saginawhxc

Oh my god. I think I just found a new goal in life.

Awesome. I may crawl out from under my rock for this.

As an old punk rocker who did this kind of thing many times back in the day I find the idea kind of cool. Not to mention the money saved would be great. That being said I'm not sure how balanced or fair it would be. Those having houses or apartments near major parks would see by far the most traffic, and even within the community I'm not sure how open I would be to having strangers from within such a diverse scene traffic through my house. Even if I'm not sure how well it would work, I still think it's a cool idea.

Took my youngest son (10) to the Point on Thursday. I thought Mean Streak was running the best I've felt it run in years. I think this made it actually an okay-ish ride. Still not great, but better than many I've rode. Blue Streak seemed extra phenomenal this year. Magnum was stellar as usual. Didn't get to ride Millennium as my son passed twice on that one and I didn't push him. Anyways, report to come soon. Just figured I would share this picture I shot on my way out of the park.

Thank you guys for the comments. Sorry I've been slow to reply and update this. Here is a last few shots from 2012. Voyage. Voyage. Legend. Lazy river. Last picture of Voyage.

It was my son's first year this year. I refused to take him till I felt he was old enough to be trusted on his own. I warned him repeatedly that if he wanted to go with me and Voyage became too much for him that he was gonna have to sit and wait by himself. My middle son really wanted to go, but I knew if I took him I would of spent very little time on the coasters and he is not quite as trustworthy to be left on his own inside the park. I spoil my sons with amusement park trips, but they know Holiwood Nights is my personal time.

As an added bonus (or a simple self indulgence) here is a couple from the trip report for last year that I never finished. Love the guy in the first row. Oddly enough I never took any pictures of this spot this year. Wish I had though. Another Raven shot. Awful similar to the one from this year, but probably better. Great structural shot of Legend. Last one from 2011.

My wall is decorated with black and white coaster photos I have taken. I took a few more this year that I think I am gonna replace some of my older ones with. I love walking up to the front gate and seeing this beauty there to greet me. Legends first drop. Voyage from the walk back. More Legend.

I haven't done a trip report in almost a year and a half, but I figured I would post a few pictures I took at Holiwood Nights 2012. As always it was an amazing event. Holiday World puts on a great event. Raven was running great, Legend feels like it might be slightly rougher than the year before but I still feel like it runs way better than people give it credit for, and Voyage was running absolutely AMAZING! The difference between Voyage last year and this year really needs to be felt to be believed. The first couple of valleys have zero hammering now, and the back turn around is glass smooth now. Voyage has always been my favorite ride and I have always thought it wasn't quite as rough as people said, but last year even I started to grudgingly admit she was getting a little on the rough side. Not this year though. I didn't ride it in it's first season, but I have never felt Voyage run this good, fast, or be this re-ridable. It was a little chilly in the water park during our Saturday morning ERT. It was 55 degrees when we entered the park, and rose to about 67 by 10:30 when the park opened to the public. Wildebeest opened at 8 for us, and Mammoth was scheduled to open at 9. While everyone else made a beeline to the breakfast table my son, my friend Alex, and I all headed straight to Wildebeest. With the cool weather and the presence of a breakfast table, we managed to put quite a few Wildebeest rides in that first hour. Mammoth appeared to have some issues and left people stalled on the lift hill for awhile so we continued to ride Wildebeest for a little bit longer, but it didn't take them too long to get people moving again and we headed over to Mammoth. Mammoth felt like a very different ride than Wildebeest. We made two trips through it. One trip had a boat 2/3 full and had moderate spinning, and the next trip had a full boat and the spinning was intense. It made for a very fun ride. The water felt very frigid compared to the water on Wildebeest though, so after two rides we went back over to Wildebeest for the remainder of ERT. During the 2 and a half hours of water park ERT we put in 15 rides on Wildebeest, 2 on Mammoth, 1 on Bakuli, and had breakfast. During the night time coaster ERT on Saturday it rained for a bit. I'm not sure as to how long because I was having so much fun that I think I may of lost track of time. During that time it was raining the rain was pelting my sun burned face hard enough to be borderline painful but Voyage was running the fastest I have ever felt. I think it rained somewhere in the range of about 30 minutes or so, but maybe someone can correct me about this. All in all the weekend was a blast. I put in about 10 rides on Raven, 10 rides on Legend, and 50 rides on Voyage. They also fed us three times, and gave us yummy yummy fudge. The friends I get to see and have good times with are always the star of the show though. My son, who was a first timer at Holiwood Nights this year, said it best when he said "I don't ever want to miss one of these again." My first picture ever of Sparkler. I think it is a nice little addition to the park. Am I the only amused that they are still using the Timberliners? If you want to photograph Raven you pretty much have to only shoot the first drop, or you have to go on the walkback tour. Out over the water. Legends first drop. Legends airtime hill. The star of the show though was The Voyage. I never got to ride her in her first year, but this is the best I have ever felt her run. The valleys at the bottom of the first couple hills are super smooth now. The back turn around went from being possibly the roughest part of the ride to one of the smoothest parts. The hand rail being gone makes this spot extra awesome to take photographs. I love the people that pose for the coaster paparazzi. It seems like I take the same pictures every year, but I still love doing The Voyage walkback. All the talk this year seemed to revolve around a general opinion that Voyage is running the best it has since year one. I have never felt her quite so re-ridable. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post pictures of Voyage without making at least one "Hair time" reference. The kid in the fourth row cracks me up. I'll finish this out with a couple of Mammoth pictures. The water was very frigid on this slightly chilly day. It was fun, and despite accusations to the contrary it is a very different ride than Wildebeest.

Is Snoopy demonstrating his love of peanut butter?

I've been considering buying one of those Olympus point and shoots. While you were at Holiday World for this event last year I was at Wisconsin Dells losing my little waterproof Fujifilm in Poseidon's Rage.

I like it. Posted a review of Holiday World to give it a try. Was excited to see that my trip report is listed. I will try to do more parks in the upcoming days.

Great trip report. Reading this was a great way to kick off my morning.

I'm interested but didn't vote because it's only about 50/50 that I will be able to make it.

My oldest boy had already chosen Hershey Park for his trip with me this year. It looks like you now chose the date for this to happen. He is gonna be super excited to find out that it is gonna be a TPR event now too!

Love the Ice Bat photos.

Holy crap! That puts my marathon sessions on coasters to shame.

Unfortunately I never got to ride it. I made my first visit ever to the park this year. Out of the 18 different parks I visited this year I think BGE was probably my second favorite park overall. I'm sorry but I don't think BBW would of even impacted my overall opinion very much. I understand that people have an emotional attachment to it. While growing up Iron Dragon was my favorite coaster and was also my first "big" coaster. For each of my three boys it was also their first "big" coaster and was their favorite ride at one point of time. So when the day comes when Cedar Point announces that Iron Dragon is gonna be gone I will be sad and the boys and I will rush out for one last ride together. That being said I doubt we will really miss it. The saddest part about it being gone will be the loss of something that can be ridden by kids in the 42-48" range. Past that who cares. There are much better rides out there.

Hanno I just now read the last couple of pages so I was a little behind on this report. As always great photos. It made me smile to see you caught one of my boy and me on Superman. Thanks for posting this.

Wow it's really hard to narrow this down, but here's a few of my favorites of this year. My vote for favorite little wooden coaster goes to.... But my favorite at Mt. Olympus is Hades. After shooting this late summer it was my desk top picture for the last couple months. Okay I'm cheating here. This is only slightly amusement park related. I shot it at a Ren Fest that I visited in the middle of a multi day amusement park trip, but possibly my favorite picture of 2010. Coaster shots are nice, but if I can capture kids having fun at parks those are the pictures that I consider priceless. Love this framed shot through the trees. Griffin your the star of one of my favorite pictures of the year. This to me was my favorite picture of one of my favorite days of 2010. TPR day at SFGA was absolutely a blast. My favorite picture from Darien Lake. My favorite Cedar Point Halloweekend picture from this year. One of my very first attempts at panning. I like the way this turned out though. Love Kings Island's nightly firework display. Something about the fountains, fireworks, and tower all working together visually. I doubled my coaster count this year but Voyage still stands as my number one. I think I also have more pictures of Voyage than any other coaster. These kids were already posing for their parents. I took this with their parents permission and it is easily one of my favorites of the year.

Good stuff Dave. Thanks for posting this.

Conneaut Lake Park has the commercial posted on their Facebook page. So if you want you can go over there and check it out. http://www.facebook.com/conneautlakepark

Love this kind of stuff. Thanks for posting this.

If anybody in the Philadelphia area reads this keep your eyes open for a Pepsi Refresh Project commercial using some of my pictures of the Blue Streak in the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately it's not gonna air in my area so I'm not sure if I'm gonna get to see it or not. I know it's not really that big of a deal, but it's still kind of cool to know my pictures are gonna be used for this. *edit I see I never got around to the Waldameer pictures. I may have to do that sometime still.

Downloading now and likely to be my entertainment of the day on Thanksgiving. Well unless you count watching the Lions lose yet again as entertainment. Thank you.