. I do think they mishandled this, since the top guy ended up getting two huge bags of Schlitterbahn stuff, and my son and the other guy getting a big Schlitterbahn mug. Why even have the hunt if your’re letting a mob go against everybody else. We then headed over for hopefully one last Dragon’s Revenge ride, but it was about the only ride with a line anywhere, since It had stormed again and was probably in the lower 80s. We instead all rode the Family Blaster 3 times, and did a few lazy river laps. Plus, they had let too many people in the DR queue, so it had a long line at the beginning of ERT of normal folks still. So, we bailed to Blastenoff, where Master Blaster was basically a walk on for an hour. My son and I got 3 more rides, including a nighttime one, and my wife and I did many laps on the always excellent Torrent River. My son didn’t want to leave, and then someone mentioned the luau. I thought it was after the night time river ride, which we skipped. But, it started immediately, and my son really wanted to go. So, we went back to the Celebrity Hot Tub Party and luau. They had a steel drum band, and were serving dessert cakes, pop, and beer. It was pretty easy to spot the non-ACErs that had gathered in the resort hot tub, since the girls were all smoking hot, and the guys all looked like frat $*#@s. After a couple hours of relaxing and talking ACE conspiracies, we left Schlittercon 09 vowing to return to Schlittercon 10. Hopefully my son will return to riding tube chutes then. Thanks again to Jeffrey Seibert and Schlitterbahn for the best deal in all of ACE events.

Yeah, that's Schlitterbahn for you, tube chutes everywhere. There is probably still one I haven't ridden, or at least not all the way. I still don't know how to get to the river path from the West entrance, although I think I figured it out today. Schlitterbahn's old section must be experienced. You get in a chute and see where it takes you, it may be somewhere nearby, it may be a quarter of a mile away. There's no other place like it. -RO

The tube chute leading into the mine up to the drop is very shallow, just a few inches, so there is no lifeguard. It's more like a water slide. Once you get to the drop, there is a guard that makes sure you face forward going down the big drop, and a couple of folks at the bottom, I guess since it's sorta dark in there, and you could get disoriented. Day two of Schlittercon is underway. We had a huge hot breakfast, and were on the second tube out on Master Blaster. there is a scavenger hunt again this year, and we're doing pretty good. We found 4 Congo cards and 1 of the super rare (only 5 of them) 30th anniversary ones. Last year a big group pooled their findings, so I doubt we'll win, but my son had a blast finding the hidden cards. Just one of the many little things Jeffrey Seibert does to make Schlittercon THE start of Summer. I had my first skycoaster ride, and me and my son got a Dragon's Revenge and 3 Family Blaster rides in a row. DR is missing the vertigo tunnel this year, but the Dragon stunt is still great. I didn't notice anything new like they are saying. As usual, excellent scenery everywhere. -RO I'm no longer a skycoaster virgin (I'm in the middle). Pretty fun, although I was a bit dizzy afterwards from the slow spinning. One of the scavenger hunt cards. My son found this one on the back of a pop machine. The greatest waterslide in the world, as long as you don't have to wait 2 hours for it. And yes, the line was about that long today at 11 am. Queue entertainment Another pic from last night, a tiger hides in the tent.

A quick report from New Braunfels. This is becoming a yearly visit to the 'bahn, but this year was special since I hit the big 4-0 today, and yes I'm quite crabby about it. I was going to do my first skycoaster ride today, but we get a free one tomorrow, so that's the plan. The event didn't start officially until dinner today, but we could get in the park all day. We were going to get there about dinner time, since the park would be packed since it was Saturday. However, a storm rolled through and probably closed the park for a while anyway. After that, it was a bit cooler than I like it at Schlitterbahn, especially the old section where everything is fed with Comal River water that was probably about 60 degrees today. It's great on a mega-hot Summer day, but pretty damn cold if it's not in the 90s. For lunch, we drove to Luling to go to City Market, a world famous BBQ joint. This place just reeks of Americana. It's in a tiny town in B-F-Texas, it was stormy, yet there was still an enormous line snaking through the place. Two separate lines, one for drinks and sides, another for the main attraction. This place does one thing right, and that's all they deal with. You have 4 choices, brisket and ribs by the pound, and two types of sausage by the link. I got a pound of each and one hot link. The BBQ is served in a back room, separated from the restaurant. It's hot and smells of world class 'que back there, and a guy in a hard hat opens big pits full of meat, like they use the fires of hell to cook the stuff. They put the meat on a center table in a pile, weigh off your order, and put in on a big piece of paper. After you pay, you fold up the paper and take it to your table. If you so choose, they have a very tangy, mustardy sauce to add to it. And damn, they know how to smoke and grill meat. Plenty of delicious burnt ends, fall of the rib perfection, and some very good, not to fatty sausage. I made a complete pig of myself. This place ranks with the greats: Jack Stack in KC, Montgomery Inn in Cincy, and my local fave, Pappa's. They close at 6, which is odd, and DO NOT be fooled by the pedestrian copycat Luling City Market in Houston, that's shit. You want City Market in Luling, Texas. They had signs up for the upcoming Watermelon Thump Queen competition. Again, this place was just fabulous. After that, we headed to Schlitterbahn. We go to the far West entrance of the old park, get our writstbands, and head to the Congo area. The park was empty because of the storms that rolled through, so it was walk on for EVERYTHING. And that's mighty unusual for Schlitterbahn. the first 30 seconds was a serious shock to your system, but once the major shrinkage and hypothermia set in, I was fine. I rode my fave White Water chute twice, the Castle , and Hillside all in an hour! ON any other Saturday, these would all have a one hour line minimum. They then served the grub. Some gray beef kabobs, some average BBQ chicken, and sides. They also had pineapple upside down cake. I of course wasn't hungry, which was good, since it didn't seem to be going over well. But, they tried to have food with the theme of the ride, and the presentation was great. Jeffrey Seibert goes WAY farther then anyone to make ACE happy at these events. And at $25 for the event, anything more than one day admission was all gravy. After some plaque presentations, they opened the ride for us. My son got on with me too, which was good to see, since he's still scared from some tube flips a few years ago. The ride starts with a totally rethemed lazy river that is in the middle of the really long tube chute. You start with a long tunnel with a storm inside it. you then pass some Tiki heads, a lion, a snake, some spike traps, an elephant, and a tribe of dart shooting natives. All very well themed in basically a bamboo canyon. Very little of the ride is easily viewable from outside. Then, you have the choice to veer off into the mining cave. You have a long, slow chute leading into the mine. Once entering it, you reach the top of the main feature to the ride, and splash down into a water curtain with some great animation on it. It blends perfectly with the ride, and contains some falling boulders and a few other effects. It happens quick, but it's top notch. After that, you go through a long tunnel and come out to a nice long tube chute that eventually goes to the river. After a few spins, I was pretty cold, so I went to the hot tub to warm up. There was an official hot tub party at the other end of the park, but we've got an early ERT session tomorrow, so we left and headed to the second great place to eat of the day: Freddy's Custard! Kick ass burgers and fries, although I was still too full for them. But I did get one of their awesome Concretes. Thier fresh made custard with a variety of blend-ins. I got the special mint Oreo that was killer awesome. Tomorrow we hit the new sections for morning and evening ERT sessions, and hopefully many spins on the Torrent River. And of course, that sky-coaster ride. -RO Freddy's!!!!! The exit from the mine Inside the mine. You can't get a picture of the major stunt, but it's better for you to get to Schlitterbahn to experience it. The entrance to the ACE Mining cave. Jeffrey says the ride has multiple ACE related Easter Eggs The queue, also with great theming. Some of the theming The river is super foggy The beginning of the rain forest tunnel. Note the pile-o-tubes in the background. Those will be full of folks on a normal day. All the queen babes had hand-made signs with pics of them seductively holding watermelons. It was pretty hot. Time for some serous eatin' The walls of covered with decades of BBQ awesomeness. You keep the door closed, so as to not let the fires of Hades get out of the pit and destroy all of Texas. The queue to the 'que

They presented a lot of this to Winterfest in Houston 2 years ago. They plan on putting chilled water in the fountains and renting game kiosks as cabanas. NO, really, that's the plan! The observation tower could be OK, if they air condition it. The Skyway they built is basically you paying $6 to ride in a sauna for about a minute. If the geniuses in charge can't figure out that a massive wood coaster would pay for itself in a year, like the crappy skyway, and choose to build some piece of shit compact coaster, like a Volare, they should all be fired. Remember, at one point a few years ago, this brain trust was going to build a Russian shuttle loop as the main attraction at the Fair. They basically print money at the Fair, yet still seem determined to install the shittiest coaster they can find. You know, because they already destroyed the nice classic woodie they had, plus a classic Pretzel. I can't imagine who would pay half of SFOT's entry fee to play in a cold fountain and ride a few medium thrill rides while it's 110 degrees outside. -R

I know I saw a pic of EF around opening, showing a fairly baren plot of land with a lot of newly planted trees. I'll have to see if I saved it somewhere. -R

I've been fascinated by suspended coasters since standing, in near tears, in front of the Bat because it was SBNO. EF is absolutely awesome. I do think BBW was close when I rode it in 86. Yes, there have always been brakes on the last drop, but there have been some added since 86. I think it was damn close to EF awesomeness in 86. It'll be a damn shame to lose EF, as big of a tragedy as any coaster loss could be. It is truly the pinnacle of the seemingly completed suspended coaster series, and it is the best setting of any coaster. Flying through the trees, and only being able to see th track above you and no supports is just awesome. I'm just damn happy I was lucky enough to get to ride it last year. -R

When in Kansas City, you go to Jack Stack BBQ, order the baked beans, and drift off to Nirvana. They you get a Poor Russ and drift off again. -RO

WoW, lots of folks there the day LeBron was at CP. It was the day after he signed with the Cavs. I didn't recognize him, but the guy next to me sure did. He was an ass, and obviously not used to having money. Said he was going to sue if he got injured after it broke down while we were in line. However, it did lead to a great onride photo... RO Only my second ride on Dragster, which was my 300th.

I can't believe the price. 35 MILLION! That's an absolute steal. Hell, LZ cost one third of that. Why can't I win the lottery. I'd buy the place in a heartbeat. Add some water rides, advertise, and you'd at least break even. I mean, really, LZ would sell for $6 million, the land is probably worth over 15, you're getting the damn park for almost free. You could even take out the crap coasters and put in good ones instead. I can't beleive no one is buying a built amusement park for 10% of it's value. -RO

last ones Nasty bug of some sort. Lots of crap. Nam Dae Mun market Funky idols. Now that's a big bonsai! Relaxing. Throne. palace interior Everyone was afraid to pass the guards, so I had this courtyard all to myself. The cool looking guards. Me and my Chinese pal. I would assume this is an original guard tower, still standing after the Korean War.

More pics. waiting area for movie theater. Ball throwing video game. Nice. Scene from the long dark walkthrough. Cool Calligraphy guy. It probably says "I'm an evil AMerican", but oh well. Gruel!!! Sadly, very few food stands were open. I was going to try this just to be able to say I ate gruel. I wonder how many folks fall into the river? Sally dark ride ripoff. Huge above ground pool. Train station I sat in for a while to get back on track. Random Korean houses. Theater, with a space theme. That's a seat map on the left. It was stadium seating, but not digital projection. Pretty good presentation overall.

Korea wrap-up I never did go over some of the crazy stuff from Korea. Honestly, once I got to Japan, Seoul was so inferior in comparison, I forgot all about it. Seoul struck me as a dirtier, less Americanized version of Japan. And a city that simply didn’t care about air conditioning. It’s not that Japan had tons of American restaurants. I saw TGIF at Yokohama, but besides that it was pretty much just McDonald’s , Wendy’s, and KFC, and then ice cream stores. But Korea was full of restaurants serving nasty Korean food that consists of bowls with a whole bunch of random things floating in broth, and Kim Chi. You know, there was a time when Kim Chi had to be eaten. You know, back before electricity. Beef Jerky is a curiosity snack in the US, since it’s no longer a necessity. Korea is still latching on to the days when eating rotten food was the only option. The area I was in consisted of tons of random Korean restaurants, tons of street vendors at night, tons of tiny convenience stores, and tons of sandwich/coffee shops. I did find a real grocery store the last week I was there that was pretty close to a US one, well except for the squid/octopus/crab stuff. They had bags of snacks that were fish and almond mix. WHOLE fish and almonds. Who the hell thinks up these things? I got some candy that my wife tried last night, and it was apparently rose flavored candy. Since when is “rose” a flavor? There was a total knock-off Krispy Kreme place there that I was very happy to see, and they tasted pretty much the same. They had an entire aisle of various sizes of Korea red pepper powder, and a huge canned meat selection. According to my wife, Korea is the only place were SPAM is actually spelled in a language besides English. I hit a few malls in Korea. They are similar to US ones, and even had a few rarer US restaurants, like Pizza Hut. I tried some pasta at a few places, but it all sucked. There was just something a bit off with the sauce, probably kim chi. I found that Tony Roma’s near the Yeouido station was awesome. Exact same food as the US. The Hard Rock was of course great too. I went there the next to last night, and got an XXL shirt. I was stupid and didn’t try it on. I get back to the hotel and find that XXL in Korea means M in the US, so I have a $35 useless shirt. I decided to head back to the Hard Rock my final night and exchanged it, and saw my favorite smokin’ hot waitress there again. Speaking of the ladies, Korean women seem to have cultivated the Manhatten prostitute look. They wore mostly high heels and short skirts, and looked emaciated. Even the secretaries where I worked wore very short skirts, skin tight clothes, and were barefoot a lot. For our celebration party after our meeting was over, we had cake and BEER! Of course, the REAL celebration party was the night before when we hit a Korean BBQ place. This consists of lots of nasty kim chi, and fairly fatty pork that you place on a gas grill in your table to cook as you like it. We later got some Bulgolgi beef that was much better, basically little hamburgers, but it was very important to change grills for the different meats. It was also very important to not pour your own drinks. Everyone screamed at me when I did. Someone else was to pour it for you, using their glass (eeewwww!) Luckily it was Soju, the alcohol killed everything. Soju is Korean whisky made with some rice too. Pretty potent stuff, and some of my Korean co-workers had waaay too much of it. Things got out of hand, and very rambunctious. The waitress wanted pictures with all the American guys, and of course gave the peace sign in every one of them. But, then things got REAL weird. We’re talking totally surreal. We left the BBQ place, and headed to Karaoke. They have private karaoke parlors, where you rent it out for a few hours. I was a little nervous at first when we got there and there were 3 women in the aforementioned Manhatten whore attire. But, their job was to practically force liquor into us. One guy got passed out drunk and couldn’t walk out of the place. I couldn’t imagine my supervisor in the US having to be carried out of a bar on a business dinner. I have some simply insane video of the night, and am attaching the best one. Words can’t really describe that evening, but I know I will never forget it. I’ve also attached some random signs from around Korea, and strange things I saw for sale. I also went to see a movie while I was there called the Good, the Bad, and the Weird. A Korean take on a spaghetti Western, a kim chi Western I suppose. It was shown with English subtitles, but surprisingly, most the crowd was still Korean. I decided to get a snack for the show, to see how it was. A combo of a decent size Coke, a small thing of popcorn, and your choice of a hot dog, nachos, or candy, was only $8. I got that, and headed to the theater. The theater was quite nice, and you got an assigned seat. There was a map outside to show you where your seat was. I sat down, and suddenly found out that my “candy” was actually a bag of squid. WTF with the squid, Korea? The popcorn was OK. The preshow was a bit different. The previews were interspersed with commercials. And even though it was a packed house, I heard no cell phones during the whole show, although there was tons of texting. The movie was decent, and had some cool action scenes, but was a bit too long. My last weekend was doing more sightseeing things. On Saturday, I headed to Gyeongbok Palace. I rode the subway to get close, and you sure couldn’t miss it once you got out. This place is frickin huge, and amazing. Most of it is apparently recreations, with maybe a corner being original. There was one building that looked like a guard tower maybe that was in the middle of the street, so I assume it must have been totally original. The main courtyard was huge, and had dressed up guards. I kept running into a Chinese guy taking pictures, so we decided to get pictures with each other too. The buildings got a little repetitious, but there were some cool ones near the back, especially one surrounded by water and lotus petals. There was also a Korean museum here that provided some air conditioning. I got a few souvenirs and headed to Namdaemun Market. This is your basic crazy asian street market, packed with really small streets that were wall to wall people. Most of the stuff being sold was knockoffs, but they weren’t ultra cheap. Louis Vitton bags were everywhere, but I got my wife a Gucci wallet for $15. They had some nasty food, or course, and all of these huge roots in big jars. I think these are Ginseng, but I’m not sure. I didn’t buy much, really, but it was quite an experience. On my last Sunday, I hit Korean Folk Village that was waaaay down at Suwon. I got on the wrong damn train that cost me almost an hour, but finally got there. I rode the bus to the park, and it started raining as I got in. There is a small amusment area, and a coaster, but it sure looked to me like it was SBNO (Robb’s credit ride proves me wrong). The trees seemed to have taken over. If it is still open, the setting is awesome. But the whole amusement are was pretty ghetto. They had a total knockoff of a Sally dark ride there, and some scary looking flats. They had a big volcano thing, and a huge above ground pool. The folk area was nice. It had recreations of houses from all areas of Korea, and they looked pretty authentic. There were also some pretty crazy bridges going over water with no handrails at all. I was given a potato by a little girl, which was quite odd. They had a big pot by the river, boiling them. I thought I missed out on them, until the girl gave me one. It was pretty good! I was thinking of trying some of the food, but most of them were closed, and the ones open had some scary looking stuff. They did have one place that actually served Gruel! That’s awesome! I got some rice taffy and rice candy. They also had a calligraphist there, so I got some cool banners in fancy Korean. They had a scary walkthrough too. All of the scenes triggered as you walked up, and most were pretty strange. Big caterpillars must be evil in Korea. It was actually a pretty good walkthrough. They weren’t doing many shows that day because of the rain, so all I saw was some horse riding. I did get some honey candy on the way out. They took a ring of honey and twisted it over and over until it was angel hair threads of honey, then filled that with crushed nuts. Pretty good stuff. I also tried some of the omnipresent Pocari Sweat, which was just nasty. It tasted sorta like alka seltzer. I went around the mall at Suwon station a bit, finally found an arcade, which wasn’t that great, but did have a strange game where you threw balls at the screen to hit things. The theater there had this huge area full of small seats that you could sit in until your show started. Still very little Western food outlets, so I hit Tony Roma’s again and got back exhausted. I really liked my time in Korea, but honestly, it totally paled in comparison to Japan. I have since found out there is an area in Seoul full of arcades and such, and am quite upset I didn’t know about it while I was there. Oh well. I was hoping for a second business trip later this year, but that looks unlikely now. I was really hoping to get to TDL for Halloween. I will for sure be back to Japan, and Everland and Lotte World are both absolute world class parks. So, maybe I’ll get back to Seoul someday too, even if it’s on my dime. Rastus O'Ginga Korean BBQ. Now THAT's a work celebration, except we all had hangovers from Karaoke. Greatest. Elevator. Manufacturer. Ever. This was in a subway station. No English version. Apparently in case of a gas attack, only Koreans will survive. It wasn't clear where these masks were. This was in my hotel room. It looked like some sort of repel line. I REALLY wanted to try it out. Typical woman dress. Evil Dead, the Musical!?! I did NOT have a long black while I was there. A cup of Ice for a dollar! Prepackaged, no less. Just nasty. BBQ Chicken from a street vendor. The parts that were white meat were quite good.

That's bull. A log ride could be open almost all year. Houston only has Winter-ish weather in small quantities. Take this week. It was damn cold Monday, and today it's near 80. Log flumes at even Midwest parks are ran in cooler weather than Houston has for 10 months out of the year. All they'd have to do is have it so the splash could be lessened on the few colder weekends. A Shoot the Chute would be a bit different, but a nice long Arrow-esque log flume would be great. -RO

Yeah, it might LOOK fun, but WOW it sucks! -R

Yep, that's pretty much it. I find little reason to hit the Texas parks, especially with the heat. The closeest thing to a destination coaster is Shockwave, which really is a fantastic coaster, especially with the lap bars. And I agree whole heartedly about Steel Eel. I simply don't see how anyone can say it's great. It's not that tall, it's heavily braked at the midcourse, and the return bunnies are triangles, and just not fun. -RO

Are you joking with questioning Chow Yun-Fat's popularity? He's an enormous film star in Hong Kong. He and John Woo made basically the greatest HK action films ever together. Just because his American films all fizzled, doesn't mean he still isn't the godlike star of The Killer and Hard Boiled. -RO

I've lamented for years that the awesome Britannia Manor haunted house hasn't been reborn yet. This year, I find out that many of the folks that did it now do Scare For a Cure in Austin. They also did some haunted trail in Austin for a few years before that. SO, I have a red level ticket for Scare for a Cure's WOrld of Horrorcraft this year. Did anyone go to last year's Scare for a Cure, which was also supposed to have been an interactive house like Britannia Manor? Obviously I don't count on it being as extravagant as BM, but I'm hoping for a really fun experience worthy of a trip from Houston. This year's is video game themed, and is supposed to still involve having to figure out puzzles and interact with characters, plus the red level is supposed to be full contact. It sounds very cool. -R

So, anybody here make a haunt in their front yard? We're really ramping up this year. Five years ago I built a 6 foot tall spider, then the next year an 8 foot tall Grim Reaper. This year, for the 5th anniversary, I'm working on a 12 foot tall Pumpkin Warrior. Anybody else build stuff for thier yard? RO It's a Mister Grim, something about the reaping. Here's the spider, attacking my son.

It's good to see everyone agreed with me about Kawasemi. That ride just kicked all sorts of ass, which is why I posted my vid of it. I don't understand the love for Cosmoworld. Besides the fact that it was waaaay out of the way, unless you also visit Sea Paradise which is even further away, it just didn't do much for me. Vanish was painful, and had serious gray out power in the helix. THe log ride was unique, but nothing great. The dark rides were neat, especially Kill Bill the ride, but few people would appreciate them as I did. Joypolis was great, but also suffered greatly by many of the more unique attractions only being in Japanese. I think Hanayashiki should be above Cosmoworld. It's like a Japanese Blackpool with it's ride/space ratio, albeit on a much smaller scale, but definitely worth a side trip. Plus the temple there is awesome, and there are tons of souvenirs for sale. As for LaQua, Geopolis is closed unitl next year, and is being redone, and I assume that's where the dark ride was, since I sure didn't see it. I loved Thunder Dolphin. At night, just seeing TOkyo going off to the horizon in every direction, and riding a very fun coaster was a highlight of Japan. Had I not been there on a very busy night, and gotten more rides, I would have loved it even more. And ABSOLUTELY read through Robb's Japan guide. It was unbelievably helpful in planning. ANd remember that almost all 7-11s have ATMs that take American debit cards for cash, which you will need a lot of. -RO

^^^^ Damn knowitall kids these days with their lions and tigers. The little guy had a design sorta like a tabby cat, and wasn't just one color, so I thought he was a tiger, as opposed to the baby white lion that had no real design on him. All I know is he was adorable when he meow/growled for me. -RO