Skycoastin Steve

Nevermind on this one. I'll be there opening day!

^Sounds great. I won't have a membership for a little while yet, but that'll be a nice feature to have when I do get one.

^That's really weird that they did that. I mean, you were by yourself and they were going to get your money. It's not like you were going to affect their operations negatively by being an adult there. I don't see what the problem was.

Of the ones I rode last weekend, X2 was the best by far, and I'd say the Boomerang was the worst (as always). Can't really include kiddie or junior coasters in there.

Last ride of ERT on Sunday night. Next coaster will be Intimidator on Saturday!

Looks like I get to add Carowinds' opening day to my list of activities. A friend and I are making a day trip out of it, 11 or 12 hours round trip! Should be at Carowinds early afternoon, so hopefully the lines aren't too bad for Intimidator, but it's all good cause that's the only thing we'll be there for.

^I305's drop flattens out and turns before reaching 300 feet, MF's drop goes straight down to 300. The turn would probably make a difference.

It's probably the same jackass that's been doing that on KDFansite. He's a moron. He doesn't realize the laws of physics prevent such speed from occurring. At one point he claimed it was hitting 102 mph, which you would need a 330+ foot free fall to hit.

As long as this thing is open before I go there on June 21 I'll be happy.

SLC transitions are the things nightmares are made of.

Quick question about the Club TPR sig banner. With the park/coaster count, is there actually a tracker built into your Club TPR membership, or do you just input the numbers yourself?

^Thanks for the tips! I'm hoping with my leadfoot syndrome and Knoebel's closing at 10 that night that I'll have a few hours to be able to experience the whole park. -Steve "GhostRider seriously blew me away, and I still don't know what all the fuss is about, it's just a classic CCI!!!" Burant

We (Alabama Adventure) also got a new website design recently. Since we're both owned by AFE, I can imagine that Clementon had the same people working on their site as ours. I absolutely LOVE our new website, but it's missing a park map. And Rampage ain't going anywhere, trust me. That would make about as much sense as selling shots of Jack at a preschool graduation.

After you're done with that weaksauce of a marathon on a smooth B&M, come down to Alabama and marathon Rampage. You might be wishing you had bare knuckle boxed Mike Tyson afterward. All joking aside, good luck. Marathons are fun!

Yes, I can't help it. Did you go to West Coast Bash?

^Wow, that must have happened right after I rode it. I was able to get on after 10 while there were still some straggling GPers in the queue. Thankfully we got there at the start of ERT, otherwise I would have missed that credit.

Won't be there on opening day, but I'll be there Easter Sunday!

That's me in the front left seat!

^Dragged me through the mud. < Coming up with a payback method. V Ham sammich!

^Sure didn't. We got into Ontario a LOT later than anticipated on Thursday night, so we couldn't do Scandia that night. Since I REALLY didn't want to miss Scandia, we changed our Friday plans up a bit to skip Legoland and do Scandia instead. As it turned out, it also provided the opportunity to drive up I-15 in the daytime, which was breathtaking. Legoland will be on the itinerary next time!

When was this? I visited Adventure City twice in 2009 without kids and didnt have that issue. It was on 11/7/09. I'm glad the two of you had better luck than I did. I now wonder why they hassled me so much. It's not that big of a deal since I am never going to go there again, not because of what happened but just because I have no reason too. It still seems strange to me though. I was getting ready to tell the guy about how we were enthusiasts who flew 3,000 miles to ride as many coasters as we could, but I never had to. He was actually unusually excited to give us our tickets.

Alright here are the pictures, and as before, they are just the highlights. I've made my facebook albums public for anyone who would like to look through all of them (in two albums, there are 288 pictures). The pics for Friday are here, and the pics from both days of WCB are here. Enjoy! Belmont was the first stop of the trip! My first time in the Pacific, it's REALLY cold! Pretty setting for Giant Dipper, or as I like to call it from this picture, Palm Tree: The Coaster. Artistic. Or autistic? Fun old woodie, time to leave! Couldn't make my first trip to California without stopping at an In-N-Out Burger!!! OM NOM NOM NOM!!!!! Park number two, Scandia! Credit! Scandia Screamer goodness, quite a surprising coaster. Nice first drop action, but look closer at the little girls' faces...... AAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Quick stop at the Hollywood Sign, the most difficult place EVAR to get to. Park number three, Pacific Park at Santa Monica Pier! Brought to you by Cedar Fair's coaster naming department. I suppose this makes the ride look intense, but in reality, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood was more exciting than this. Small pop of airtime, so it wasn't a completely worthless ride! Mmmmmm.....sunset. Current desktop background. Nighttime on the pier. See ya later! Yay! Now where's the moose? X2, first credit at SFMM and also the best! Pretty Sky Tower shot. Tatsu, another very high quality credit on the trip. I suppose the only way to get away from killer, bloodthirsty robots is to ride a GCI coaster. Works for me! Sexy fan turn. Note the guy in the 2nd row giving me thumbs up. If that guy is reading this trip report, you are awesome! Flying above the trees. Looping sun action on Viper. Dirt: The Coaster! Track for Dirt: The Coaster! Déjà Vu, in all of its closed glory. Double lift tower action. Not a typical view you get to see of Batman. Monstrous looping action on Riddler. I think my head was about 4 feet below the track, and it was REALLY loud. More loop action on Scream! I like shots like these. B&Ms always look beautiful, even ones that sit in a parking lot and have a putrid color scheme. A photo of the on-ride photo cameras. Even a lame ride like Superman can look good with palm trees in front of it (wait for the Boomerang pictures). Parking Lot: The Coaster! Revolution doing its thing. Had to wait till almost closing to ride Riddler, the line was nuts! GOLIATH There I am with the Skycoaster! Great shot of Terminator. People can fly! Taken before going up in the Sky Tower. Loved the skyline. Double Arrow lift hill action FTW! A series of sunset pictures. Pretty. Goliath almost looks like Millennium Force in this shot. And X2 looks like Eejanaika. Strange. Foggy morning at Knott's! Knott's is a place where dinner walks around the parking lot area. LOVED the entrance. Overbanked turn on an invert, what a great element. Chain lift of the Calico Mine Ride. Part 2 of "Palm Trees Can Make the Lamest Coasters Look Awesome" S&S tower inside of Boomerang, coaster porn!! Supreme Scream during morning ERT. Upskirt shot of Supreme Scream. S&S tower porn! Back spike awesomeness. Spinning coasters are always great fun. I mean look how much fun they're having! Pony Express, not fun like Sierra Sidewinder. In fact, I think the question from Q&A that said kiddie coasters were more forceful was dead on balls accurate (to quote My Cousin Vinny). My favorite logo at either park. Seriously, this coaster kicked so much ass it wasn't even funny. Had some rough spots, but nothing too bad. I approved! The cinnamon bun from heaven. OM NOM NOM NOM! Wonderfully intense helix. Wonderfully smooth corkscrew. Upskirt shot of the first drop. More coaster porn! Launch track goodness. So bummed that I couldn't get this credit, but now it gives me reason to go back! SKLOOSH! I wonder if that's an acceptable amount of wetness...... 100th credit for Jen!!!! I will now type 100 invisible letters in honor of her 100th credit Finally, a little sun to make my picture taking life a little easier A cool view of the cobra roll, and the last picture. Check out my facebook albums for the rest!

Ok here it is, my West Coast Bash experience! Since it would take me wayyyy too long to include everything from the trip, I'll just try to highlight the parts of my own experience that were unique to everyone else's. Most everyone here knows the big stuff that happened at WCB, so I'll show you guys the stuff we did away from WCB and then a few of my favorite shots from the two fun-filled days of the Bash. On Friday, we went to Belmont Park, Scandia, and Pacific Park, as well as the Hollywood sign. I also had my first taste of In-N-Out Burger, which was AMAZING!!! The Giant Dipper was a pleasant surprise and a quality wooden coaster for being so old, and the Scandia Screamer was NUTS! Back row in that thing was one of the more terrifying ride experiences ever, if only for fear of losing my head! The Santa Monica Pier was a very nice setting for sunset, and we had dinner at Ye Olde King’s Head Shoppe, which served probably the best fish and chips I’ve ever had. Saturday was obviously Magic Mountain day, and despite a chilly morning, the ERT was fantastic! We got two cycles on X2, which was a mind-blowing coaster in my opinion (it’s now my #3 steel coaster). After that we got a donut and went to Tatsu for a couple cycles. Then we went back and grabbed our only cycle of the day on Viper, which really wasn’t as rough as I expected. Then we finished ERT with three straight cycles on Terminator (after seeing the preshow, of course). Once the floodgates opened and the GP poured in, we did what we could to get credits during the day, and if memory serves, we were able to get everything except Déjà Vu and Superman during operating hours. Our behind the scenes tour around the Déjà Vu, Terminator, Riddler’s Revenge, and Batman areas was a great opportunity to take some terrific pictures. The Q&A session was great, I always like hearing about behind the scenes stuff at other parks, and I was rather surprised at the candor showed by management on both days (as well as some pretty good humor thrown in there). For dinner we left the park and went to El Torito, which was pure Mexican awesomeness, but it tore my stomach to shreds for the rest of the night. But in true enthusiast form, I soldiered on for the last four hours until midnight! Nighttime ERT was excellent, we picked up the Déjà Vu, Superman, and 2nd side of Colossus for our last credits of the day, and also rode Terminator, Tatsu, X2, Revolution, and Goliath one more time each before leaving for the night. All in all it was an unbelievably fun day, and I couldn’t have been happier. My only criticism is still the operators doing a little too much pumping up of the crowd after the trains are ready for dispatch (as they did at SFOG), but since by all accounts they are cycling faster than they used to, I suppose it’s still a work in progress. Knott’s was also another fun day, albeit a different kind of fun than Magic Mountain was. Since they don’t have quite the coaster selection that SFMM does, we were able to enjoy the park a little more than on Saturday when we were credit whoring to the max. After a small alarm clock snafu, we got to the park a little later than planned, but still on time to get some ERT on Montezooma’s Revenge and Jaguar, which was a nice way to wake up. I really love shuttle loops. They’re so simple yet so awesome! After picking up a few more credits and riding the log ride, we went to the bakery near GhostRider and got a cinnamon bun, which was undoubtedly the culinary highlight of the trip for me. That thing was like cinnamon sex on a paper plate! Anywho….we got every credit except Silver Bullet before lunch (for good reason), and after our delicious fried chicken lunch, we left the park to run over to Adventure City and get their two kiddie credits. It was a pretty silly little park, but it was all about the credits! After getting back to Knott’s, we rode Silver Bullet, which would be my friend’s 100th credit! Excitement! As with SFMM, the Q&A session was very interesting and informative, and once again I was impressed with management as they were both VERY funny and serious about the more serious matters. Although I’m admittedly not a big Haunt person, the Haunt presentation was neat to see. After that we basically just jumped around from ride to ride getting extra cycles. GhostRider was running AMAZINGLY that day, almost to the point where I don’t get what all the hate is for. They did a spectacular job rehabbing the track, as I can only recall one really rough patch (no worse than any other wooden coaster). Silver Bullet was also another big surprise, and I’m not exactly sure why people call it forceless, because there are two overbanked turns WITH AIRTIME, and a ridiculously intense helix at the end. It’s now my #3 invert behind Montu and Alpengeist. We got two rides on Silver Bullet, one on Sierra Sidewinder, and four on GhostRider during nighttime ERT, and it was time to say goodbye to Knott’s! For this being my first trip to the west coast and obviously my first trip to these parks, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience than what I had. It’s one of the best weekends I’ve had in ages, and I wish I could go back! Thanks to Robb, Elissa, SFMM and KBF management and employees, and anyone else who had a hand in the wonderful success that was West Coast Bash! Pictures to come in the next post!

Two friends and I were almost killed on Zoombabwe at Holiday World (OK, not literally, but figuratively). When we hit the splash pool at the end, the front end of the raft dipped straight down into the water and launched all three of us forward. I knocked heads extremely hard with one of them, and the third hit his temple on my knee and was almost knocked out cold. While it was a great slide, the ending wasn't.

I just want to say that my first trip out west to these parks was an absolute pleasure because of the Bash. Thanks to Robb, Elissa, and anyone else who was involved in making this event happen, it was a smashing success! Photo TR coming at some point when I feel up to the task.