printersdevil78

Yes!!! This is awesome news! Enough to make me plan a trip to KD next summer, in fact. Interesting that the mold of the frog still has his cigar intact. I would have bet they would have taken that detail out. You know: "Timmy! What are you doing with these Swisher Sweets?" "It's OK mom! The piano-playing frog with the singing mushrooms at Kings Dominion smokes cigars, too! I wanna be just like him when I grow up!" At least they're not stereotyping zombie miners this time.

Back again! I’ll let the photos and captions speak for themselves. Enjoy! In early June, Kelly and I went to Twining’s Lobster Shanty in Fenwick Island, DE, for our second anniversary. On the outside, it looks like a fairly ordinary restaurant… …until you start looking a little closer. It’s sort of a seafood-meets whimsical-meets tropical theme. Our table overlooked the waterfront marsh outside. Having been here before, we knew to order the lobster mac ’n’ cheese as an appetizer. It’s amazing! And here’s the lobster! The most unique thing on this plate is the Old Bay-boiled onions, which are better than onions have any right to be. Less than a week later, I was on a plant to Atlanta for my first vacation of the summer. And after being treated like a criminal at the Dollar Rent A Car counter (because I wouldn’t buy their insurance) and spending a few amazing hours at Six Flags Over Georgia, I made a grueling six-hour drive to Memphis. This sign, a block away from my hotel, was a welcome sight. There was a fairly long wait to get in…unless you were traveling solo and willing to sit at the bar! I was in and had my drink in my hand within five minutes of taking this shot. I’ve extolled the virtues of Charlie Vergo’s Rendezvous in the past (but not in this thread), so I knew exactly what I wanted: a half-rack of traditional dry-rub ribs with beans and the restaurant’s amazing mustard-based coleslaw. After dinner, it was time for a stroll down Beale Street. Some cool neon food-based signs before we get to our ultimate destination here. I thought once to stop in here for one of their famous barbecued bologna sandwiches, but I was too full from Rendezvous. I also thought about stopping at the historic Dyer's for a burger, but again, I was too full, and I've eaten here before, anyway. This was the real reason I came down to Beale. Getting inside was tough. Plus there was a cover, which I’m generally opposed to. Plus there was an hour wait for a table. Plus the band was way, way, way too loud. But I stuck it out for one reason. This wasn’t that reason… but it was good! The Lucille is one of the club’s signature beverages. It was so dark inside that until I took the picture, I thought it was blue! Also, I don’t know who Vic Munoz is, but they gave me his table, and I wasn’t arguing! The one reason I was so intent on coming to BB King’s? Fried pickles! I have eaten meals in nearly every state in the U.S., as well as parts of Canada, England and Wales, and these are, far and away, the best fried pickles I have ever had! I discovered them during my first trip to Memphis in 2008, and I was determined to make them a part of this vacation, as well. I wasn’t disappointed! Afterward, I stopped down the street at A. Schwab, a historical dry goods store that now sells mostly tourist crap. I was delighted to find that they carried Aunt Sally’s pralines, which I enjoyed during my trip to New Orleans in 2008. Unfortunately, they weren’t as good as the ones I got right from the source. The next day, I set out for Hot Springs, AR, to tour the national park and spend some time at Magic Springs. I was hoping to stop at the legendary McClard’s BBQ (and did end up driving right by it), but I found out in advance that it was closed on Sundays, so I started looking for alternatives. Just about every website I referenced listed McClard’s and Stubby’s as the No. 1 and No. 2 barbecue joints in Hot Springs, so I decided to give Stubby’s a try. Wood piles are always a good sign at barbecue restaurants! As are anthropomorphized pigs! I was vaguely worried when I got inside and there was nearly no one else there. I needn’t have been. It was raining heavily when I pulled up, and it seemed like as soon as the rain stopped, the crowd started. I arrived just in time! Stubby’s is set up cafeteria-style… but this ain’t cafeteria food! On a side note, as the counterman was slicing my brisket, he picked up a burnt end (in my opinion, the pinnacle of good barbecue) with his knife, and I thought “Oh boy! I’m going to get some burnt ends, too!”… right before he turned around and threw it in the garbage! I think I actually gasped out loud. It’s just as well, as I couldn’t even finish what actually did come with the Ultimate Platter: pulled pork, ham, brisket and a huge rib, along with beans, coleslaw and a drink (I think I had root beer). It was breathtaking! I skipped the pickles. After a lackluster dinner at a non-descript Mexican restaurant near my hotel in Murfressboro, AR, that night and a decent lunch at a regional Mexican chain restaurant in Oklahoma the next day, I made my next Roadfood-worthy stop for dinner at the legendary Cattlemen’s Steakhouse in Oklahoma City, OK. The restaurant is located literally right next door to the city’s stockyards. Are you my dinner? Let’s go inside, shall we? Cattlemen’s has a fancy dining room and a more casual café. Because I was dressed in a T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes, and because I was traveling solo, I chose the café side. A word to the squeamish: if bizarre, disgusting foods make you queasy, you may want to skip the next photo. Now, Cattlemen’s is justifiably famous for its steaks… but it’s also well known for another dish: lamb fries. I hadn’t intended to get any until I saw the guys next to me get an order… and they looked good! I heard they tasted a little like oysters, which I don’t particularly care for, but I figured I probably was never going to have a chance to try them again, so I went for it. And they were awesome! Oh, for the uninitiated… lamb fries are sheep testicles, sliced then, breaded, deep fried and served with lemon and a savory marinara dipping sauce. Normally I wouldn’t order a salad (I know, I know…), but one was included with my dinner. I had read online that the house dressing was the dressing to get… and it was! This mayonnaise-and-cheese-based dressing was amazing! But this was the main attraction! One of the top three steaks I’ve ever eaten, hands down. By the time I was finished with all that, I was completely stuffed. The waitress asked if I wanted dessert, and I said no… then she said the magic words: coconut cream pie. How on Earth was I supposed to resist that? I’m happy to say that, even though I was filled to capacity, it was just as tremendous as the rest of the meal. If I ever pass through this way again, Cattlemen’s is definitely on my “must do” list! Up next: more Oklahoma restaurants, then north to Kansas and Nebraska.

Man, that's awesome! Just the insurance/permits/fire safety standards needed to open something like this to the public in a private residence (not to mention getting an "OK" from the wife...) is daunting; he did all that plus made a kick-butt-looking ride! That's something I'd absolutely love to do someday, but probably never will.

I've been a part of the ChrisHanKwanSivus Gift Exchange since year one, and I'm not stopping now! I enjoy: 1960s-80s Disney park-related items Regional specialty foods World's Fair items Dark rides Anything travel-related Thanks for doing this again, Brandy!

My family and I really enjoy the shows and entertainment at SFA Fright Fest, and we attend every year because we have season passes. But if you're more interested in scare mazes and in-your-face frights, yeah, there are better places to go within the region, most of which have already been named.

If they're anything like the ladies of dubious virtue I see around here, "headless" is an improvement! Thanks, Chuck, for the photos and Netdvn for the reviews!

Does that mean Gatekeeper divorced Keymaster?

This announcement is not about Six Flags America getting 10 new roller coasters including a mega-lite; therefore, this announcement sucks!!!11!!!!1!! Come on, people! I think this is great news! I served on a focus group at SFA a couple years ago. The two things everyone in the group agreed on was that the park needed a family coaster to bridge the gap between The Great Chase and Wild One, and it needed an annual holiday event. Now, half of those needs are being met. Plus I like flyers, so that's a bonus! Now, if only they would add a shooting dark ride.... I know I'm setting myself up for another round of flames, but as I seem to say in this thread at least once a year, SFA really took great strides to reinvent itself as a family-friendly park a few years ago, and the fruits of that labor have ripened. A spinning mouse and a new flat ride are excellent fits for the "new" SFA.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to update this thread as much as I would have liked to this summer... but I have a good excuse! I've been busy traveling and doing "research" for upcoming posts! In the meantime, we're back in Niagara Falls. Enjoy! Later, we stopped at Schwabl’s in West Seneca, NY, for our second dinner of the evening (well, my second… Kelly and Lauryn’s first). The inside was dark, but homey. Even the napkins looked old-fashioned! But we weren’t here for the napkins. We were here for the… little article to the right of the magazine cover, proclaiming Schwabl’s beef on weck as one of “America’s 10 Tastiest Sandwiches.” But first… appetizers! Kelly and Lauryn had never sampled poutine before, so we split an order. For the uninitiated, poutine is French fries smothered with beef gravy and cheese curds. Yum! Lauryn decided to get a cup of chili and a side of mozzarella sticks for her dinner. By the time she finished the chili and her share of the poutine, however, she didn’t have room for the fried cheese, so Kelly and I sampled them, then Kelly took the rest to our hotel and had them for breakfast the next day. The sticks themselves were standard… but the sauce they came with was amazing! No plain marinara there. The waitress later told us it was a combination of hot sauce, mayonnaise and horseradish. Getting back to that beef on weck… the sandwich is thin-sliced roast beef on a kimmelweck roll (a sturdy roll topped with lots of salt). In the background are German potato salad and a vinegar-based coleslaw that I really enjoyed. In the middle is a single pickled beet slice, which tasted exactly like the ones my grandmother used to make. Horseradish is the condiment of choice for beef on weck. Schwabl’s serves it in these unique containers, with little spoons inside, so patrons may add as little or as much as they wish. The next morning, we finally made it to Niagara Falls! (Actually, we went the night before, as well, to see the falls lit up, but my photos from then weren’t that great.) Inside the visitors center, a candy store used jelly beans to emulate the rainbow appearance of the falls at night. After a ride on the “Maid of the Mist,” a boat that takes tourists on a close-up view of the falls, we retired to Tonawanda, NY, where we had lunch at this outpost of the local Ted’s Hot Dogs franchise. Ted’s has long been a Buffalo area tradition. My office manager, who grew up in Buffalo, highly recommended it. Taking advice from online reviews, Kelly and I each got an order of onion rings, which were good at first, but kind of started just tasting like grease about halfway through. Just about the only hot dog Kelly enjoys anymore is Nathan’s Famous, and then only sporadically, so she opted for a “sea dog,” AKA a fish sandwich in the shape of a hot dog. Lauryn got the double cheeseburger, and I ordered up a pair of chili dogs, which were tremendous! The charcoal-broiled flavor really came through. In the cups at the right is local favorite loganberry juice, which I enjoyed so much I got a second cup to go. It tasted like liquid blueberries. Afterward, we stopped at the Tim Horton’s next door for dessert. The next weekend, I went with my parents to visit my grandmother in Westminster, MD, for Mother’s Day. My aunt made reservations for the family at Parks Landing. Some background on this restaurant: We also dined here last Mother’s Day, when I was on the diet that helped me lose over 100 pounds. About the only thing on the menu I could have was grilled tilapia, and when it came out, it was grilled all right… the fish was paper-thin and stuck to the metal plate it came on. I ended up having to send it back, and the replacement dish was only slightly more edible. However, it’s convenient to where my grandmother lives, and since she’s unable to travel long distances, we came back again. This was either cream of crab soup or wallpaper paste with jagged shards of crab shell in it; I’m leaning toward the latter. At least the bread was OK. This is a crab fluff, which is supposedly one of Parks Landing’s specialties. Basically, it’s a crab cake battered and deep fried. Only I think after they deep fried this one, they accidentally dropped it in somebody’s gym bag because it tasted for all the world like dirty socks. I took two bites and couldn’t eat anymore. The French fries, on the other hand, were fine… or at least they would have been had they been cooked the same day I ordered them. Based on their temperature at the time they arrived at the table, I’m guessing the restaurant, in an effort to keep up with potential Mother’s Day demand, made a big batch of them around Thursday and just kind of left them in the kitchen all weekend in anticipation of the big day. So Parks Landing is 0-for-2… and I’ll probably end up back there again next Mother’s Day, anyway. Maybe I’ll have a late lunch somewhere else that day and just get dessert. Because for all its faults (and there were a LOT of them), the restaurant’s dessert menu was out of this world. I would gladly have taken seconds on this chocolate lava cake instead of my gym-sock crab fluff. On Memorial Day weekend, I traveled to my hometown of Crisfield, MD, to help run the annual benefit bike ride that I started in 2008 and have written about before in this thread and others. I stayed over an extra day to attend the Crisfield Lioness-Lions Club’s 20th annual Soft Shell Spring Fair. Normally it’s held here, at the City Dock; however, since the dock is still in the process of being rebuilt post-Hurricane Sandy, the festival was moved up one block this year. I think I’ve posted a photo of Smith Island cake elsewhere in this thread. If I haven’t (or if you just don’t feel like going back and looking), it’s basically comprised of very thin layers of cake (usually 7 to 10) alternating with very thin layers of icing, fruit-infused pudding or ganache. As tasty as it is, I didn’t opt for a slice on this day. But I did stand in line for a soft crab sandwich. Again, for those who don’t feel like going back in the thread to read the prior descriptions, a soft crab sandwich normally consists of a couple of whole crabs dredged in a light batter and deep fried, served on white bread. Unlike hard crabs, soft crabs are small and have paper-thin, edible shells. And they are delicious! Six days later, I met my parents at another local event, the 38th annual Fairmount Academy 1800s Festival, held to celebrate the founding of this building, a former school that closed when school districts were realigned to comply with segregation laws in 1969. Inside, visitors get to see a recreation of what the classroom once may have looked like, some experts believe, perhaps. This is the fire escape at the adjacent meeting hall and auditorium. Back then, they knew how to make life-threatening emergencies fun! But this is the reason the festival is being included in the roadfood thread. Yum! Though I must say, as good as it was, the strawberry shortcake didn’t taste quite the same as I remembered it from when I last attended the 1800s festival 10-15 years ago. I guess they’ve gotten a fresh crop of berries in since then. Next up: A couple stops in Delaware, then a driving tour through the South and Midwest!

Larry, I don't know if this is considered "new," but in researching my upcoming trip to Washington/Oregon, I discovered that Oaks in Portland has closed Lewis and Clark: The Big Adventure as of this season. Sadly, that was my main reason for including Oaks on the itinerary. Sigh.

Another vote for the Red Roof in Danville. I stayed there last weekend, and it's been refurbished since my 2008 visit (not that there was anything wrong with it then; it was just a little old). I've also stayed at the Days Inn in Danville, which is very nice and has a few more amenities, including a pool and exercise room.

That Big Dipper looks really special. I wonder if anyone ever stepped up to try to save it.

This looks awesome! The Disney ships have really taken a giant step forward since I sailed with them a decade ago. So was the Disneyland sandcastle smaller than all the others?

But what else could you possibly need?

At first, I thought that was a really fun retrospective video, and I was happy to see Busch Gardens putting so much effort into celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Loch Ness Monster. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it was just a three-minute-long commercial for the park's 2013 refillable cup.

I approve of this thread!

It’s springtime again, and that means it’s time to revive the roadfood thread. Enjoy! In April, I was sent to the Baltimore area for a morning-long work conference. Afterward, I contemplated going back to sample the ribs at Andy Nelson’s Southern Pit Barbecue, but then I remembered that when I posted my Andy Nelson’s report, Dave advised that it was The Corner Stable that actually had the best ribs in the Baltimore area. Since that’s just down the street from Andy Nelson’s (and lunch was on the office that day, assuming I turned in my receipt), I decided to give it a shot. I think the phrase that best describes the interior décor is “Dark with Christmas decorations… in April.” Though I didn’t particularly need an appetizer, I couldn’t not try the pulled pork fritters. They were OK, but I didn’t particularly care for the sauce they came with. And then it hit me: What if that was the same sauce they used on the ribs? Unfortunately, it was. I like sweet ribs, but these were just a little too sweet for me, and they had an aftertaste… I want to call it “vinegary,” but I’m not sure that’s exactly right… that I didn’t like. Of course, that doesn’t mean I didn’t finish the entire plate…. So in summation, I wouldn’t necessarily call these “Baltimore’s best ribs,” but apparently I’m in the minority. As this framed letter notes, the ribs are imported from Denmark, which I found a little strange, as well, but hey, pig meat is pig meat! For dessert, I drove a little further up the road, back to the Pennsylvania Dutch Market, to pick up some of those amazing doughnuts. This time, they also offered fried pies! The most unique flavor was called “snit,” a combination of apple butter, apple sauce and spices that apparently is quite popular on the Amish church dinner circuit. How could I not try one? It was… different. A little tart, but not bad. I’m excited to go back and try different flavors (apple, cherry, blueberry, strawberry, etc.) in the future. Speaking of pig meat, I once again attended the annual Pork in the Park in Salisbury, MD. It’s been covered in this thread a couple times already, and I didn’t really eat anything different there this year than I have in the past, so I won’t repeat the details. However, this year’s 10th annual event did feature one unique event that I thought may be of interest: a chicken wing eating contest with Joey Chestunt and Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas! That’s them in the center-ish. Unfortunately, I was busy running a beer tent on the other side of the pond from where the stage was, so this slightly blurry zoomed-in photo was the best I could manage. In early May, I surprised Kelly and Lauryn with a weekend trip to Niagara Falls. Kelly doesn’t have a passport, and taking Lauryn across international borders is… let’s just say not worth the hassle… so we were limited to the New York side. Which, as it turned out, was fine, especially since they were able to see all they wanted to see from the “Maid of the Mist” boat ride (and I’d already seen it years earlier, thanks to TPR). On the way, we stopped for dinner at Nick Tahou’s Hots in Rochester, NY. This is the inside. I thought the vintage candy machine against the back wall was really cool. Not pictured is the only other patron in the restaurant at the time walked in, a homeless lady sitting next to a garbage bag filled with all her worldly possessions, ranting into a cell phone. So what is this “garbage plate” thing, anyway? Well, it’s a layer of homefries, topped with a layer of macaroni salad, topped with a layer of Texas hot wieners, topped with a layer of onions, topped with a layer chili. I really liked it. Kelly took two bites and declared it the most disgusting thing I ever made her eat. Lauryn refused to touch it. Curious, I also tried a Rochester white hot with the works (i.e. mustard and onion). I liked it even better than the garbage plate! Unfortunately, Kelly declared this the unabashed low point of the trip. The clientele who walked up to the counter after us seemed to underscore that this was a “ghetto” hangout… until a very preppy high school softball team came in as we were leaving. Kelly said the bathroom “looked like a murder scene from ‘Friday the 13th’.” Lauryn refused to eat anything in the restaurant, including a candy bar from the machine. Obviously, they don’t know good roadfood when they see it. Fortunately, things went a lot better at our next stop, Parkside Candy in Buffalo, NY. The current location of this candy and ice cream shop opened in the 1930s, and nothing much has changed inside since then. A portion of the baseball movie “The Natural” was filmed here. The big draw at Parkside Candy is sponge candy, a confection not found much in the United States outside upstate New York region, but very popular elsewhere in the world. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary chocolate. The inside, however, reveals its unique filling. For those who aren’t familiar with sponge candy, it’s kind of like a square of super-hardened cotton candy enrobed in chocolate, and it more or less dissolves upon coming into contact with your tongue. If you’ve ever had a Cadbury Crunchie bar, that’s pretty much it (though the Parkside version didn’t really get stuck in my teeth the way Crunchie bars tend to). Coming up: more Niagara Falls-area restaurants and two kinds of fried crab meat.

Big Mike, if you buy me a $7,000 trip to China, I promise I will never cheat on you!

Wow, this was awesome! I tried every way I could think of to justify flying down to Orlando just for this daytrip, and I just couldn't make it work. Thanks for sharing so those of us on the "other side" could have a glimpse at what we missed!

Wow, that was cool! Hard to believe the countdown clock is that big. Thanks, Robb!

^In that case, I have another treat for you! Long time readers of this thread might recognize this restaurant -- or at least the building that it's in. Fat Daddy's BBQ opened in 2012 in the structure vacated by La Placita, noted earlier on here as one of my favorite restaurants. As much as I still miss La Placita, I'm always game to try new barbecue restaurants. Unfortunately, this one opened just as I began my quest around this time last year to lose 100 pounds, and given the performance of other restaurants at this location, I feared I might not have the chance to sample its offerings. Well, earlier today, that year-long wait ended... and the food was well worth it! Enjoy this short (but tasty) report! With the exception of the addition of a bunch of flags and a new sign, this part of the building looks pretty much the same as it did when La Placita was here. This part doesn't! Like Gaston, Fat Daddy uses antlers in all of his decorating. But when the food's this good, the decor really doesn't matter. I'm not a huge fan of Carolina-style pulled pork (I prefer red sauce over the vinegar-based Carolina sauce), but I really liked Fat Daddy's version. The fries were hand cut and fresh, and the homemade peppery red sauce on the table was great, as well. The restaurant also makes its own lemonade, which struck the perfect balance between sweet and tart. I had two glasses, and the waitress was nice enough to offer a Styrofoam cup so I could take the remainder of the second with me to sip on the way home. I'm back on the diet train next week, once my week-long vacation from work ends, but hopefully I'll be able to make Fat Daddy's an occasional treat in the future... assuming it continues to avoid the curse that befell its predecessors and the doors remain open!

^Thanks, Joey! Glad to know you're enjoying it. The last time I checked in, I mentioned that I would soon be heading to the Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads area. Well, we did that... but plans changed quite a bit from the trip's inception, and instead of basing our adventure in Norfolk, as we originally had intended, we ended up in Williamburg to attend our first ever sci-fi convention! It was unique, to say the least, but we enjoyed it enough that Kelly has already decreed we will be attending again next year, and Lauryn has already instructed Kelly to begin creating a Renaissance zombie costume for her. (For what it's worth, Kelly is interested in exploring some sort of steampunk outfit. I, on the other hand, plan to stick with jeans and a sweatshirt.) That said, the convention took away some of the time I had set aside for visiting restaurants. Plus there were other setbacks. The restaurant I was looking forward to the most went out of business unexpectedly a week before our trip (after nearly 60 years of operation--it figures). And we had such a hard time finding parking for another eatery I had hoped to stop at on the way back that we just said "screw it" and went to IHOP instead. So all told, we ended up at exactly one Roadfood restaurant on our weekend trip, and that was an off-hours, between-meals stop I insisted upon. But it was good! Enjoy! First Roadfood of 2013: Doumar's Barbecue in Norfolk, VA. Of course he did. Guy didn't sign the wall at this place as he did the restaurants we visited in Maine, but he did autograph a poster for them. Doumar's has both traditional drive-in curb service and an indoor dining room. Given that temperatures were in the high 30s, we opted for indoor seating. Doumar's' claim to fame is that its founder also allegedly invented the ice cream cone at the 1904 World's Fair. Now, if you follow this thread regularly (like Joey), you may be wondering the same thing I did: How can Doumar's claim its founder invented the ice cream cone when E.B. Hobbs in Salem Willows, MA, claims its founders invented the ice cream cone? The answer is actually pretty simple (and spelled out on a brochure I picked up at Doumar's): There were three parties involved in inventing the ice cream cone: the Hobbs founders (who provided either the ice cream or the cone--that part's a little fuzzy), the guy who provided whichever component the Hobbs founders didn't, and Mr. Doumar, a souvenir paperweight vendor who came up with the idea of getting all these crazy kids together in the first place. At any rate, Mr. Doumar got out of the paperweight business, took the ice cream cone idea to Coney Island after the fair, invented this four-cone waffle press and then spent the rest of his life franchising Doumar's Ice Cream locations to family members throughout the East Coast. The Norfolk location, built in 1949 (but opened earlier, in a different building), is the last one left. With all that history, you would think we would have gotten ice cream cones... but alas, we were more interested in the shakes. My cherry, on the left, was OK (I also sampled a hand-mixed cherry soda, which was pretty horrible). Lauryn said her banana, on the right, was great; I'll take her word for it since I generally don't like banana-flavored foods. Kelly's orange freeze, on the other hand--orange juice with orange sherbet, topped with whipped cream and a cherry--was out of this world, and I'm definitely getting one for myself the next time we're at Doumar's (and there will be a next time). It also was the only one any of us could drink through a straw--for the most part, what Lauryn and I got were big glasses of soft-serve ice cream. Kelly and Lauryn both got cheeseburgers to go with their shakes. I tried a small bite of Kelly's--it was the best of the three cheeseburgers I sampled that weekend, but still just OK. The barbecue, on the other hand, was great! Not quite competition level, but still very, very good. And the slaw on top was just enough to accent the porkiness of the sandwich without getting in the way. I definitely plan on ordering this again. Thanks, Doumar's! We hope to see you again soon!

Oh no! This is even worse than the time Walmart put the wrong kind of ponies on that Bronies shirt! Or something like that.

^Wow, it's depressing to think about what was (or could have been) lost there, but it's good to know work continues. Thanks for the update!

Whether that comes to fruition or not, I don't know if it's such a bad idea. The "Jurassic Park" franchise is two decades old now. Even with the re-releases, etc., there are going to be a number of people down the line who may not be as familiar with the concept as those of us who grew up with the movie are. If Universal is making a large investment and intends for the Jurassic Park area to continue serving another 10-20 years, adding a dark ride to provide background on just what this place is (essentially a rehash of the plot of the first movie) would be a nice way to keep the theme relevant instead of just having guests wander into "Generic Dino Land," which is what Jurassic Park essentially becomes without some sort of backstory. Either way, it sounds better than the version of the Discovery Center that's there now.