larrygator

The last day of my trip started at SFFT, home of two coasters that I was highly anticipating, Batman: The Ride and Iron Rattler. Both coasters delivered. I was not planning to spend a lot of time at the park since this was my fourth trip to SFFT. I have always enjoyed this park, but the oppressive heat, crowds and 6 days on the road had me a lot worn down. Also, I had a little more eating to do. Not too far from San Antonio is Lockhart, a small town that holds the nickname of "The Barbecue Capital of Texas". Of course I had to detour to Lockhart to sample some brisket. Smittys, Black's and Kreuz Market compete for for the title of BBQ king. I knew I would only be able to sample two places (without exploding) and Smitty's happened to be closed My apologies for the SFFT portion of this update being short on photos as my battery drained really quick on this day. I do really like seeing Batman, I mean Goliath at the front of a park. Speaking of Batman, one of the reasons I'm here. It was about a 30 minute wait, even heading right there right after opening. I really loved the ride and wish I could have ridden more than one time. Luckily these things all over the park really helped with the sun, Unfortunately, SFGAdv removed made of the shades from their queues. And it was nice to see one of the best themed flats still around. Themed ice cream at Cold Stone. It is nice to see some uniqueness at parks within a big chain like these souvenir drink bottles. Cool, I arrived in Crackaxle Canyon, now where is that dang Iron Rattler. Oh there it is, ain't it purdy. It was projected to be a 20-30 minute wait, but they had to remove one of the trains right after I got in line and it turned into almost an hour wait, and that hour wait would exist until I left the park. I got two rides and liked the Iron Rattler better than New Texas Giant and slightly more than Wicked Cyclone. Outlaw Law is my favorite of the 4 RMCs I have ridden. I left the park for lunch at a highly recommended hole in the wall Mexican place. My name is not Adam Roth, but I had to take a picture a what a bathroom looks like at a no frills eatery. That shower curtain is for the stall. Extremely bland, but clean interior. However, the food blew me away. 32 ounce Mexican coke, 3 Carne Asada tacos (only two pictured), rice, beans and complimentary chips/salsa. All for less than $8. I would eat here all the time if I lived in the area. However, I had to back to the park for one more ride on Iron Rattler. After my second ride on Iron Rattler I stopped in the games area because it felt 20 degrees cooler under those shades. Then I bought a bucket of balls of rescued Wile Coyote who was hanging from the roof. Now I had to get on the road to make in to Lockhart before the BBQ joints closed. This is Black's Big menu boards with many items were a little overwhelming but a friendly worker was walking through the line offering help and suggestions. Another menu board. Black's and Kreuz are both known for their homemade sausage so I knew was going to get sausage in addition to brisket at both places. This is Black's carving station where they cut my awesome brisket (lean tender juicy, flavorful) and garlic sausage. Here is my brisket This is Kreuz Market and unfortunately I was not impressed. Kreuz follows some strict traditions which I forgot about and ordered improperly. The workers get upset if you don't know the traditions and I screwed up. They did not find that endearing. Here is the cooking area, which you are supposed to enter first to get your meat. I mucked things up walking around in the wrong order, I went to sides and drinks first. I was gruffly corrected but unfortunately there were out of brisket, so I tried their sausage and german potato salad. My sausage is grilling on that stone top. Then I made the mistake of asking for a fork, and I was laughed at. Then I remembered they expect you to eat everything but the sides with your hands. The sausage was extremely flavorful but I was really disappointed in the German Potato Salad, maybe it was because it was really late in the day, but it tasted liked something was missing. And here's the piece of junk Chevy Spark that served as my ride for this 2,985 mile journey.

The business is cyclical. So many of today's large US parks were started in a 15 year span 1961-1975. The creation of these parks forced a lot of smaller parks out of business. As people have said there at not many under served areas for amusement parks especially in the age when Americans don't consider it a big deal to drive 2-3 hours to go to a large park. Even cities like New Orleans, Memphis and Nashville that don't have parks would probably be more likely to see smaller parks built.

From what I have heard, I don't think anyone benefits from staying on-site. Well, they do get an extra 3 hours of ERT once the park closes to the public. But yeah, I've read the horror stories on here. But with everything, you hear the good more than you do the bad, and I must say, as busy as the park was, people were getting off the rides smiling and cheering. I guess three hours of slow operations on painful or boring rides is better than three hours in your room at Mt. Olympus. Although I could imagine 3 hours on their go-karts would be nice with the right crowd.

I was just surprised the area was not over run with bees.

I loved the area too for its peaceful nature, just a quiet shady place to walk through, but you are right beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I just consider beautiful lakefront to have a different color lake and more diverse collection of trees.

When does the Fairy Godmother arrive with the money to pay for the proposed huge capital improvements?

From what I have heard, I don't think anyone benefits from staying on-site.

I'm also sad to lose a dark ride (or two), but happy that the locals are getting another coaster.

It's not so much the ride for me. It's the location. Wasting the wonderful lakefront for a ride they could really make room for anywhere else, and then save lakefront for a flagship style ride. Sorry, but the lakefront isn't that beautiful. It's nice but not beautiful. Also, the land has already been wasted for over 20 years.

I completely last track of time and was over an hour behind schedule leaving Albuquerque. My motel was a 3.5 hour drive after Western Playland and I really wanted to arrive prior to 1AM. I was also concerned about what time Western Playland would close their ticket booth. Luckily, the drive was a breeze with little traffic or construction until right before arriving in the El Paso area. In the end, I arrived at Western Playland right at 7PM and the gates were still open. It was still sunny and in the 90s when I arrived and I quickly got all 4 credits out of the way in 30 minutes. Around this time the sun was going down along with the temperature so I decided to stick around and ride some flats, since I don't ride many on this trip. By 8:30 I got a little windy and all the flats were lit up and the park looked great with the lights. I'm realy glad I got to experience this park late in the day. For those that don't know the park is pretty much a big circle, but the only ride in the middle is the park train. And quite frankly this is the second place I located on my trip that would be a PERFECT place for an Intamin Mega Lite. OK I made it 2 hours before closing, quite a few cars in the lot, hoping there are not lines. I rode this at SCBB, so I wait til last to ride this. I have always enjoyed Windstorms. El Bandido was the first coaster I rode, although I felt like I had already ridden it. Is the cupola supposed to resemble a sombrero, or is it just me. The is the 3rd SBF Spinning Coaster I've ridden in the past month, I love the amount of spinning you can get especially when unbalanced. KaChing Drop Zone was fun The place came alive at night Love the RockStar but not a fan of the OTSR and hard plastic seats. The rides appear more majestic at dusk It was fun riding the YoYo as the wind picked up. But unfortunately this opens happens if it gets too windy. Now look at that big empty area behind the WP Express You can see the empty space here all the way to the Sky Glider. It is just screaming for a Mega-Lite I asked the Dippin Dots girl. She agreed it would be awesome, but she would not confirm a future Mega-Lite. I asked her to bring it up with management.

Sorry, there are no single riders lines except for X-treme Challenge. I wish there were for the coasters.

Did someone from Premier show up at the park?

I watched the online trailers/teasers so I feel like I'm vested now.

4 more weeks until Heroes Reborn. September 24th.

I would imagine the maintenance people find it quite amusing and just leave it there.

I think that was 1/2 off (19.96 Vs 45?) This is 7 instead of 45-50? Freestyle Park had a 2 for $17.76 special most of their last season.

My bad, still catching up from my vacation

It's Germany, they probably invented some super plastic polymer wrap that then can easier spray with water and a special additive to dissolve the wrap instantly.

Boulder Dash is in its own tier for CCIs, with Shivering Timbers just below I would put Timber Terror, Tremors, New Mexico Rattler, Tonnere de Zues, Silver Comet and Cornball Express in the next tier. Although I have not ridden some of these in years and have heard some don't give the same ride as when I rode.

I've never had this happen with a major ride, sometimes it happens to me with a dark ride, but never with a major ride.

The press release states "latest phase", not "final phase", but I can't say for certain what the reality is.

I have to admit I'm a huge TexMex fan and actually prefer good TexMex over brisket so I decided to skip brisket for the day. In the end, this was not a good decision in Albuquerque. I started to day at Cliffs and then also wanted to sample a few highly rated and/or popular TexMex places. The stop at Cliffs went great. I really enjoyed New Mexico Rattler once it warmed up a little, I can certainly see why this was once considered on the the premier wooden coasters. What I really liked about the park layout was how they placed a couple of rides in NM Rattler's turnaround to maximize space. The crowds were mild (afternoons in August will do that in the Southwest) and well behaved. I was planning to meet Brad Roach at the park, but he just happened to plan a trip to my neighborhood while I was in his hood, but this guy reminded me of him. The main reason I'm here. At one point in time there were only 7 or 8 wooden coasters in the US left for me to ride, after this trip I still need to ride about 10. This pathway leads you over one of the coaster's tunnels. To maximize space, the Sky Flyer is housed in one of the turnarounds. The drop tower is within another turnaround Sidewinder is on a pad near this water, I didn't ride because I was in a hurry. The other coaster at Cliff's is Galaxi mmmmmm! Turkeys Legs. Oh yea, there's a log flume and small water park also. Kid on a leash, Elissa loves this invention. Fireball about to be destroy by a rogue fireball Pirate ship The Falling Star was not operating Tilt-a-Whirl is a great location I don't recall seeing Oreo Churros before, but this provides a good segue for my food stops. I first attempted to go to Papa Nachos, but like Chick-Fil-A they are closed on Sunday. So I headed to southern Albuquerque (through a congested construction scene) for my next stop The highly rated, take out only El Modelo. I should have kept it simple and stuck with the tacos, but no I had to try the Chorizo Chile Sauce. I expected chorizo bits covered in chile sauce, but it was chile made with ground chorizo, quite different. and with a 20 minute wait it left a bad taste in my mouth so I decided to head back north to a sit down place that gets places values. This is Pinto's a long time institution that is much more formal than the hole in the wall places I prefer. The service here was absolutely horrible (waiting for a menu, waiting for my drink and refill, waiting for my check). As soon as I sat down I heard the couple near me complaining about waiting forever for there check. Noe I have compassion for servers but the place was empty and I only saw my server waiting on one other table. This nacho dish was supposed served at the White House for dignitaries and it was real good. However, the enchiladas I ordered were good but overpriced. Unfortunately all the driving in Albuquerque and waiting for food set me back 90 minutes behind schedule. Now I was concerned whether I would make it to Western Playland in time. I realize parks sometimes close the whole park (or ticket booth early) and knowing how hot it was in the El Paso area I was kicking myself for wasting so much time. Stay tuned to see what happens next. Here's Brad at SFNE while I'm in Albuquerque. Similar, right?

The last time I remember a park discounting this heavily, their coasters ended up in Vietnam.

Europa Park does such a great job maximizing space, yet doesn't feel cramped

Oh, I see what you did there. I was hoping someone would catch at least one of them.