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Day 2 – Part 3: Lake Compounce A very short drive from Quassy and we were at the final park for Day 2. Lake Compounce turned out to be the biggest surprise on the trip for me. I had researched the park a little beforehand, so I knew it would be fun, but it really exceeded my expectations. I loved everything about the park from the relaxing “small park” atmosphere to the excellent collection of rides. The night-time ERT on Boulder Dash was one of my favorite moments of the entire trip. The ride-op we got was hilarious! I believe everyone on the trip agreed that the park picked the right guy to deal with our craziness. The best part about the ride for me was that it seemed to gain speed all the way until the end. The setting of the ride really helped add to the experience, especially at night when you couldn’t see anything but trees and wooden track. Going through the transition to the new GCI track was like hitting a patch of ice in a car. Smooth, but out of control! Highlights for the rest of the park: - Fun, if not corny shooting dark ride - Getting denied my first kiddie credit - Free soda! - Relaxing in front of the lake with new friends at dinner - Fried Bats! On to the pictures… Boulder Dash ERT was an awesome end to an amazing day! Rye's Playland up next! Do you think TPR enjoyed Boulder Dash? Walking up to the station, no one knew that they were about to have their face rocked off! Boulder Dash!! One more flat ride photo and it's time to ride... I'd like to thank myself for standing in the middle of this shot. Go me! Okay, enough of that. On to some pictures of rides that aren't made by Vekoma. It had a boomerang. So far, I have pretty much ignored the fact that the park had a boomerang. After relaxing by the lake, it was time to check out some more of the park. This was the Jimi Hendrix themed slides called "All Around the Watchtower". The ride is flying at this point. And some great views of Boulder Dash off in the distance. Not to mention, it offered these lovely views of the Lake Compounce. How about some dinner? We kind of wandered on to this place and it turned out to be pretty decent. We will ride you later tonight. Notice that you can see where the GCI track begins in this picture. Speaking of Boulder Dash... So, lets bring everybody up to date so far. Ghost hunting, happy Wank, rabid cats, free pepsi, and look...the park isn't very crowded! I love this place! (and we haven't been on Boulder Dash yet) After a slight back adjustment on Wildcat, we were surprised to find out that the park offered free Pepsi! One more Wildcat for good measure. Wildcat was a little on the rough side except for these two amazing bunny hops at the end. The other wooden coaster in the park was evidently sponsored by a rasta Garfield with rabies. Good drop tower, bad name. He is! He is! Wait! Is Mike Austin actually enjoying the ride?!? This was the best flat ride of the entire trip solely based on the name: "Thunder N' Lightning"! Professor Phearstruck babbling something about the "O" in the sign being crooked. Here are the little cars you rode in. The trick to this ride was to ride in the back seat, wait until you left a room, and then turn around and shoot all the targets behind you repeatedly. Today's forecast: Partly Shrieky in the evening with a slight breeze out of the west. Ghost Hunt it is! Where should we go first? Some company must have a monopoly on these signs in the northeast because that Go-Gurt ad was on about every park map sign. After having a little trouble finding the entrance to the park, we have made it to our third park of the day, Lake Compounce!

I thought of another show from the 90's that I miss. "The State" from MTV. The show wasn't around very long but the same cast/producers would eventually make Wet Hot American Summer which is one of my favorite movies of all time.

Yes! BYOB Kenobi. United States of Whatever. Llama School. Precious Roy. Great stuff! I wish the show never got cancelled. Although, they made some more shows, it seemed to lose the momentum that the first season had.

Shockwave at Kings Dominion was down during our visit, so sadly I missed out on the only Togo for the East Coast trip. After all the crap woodies though, it probably was best that I didn't have to endure that 60 seconds of Togo torture. Great TR by the way!

^Thanks Jay! Our raft was under-inflated as well and you could feel the bottom of the slide a few times. Time for another update. Day 2 – Part 2: Quassy Amusement Park After lunch , it was time to head to our second park of Day 2, Quassy Amusement Park. Quassy is a little park in rural Connecticut. They have a wild mouse, a kiddie coaster, and a small collection of flat rides all placed in front of a small lake. We only had about an hour and a half at the park (most of that time the rides were closed because it rained), so we only rode the two coaster credits. The rain nearly kept us from getting our Wild Mouse credit but they were able to get it open in time for everyone to ride it. It was a pretty terrifying looking ride. I remember watching people ride before we got on, and one of the trip members was waving happily at Robb as he filmed them, and at the right moment, they hit this brutal turn and their facial expression completely changed to one of shock and pain. I really hope Robb captured the look on their faces as they were suddenly whipped around the turn. The ride wasn’t that bad once you rode it but you really had to brace yourself for that one turn and it had a doozy of a first drop for a mouse. On to the pics... To celebrate the event, Alan and I decided to frolic away happily with Dora and Spongebob. Lake Compounce is next. It was! Robb wins the penguin! Looks like a good throw but was it good enough to win? The rest of the group decided to watch Robb try and win a penguin for Jahan. Ha! I think she just ran into the wall here. Elissa's mom rides a ride! (That was a bingo square I believe) Meanwhile, Brent and Russ decide to pass the time with some bumper car action. I can't decide what's funny here, Hanno's expression or the giraffe's. Hanno really loves him some giraffes! Notice how dejected the girl next to him is because she didn't get to ride the giraffe. Others chose to ride the carousel. The rain had long passed, but the mouse remained closed. So, lets see what TPR members are doing to pass the time. These guys are camping out for their credit. I like the kiddie ride theming in the middle. How did you even get to that ride anyways? Whoring for credits makes everyone happy! TPR takovers of kiddie coasters never get old! After they closed the mouse, everyone would head over to the other credit in the park, the Little Dipper. It was about this time that they would shut down the mouse. What are the lateral G's on that curve, Marcos? Once you got over how unsafe it looked, it was actually a fun, little ride. I thought it had a decent first drop for a mouse. Naturally, everyone would go straight to Mad Mouse. Notice the ominous clouds in the background. Also, notice Chris...what the heck is he doing? The Giant Slide towers over the rest of the park. We've made it to Quassy!

It was a combination of my hatred of spinning rides and getting a little "car sick" on the way to the park. I decided it was best not to ride anything rough because we still had a long drive to go that night.

A co-worker of mine brings one of those cakes in every year for Mardi Gras. Except, the cake he brings in has more than one baby in it. Those Cajuns are a messed-up group with their baking babies in their cake!

I wussed out on riding The Whip. I kind of wished I had tried it because it was the only one out of the three I saw on the trip, that ran that insane.

This update will finish up all the photos for Six Flags New England. We shall! SFNE was an awesome park! Quassy update is next. There is a bat emergency on Richard's forehead! This is the awesome pen I won. It sends out the bat beacon! Until she/he/it joined Daffy in making a move on Candace! Tweety Bird was awesome! Don't get any ideas there Ducko! All the celebrities come out to watch TPR members eat. It's lunch time! "Transition shot" Upon finding out that we were discussing kicking him out, G.J. made Jason bow to him for forgiveness. But it was decided that with all that charisma, as demonstrated here, he was a valuable member of the crew and could stay. Afterwards, the guys got together to discuss rather we should boot G.J. from the group for making us ride. Pretty impressive for a children's ride. The ride was actually very well themed. But where were all the kids? This is the most frightening crane I have ever seen! G.J. dragged us on the ride because he has kids or something. Candace, you might as well while the getting's good. I don't know who you are blue conductor man, but I will take my picture with you anyways. And Richard and G.J. are getting who's statue credit? Blue man who takes the tickets? I know nothing about Thomas Town characters so I am going to wing it here and guess that this is Thomas? One of the newer additions to the park was Thomas Town. And just like in the TV show, Jaws ate all the competition. I couldn't believe that they actually had the cast of my favorite show as a child! Jaws vs. Hanna Barbara: The Death Match. With our gold Q-bots on Saturday, we only waited about five minutes with a queue line that was over an hour! Scream was a decent S&S combo tower.

^Yeah, it really does work well for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. You essentially guarantee that on a crowded day you will be able to ride all the major thrill rides at least once. How much were the passes at BGW?

Thanks Kerry! I ended up drinking about half of that 5 gallons of water because I had no clue it was coming up. And Jason, you should of known that if there was a water coaster evac on a TPR trip, that someone, if not multiple someones, would be there to document it.

^The same thing happened to us on Pompeii, Olivier. We got to the top of the lift and water poured over the front of the boat.

My favorite SLC on the trip was easily Nor'easter at Morey's Piers. The new trains made it so you could actually ride in a normal position. Instead of being boxed in the ears, your elbows would get bounced around a little bit which is an acceptable trade off in my opinion. This made the ride a lot more relaxing, as I would normally have to make my neck as tense as possible to keep my head from bouncing back and forth off the restraints.

^Sounds like our night at Clementon riding Hellcat except without the rain. It was lightning like crazy and the ride has a steel structure. As far as I know, they never shut down the ride.

I find this really strange, because I went to SFNE earlier this year, and Mind Eraser seemed more painful then normal. It wasn't just me who thought this either. The three other people who were in my group that rode it with me last thought the same thing. I guess either we caught it on a really bad day, or you caught it on a good day. It must of been running good that day. It wasn't smooth or anything by any stretch, but I didn't get off of it with a headache which is a good thing. Oh, and there is a slight shot of airtime on that curve on Great Chase. I made of exaggerated how scary the ride was though for dramatic purposes.

Moose would be in heaven! Great update as usual.

Six Flags New England Cont'd After surviving our near death experience on Great Chase, all three of these rides were looking appealing now! More SFNE to come soon! In the end, to everyone's relieve, we made it back to the station alive. Finally, Richard is using his "Look baffled and maybe it will go away" technique. Alan chose the "Make your fingers look like there in some type of Chinese finger torture device" technique. G.J. is using his "John Travolta in Urban Cowboy" technique. Second time around, we each had to come up with our own defensive riding technique. Here I am using the "Lance Armstrong except I have both testicles" technique G.J. : Aaaaaahhhh! It was airtime! Me: Wait, what was that?!? Was that...airtime? Richard and Alan: No, No, it couldn't be! Richard: Hi Candace! I am really scared! Everything seems normal here. Oh look, there's Candace. Let's act like we are really scared. Great Chase looks like a normal kiddie coaster in this picture right? After riding this, I now know how Evander Holyfield felt after his bout with Mike Tyson. I had no ear left! Two pieces of crap in one shot! I hate you Vekoma! We would have ERT Saturday on Pandemonium. I actually enjoyed it although it spun WAY too much! Oblivious to the rare event unfolding nearby, the pretzel guys go for another round. Water coaster evacuation credits are extremely rare. Yes! TPR breaks the water coaster! Why is that maintenance guy walking up there? Could it be? I did ride Zooma Falls which was Hurricane Harbor's version of Deluge at SFKK. But wait, something looks wrong! Three men in a pretzel. I didn't go on these slides but they looked like fun. Narrowly escaping death, Pamplona style, it was time for ERT at Hurricane Harbor! As we tried to make our way to waterpark ERT, we witnessed one of the benefits of going on a TPR trip. Being on the other side of a rope drop! These guys were awesome! We kept seeing them all over the park and every time they would get in this exact pose! Complete with the random kid attached to Wonder Woman's cape! And it is photogenic too. Seriously though, I didn't really mind Mind Eraser. As long as you braced yourself properly, it wasn't half-bad. If you think my captions are crazy tonight, I'll blame it on PTSD from this thing. As you can see, there are no trains on this track because of the aforementioned fiery death. The ride actually has different programs similar to that drop tower in Spain. This is the "Lift hill with no track at the end so you fall to a fiery death" program. Then you collide directly into this fence! Talk about adding insult to injury. After a scorching death, you go through this loop. Not that it matters though, cause you are dead! The lift hill takes riders straight into the sun! Batman: The Dark Knight was a great, forceful ride. Great way to start out ERT on the trip. The blue lane is for big ass delivery trucks only. Do not walk in the blue lane. New park rule: No scissors allowed on this bridge or you will receive a 5-year ban from this bridge. We begin this update with a stalker alert. Tony may be filming you now!

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that was a little frightened by that Wild Mouse at Quassy. Great TR so far. Looking forward to the rest.

^Like I said before, it was worth it to ride it for nostalgia purposes, but beyond that it is just a very rough wooden roller coaster. I couldn't imagine driving out of my way to ride it. You live in the Knoxville area as well? Whereabouts? Thanks! I enjoyed our truck stop buffet we had together. Nothing like 1 pound of water to go with your spaghetti.

Day 2 – Part 1: Six Flags New England Day 2 was a three-park day which ended up being the best day of the trip for me. The day would start out with ERT on three coasters at SFNE, as well as waterpark ERT! All I can say about the park is Superman: Ride of Steel makes all the other roller coasters there cry for their mommy. Now, I am not saying that the other roller coasters suck, but they just seem mediocre when compared to S:ROS. The ride is just unbelievably good. It has everything. Positive Gs, Negative Gs, Lateral Gs, and other Gs that haven’t been invented yet. I will have to do an update just for the ride by itself because we have so many pictures of it. I was overall EXTREMELY impressed with this park. It was by far my favorite Six Flags park on the trip, and second only to Six Flags Over Georgia overall. The park went out of their way to make us feel welcomed, not to mention hooking us up with ERT on 5 coasters over two days! The Q&A session with the park managers was very informative and not the B.S. sandwich that came with the Kings Dominion Q&A. Plus, I won a Batman Cape, a XXL Superman T-shirt and a kick-ass Batman pen at the raffle drawing. Here are the first of the pictures which will feature Superman:Ride of Steel. Hope you enjoy! More SFNE to come! This ride is what airtime is all about. The spray was very disorienting The last half of the ride doesn't look like much from the pictures, but turned out to be absolutely insane! More TPR members enjoying their ride. Eric Millar: "I think I just scored!?!" Do you think Drew is enjoying his ride? Insane airtime right here. I am not going to write a lot a captions in this update, just let the pictures do the talking.

Brent, I wish we would of started hanging out earlier in the trip. I had our "point and shoot" at Legends, but I decided it was better to leave the evening undocumented. Good job there buddy! I think Chris tried to ruin the most pictures that Candace took. Thanks, there are plenty more pics of you guys coming up. It was great to meet you too. I know what you mean. I've already asked people at work to push me around in my chair. I said if they pushed me down the stairs, it would remind me of some of the wooden coasters on the trip. Thanks to everyone else who commented so far! It was great meeting all of you! Six Flags New England should hopefully be up tonight. We have over 300 photos on Day 2 alone to go through!

Scott, it was great to meet you! We got a lot of photos to go through, so hopefully it will not take to long to finish the report.

Day One: Coney Island On our way to the first hotel of the trip in Conneticut, we stopped at Coney Island for a ride on the famous Cyclone. I felt very fortunate to ride the Cyclone because if I recall correctly, it nearly closed last year. All I can say about the coaster itself, is that it ran like a 71 year old wooden coaster. The new padding in the seats made it seemed like you were riding in one of those padded sumo wrestler outfits. The nostalgia of riding this classic though was enough for me to appreciate the ride and ignore the pain of bouncing along the track. As for the rest of Coney Island, it was certaintly an interesting place. Highlights were Original Nathan’s, Dante’s Inferno, the Wonder Wheel and Ghost Hole (simply for the name). Now for pictures… Good night Cyclone! Six Flags New England up next. HOT SAUSAGE!!! on fire. These are birds. Look, its TPR members! Special guest appearances by Cedar Fair Elementary dedicated trash cans. What's this guys problem?!? This is Mike Austin and fellow East Coast Trip participant. He can't eat any American food or it comes out both ends as demonstrated in the picture. As evening set, the park comes to life. And eats all the little children. Dinner was at the original Original Nathan's. I had no clue this was where skinny Japanese kids scarfed down a bazillion hot dogs every year. You do indeed get a great view of Manhatten from the Wonder Wheel. Awwwww. There be a credit! Its your basic ghetto fair with flat rides dumped down on pavement, but it had a little charm at least. Nice view of the Cyclone from up here. View of the beach from the Wonder Wheel Next up: Deno's Wonder Wheel You can almost picture the parachutes taking people up and down...if you were on drugs! Its that ferris wheel from Grand Theft Auto 4! It was a great evening to be on the boardwalk. Gene Simmons: The Ride With a side of pain on the right. Pain on the left She definitely is a photogenic coaster! I was surprised to see that you waited to board without any divided rows. The first train of the evening. I'll let Robb tell his story about the lip-stick camera's first ride on the Cyclone. The lift hill almost looks straight in the photo. As we turned the corner and got our first glimpse of the Cyclone, I think two girls on the bus fainted! Maybe it was pre-traumatic stress syndrome. There must be danger all the time in New York City! We had to cross the Verazzano Bridge on our way to Coney Island. It is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. This was the first time I got to see Manhatten in person.

After an entire day of naps and recovering, it is time to begin our 2008 TPR East Coast trip report. Robb and Elissa get all of our respect and gratitude for organizing the best vacation we have ever been on. Until you have been on a TPR trip, you can not imagine how much hard work goes into these trips, and they do it the whole time with patience and a smile on their face. This first update will cover our travels to Philly. Candace and I both took lots of photos, so instead of crediting each photo, I’ll give you a hint for determining who took what photo… the good photos were taken by Candace. So, onto the photos! P.S. There will be a game for you guys to play at some point during this trip report! Links to all updates Day One: Landing in Philly and Coney Island (scroll down) Day Two - Part 1: Six Flags New England Six Flags New England Part II Six Flags New England Part III Day Two - Part 2: Quassy Amusement Park Day Two – Part 3: Lake Compounce Day Three – Rye’s Playland Part I Rye's Playland Part II The Denzel Washington Movie Reference Game! Day Four: Six Flags Great Adventure Part I Six Flags Great Adventure Part II Delaware: The Traffic Jam State Day Five - Six Flags America Part I Six Flags America Part II Day Six: Busch Gardens Part I Busch Gardens Part II DarKastle Backstage Tour Busch Gardens Part III Day Seven: Kings Dominion Day Eight - Part 1: Morey's Piers Morey's Piers Part II Morey's Piers Part III Day Eight - Part 2: Clementon Park Day Nine: Hersheypark Part I Hersheypark Part II Day Ten: Dorney Park Final Day - Knoebels Part I Knoebels Part II Knoebels Part III Final Summary Coney Island is next! There is the Lightning bus as we have officially begun the tour. We made it! Cue Boyz II Men now! "Motown Philly back again...doing a little East Coast swing..." Almost there! The next morning we were thrilled to see our plane had arrived on schedule! Eskimos need loving too, and to recognize it, Tennessee named a state park in their honor. This is Kirsten. She is bored because there haven't been any pictures of roller coasters yet. This is Baylor. One of the reasons for flying out of Nashville, was we could save a lot of money in kennel costs by letting my parents dog sit. This is me. I am probably wondering if it is possible to time travel to tomorrow so we can ride roller coasters already! This is Candace. She is wondering what she is about to get herself into. We called ahead and had the Highway Patrol clear out the interstate for us. No delays! Before we could begin the trip, we had to drive to Nashville first.

^I don't remember the boats stopping on us. It did have some cool scenes. The ride overall reminded me of Monster's Plantation, but not nearly as good.