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Day 3 found me pulling into Carowinds on another hot sunny day. The new Intimidator towers over the parking lot. Holy B&M sweetness! I've now had my Cedar Fair platinum pass out of four different parks. I found Carowinds to be a really nice mid sized park. I probably shouldn't mention that I hate Nascar. I was hoping that this ride was half as good as it looked, and I thought it was amazing. Possibly my new favorite steel coaster. This ride has some of the best airtime I've ever experienced anywhere. After a quick ride on Intimidator I jumped on Nighthawk before the line could fill in. The line for this later in the day was easily the longest in the park so I would hit this early. I had heard good things about this ride, but I'm not the biggest fan of inverts so I was a little apprehensive. This thing ran real good though with absolute minimal ear banging for me. This thing was definitely an above average invert in my book. After three straight steel coasters I was ready for some good wood. This ran a little rough in spots, but was a fun ride overall. Unfortunately they were only running one side. Headspin! I miss Geauga Lake. This was the first boomerang I ever rode. I like taking pictures of these corkscrew rides better than I like riding them. I'm really a sucker for these areas that have corkscrews over top walkways. Time for another woody! This was was definitely a little on the rough side, but I still enjoyed it. Ricochet. I hate that mouse pictures almost always look the same. This was down most of the day and I thought I was gonna miss it. Standard stand up stuff. A little on the rough side though. One more shot of Intimidator taken from their tower. Okay one more taken from my hotel room across the street. What a view!

Unfortunately I have not ridden Nitro though I was considering trying to make the trek out there this weekend. Don't know if I'm being unrealistic and just pushing myself to hard though if I do it. That being said I love B&M hypers. Best steel coasters I have rode in my opinion. Kings Island is only five hours away from me and is kind of like a secondary home park, and I was so pumped when they built Diamondback. I think Diamondback is amazing and is possibly the best of the bunch that I have ridden. Though in all fairness I have put 150+ rides on it and not more than a dozen on any other B&M. I thought Goliath at SFOG was very very good too, but I think Intimidator Carolina might possibly be the best I have ever ridden. I hesitate to say it's my favorite as I only got to ride it 8 times and I just don't feel right placing it at the top of the list until I get to ride it more, but either way it is amazing. By the time I made my way around to Busch Gardens Europe I had already had been riding rides like Intimidator and Goliath all week long, and while I found Apollos Chariot to be an above average coaster I thought it was slightly tame in comparison to it's siblings. On a side note my second favorite steel coaster of this trip behind Intimidator Carolina was actually Superman Ride Of Steel at Six Flags America.

Georgia Cyclone was definitely a little rough. I thought it was more than rideable though. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being like Son Of Beast rough, I would say maybe a five. I thought Thunderhead ran beautiful. On the same scale I would say maybe two or three at the very worst. I've only rode two GCI's, with Roar at SFA being the other one, but they sit solidly at my number two and number three wood coasters. Six Flags St. Louis, Beech Bend, and Valleyfair are all on the agenda this year and I can't wait to ride Evel Knievel, Kentucky Rumbler, and Renegade.

The second park on my agenda was Six Flags Over Georgia. It provided quite the change of pace from the nice relaxed country feel that Dollywood provided. SFOG was really busy and the skyline was dominated by Goliath. A very nice platinum flash pass completely negated the crowds for me, but the 95 degree weather still darn near killed this Michigan boy. Standing outside the front gate greeting me as I walked up was Goliath. Got my pass processed and was ready for some B&M hyper awesomeness! Walked through the front gate and was greeted with more costumed characters than I've ever seen at a Six Flags park at one time before. It was quickly apparent that lines were gonna be 30+ minute waits at the minimum today. So I grabbed a platinum flash pass and took my first ride of the day on Georgia Cyclone. I wish I could start every day with a ride on a nice little woody like this. Okay now I was itching for a shot at Goliath. Goliath is an incredible ride. Holy airtime Batman! Next up was Georgia Scorcher. A fun little stand up coaster. You can tell what rides I really like, somehow this is the only shot I got of Scorcher and I got a feeling that wasn't even what I was pointing my camera at. I headed back into the depths of Gotham City to ride this compact little beauty. This thing had some nice zip to it. I thought this one ran a little better than the Chicago version. Maybe my ears were just well rested from half a year of not riding coasters. It is actually a nice compact invert. How many Ninjas does it take to screw in a lightbulb? No one will ever know because Ninjas don't need light. Sorry. I promise not to tell anymore Ninja jokes. This was another good woody. Are you ready for a flyer? To tell the truth I'm not really a fan of flying coasters. But this one was actually pretty good. I put in a ride on SFOG's dark boat ride Monster Mansion. It is one of those moments that actually makes me feel guilty that I leave my kids behind to take a trip like this without them. Now I made the loop around the park and found myself snapping this nice little pic. Now off to Goliath for another 8 or so rides before taking off early for the day.

Okay I had fun making my first one so I will post one more TR of a trip I took earlier this year. I hit the road on Easter Sunday all by myself and drove through the night to kick off the trip in Dollywood. Other parks on the agenda included Six Flags Over Georgia, Carowinds, Kings Dominion, Busch Gardens Europe, a second day at Kings Dominion, and then Six Flags America. It was the best trip I have ever taken. I had a lot of fun, rode a lot of new coasters, and spent entirely too much money. I'm gonna put these up one park at a time. ADMIN EDIT: I have update your title to include the proper "Photo TR:" header and to make it more simple yet descriptive. Aside from that, thanks for sharing this with us and keep up the great work! Anybody else get goosebumps walking into their first park of the year? A butterfly made out of flowers? I never took this shot and you never saw me post it either. I got to visit during the Festival Of Nations. I headed straight back to Thunderhead. The first coaster of the year for me was gonna be one of the best on my trip. This thing was super amazing. My new number two wood coaster. Not only do I prefer wood coasters, I also think they are much prettier to look at. Plus did I mention this thing was super amazing. Next up and just down the pathway was Mystery Mine. This ride did have nice theming. It also had a very photogenic invert. It does provide a fairly unique ride experience. It had some nice elements, and seems to be kind of popular, but just not entirely my thing. I put in a few rides on Tennessee Tornado next. I found it to be an above average looper. The brand new Adventure Mountain. I made the mistake of not doing this before the park got busy. Later in the day it had a super long line and I never ended up doing it. I caught a few shows and got to get within a foot of a real live bald eagle to capture a few shots of this bird and his trainer. This park provided one of the prettier train rides I have ever rode. This is just a stunningly beautiful area. Dollywood is one of the most beautiful parks I have ever visited. This was the perfect park to kick off this trip with.

Yeah the Dells are only 8 1/2 hours away so there is little excuse for it to have taken me this long to get there, and Mt. Olympus alone impressed me enough that when they get Hades up and running I'm coming right back out. I made it to Holiday World three times last year and thats only 30 minutes closer. Plus I really want to ride Hellcat. I fell in love with it just walking around and snapping pictures. Great America makes a nice half way stop too.

I've written a few trip reports before but I really like the photo trip reports that seem to be popular here. I like photography almost as much as I like roller coasters and theme parks so I am excited to give this a try. Any feed back on how to make these better in the future would be appreciated. We hit Six Flags Great America on Saturday May 1st and Wisconsin Dells on Sunday May 2nd. The weather was okay on Saturday. It was overcast but only sprinkled a few times. Sunday was beautiful. I found Great America to be a very nice park with decent ride operations for a Six Flag park. My only complaint was that American Eagle was running both sides as single train operations causing it to be one of the longest lines in the park. Wisconsin Dells should of been amazing but is a place I would recommend skipping this time of year as only a few rides were even open. The website showed the park as being open but that was definitely misleading. I like the American flags flying over the entrance. Nice touch. Very pretty flower lined pool with the two story carousel in the background right inside the entrance to this park. We headed straight back to Raging Bull which turned out to be a very nice steel coaster. It had some very nice graceful twister style elements. Made for a nice ride, but possibly not as good as I was hoping for. Headed back to the front of the park to hit Superman Ultimate Flight before the park filled in. That loop provides some very intense G's. The Dark Knight was a kind of fun little themed dark mouse ride. Not sure how I found myself on back to back mouse rides, but this time it was a spinning mouse which was a first for me. I find these impulse coasters kind of fun, but they aren't really that photogenic. I like the theming on these Batman rides better than I like the rides themselves. DO NOT CROSS THE FENCE! I'm guessing that whoever was driving this car got arrested and banned from Six Flags. They should of read the sign and not crossed the fence. While I banged my ears a little on this, I find these Batman rides to be nice compact little inverts. The Little Dipper construction in progress. From my understanding this thing is being rescued from Kiddieland. One more because I'm a sucker for construction photos. Don't you hate when you have that feeling that you aren't gonna like a ride before you even ride it? It's not that I didn't like it, but my ears hated it. After getting my ears boxed two rides in a row I was ready to finally get on the first woody of the day. Much better than the clothing line. The wall in my bedroom is cluttered with black and white 8x10's of shots just like this. They never get old to me. I wish more of this ride was accessible for photographs than just the lift and the back helix. Because nothing says Demon better than letters that look like they were made out of play dough. Not sure what the mountain theming had to do with being called Demon, but it looked sharp. It was actually a nice looking little ride. Someone told me to make sure I rode this while here so I got in line. I was super exited to see a spiral lift hill. Then to top it off it had the most unique trains I've ever been on. They were like little lazy boys. I want one in my living room. I had heard very good things about this ride. I'm a sucker for woodies so I was exited to finally make my way back around to this thing. It definitely was as good as I heard. Great airtime for a ride of it's size. Finished out the day with a few nice rides on this. Kicked the next day off with a ride on Mt. Olympus's indoor mouse ride. There was some cool Greek theming on the outside of the indoor section of the amusement park and on the shops walking in from the hotel. I see Hades!! At this point I was quivering with joy. I have wanted to come out here and ride this thing very badly for the last several years. Oh no! I hope that's not what I think it is... Yup. I waited for years, drove almost nine hours, and it's currently being re-tracked. I've now assumed the fetal position and am firmly sucking on my thumb for comfort. This place is like a little woody heaven. Except only two of the four woodies were running. Pegasus was closed too. A nice shot of Zeus where it runs through Hades lift hill. Cyclops, Zeus, and Hades were all intertwined making for some woody photo bliss. This one is actually running? Cool, let's ride. Huh? This drop may not look like much, but ride it once in the back seat and it will explain the sign. For the first time in my life I honestly think the seat belt saved me from plummeting to my doom. Not my kids, but they sure look tough. Photo ops were all these kids could do here though as this was also closed. It looks like a nice little drop right out of the lift station though. Where does it go? Oh it comes up way over here by the entrance to the parking lot. All in all I think this would be an amazing little park if visited a little later in the year. Off to Timber Falls to ride Hellcat. Except guess what....? You probably guessed it right. Also closed. This thing looked amazing though. The girl at the counter said it opens Memorial Day through Labor Day.