ytterbiumanalyst

The 20 games they've chosen are pretty well a greatest hits collection. I'm not sure I would have chosen any different ones. So glad Super Ghouls and Ghosts made the cut--that thing was infuriating fun. I made it all the way to Level 8 with a friend once. Never beat it, but few ever did.

The river: 10/10 for being super important to the economy even now. The state: 0/10 for being the absolute worst state in every way possible. The number 72

Holiday World's is one of the best podcasts period. It plays like a radio show, and Paula's broadcasting background is evident. Super high quality, and I look forward to it every other week.

Wow, that's what, 25 years old? Awesome.

Those are the same thing. A or B?

Wow, this all looks so amazing. Quite a few interactive things to do, not just a "wander around and take pictures" sort of tour. You really get to experience the country you're in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wabrnt1MVVQ

Sweet, a Mac Twist 'n' Splash! Those things are so much fun.

Oh man, so jealous. Those coasters are the loopiest.

And we're already complaining. This park was on my Orlando to-do list already, but wow. It's just turned into a must visit. I think I'm actually more excited to ride this than Hulk.

^ Given all those constraints, go to Worlds of Fun. It's hard to have a bad time there really. Do Spinning Dragons immediately at opening, then have at it. Even when lines are long, they're not bad. They do have Fast Lane if it turns out to be an unusually busy day.

I have never regretted buying a fast pass, even at times when they weren't strictly necessary. Case in point, a few weeks ago at Dollywood on a Tuesday. We skipped 20 minute lines on FireChaser Express and Mystery Mine over and over. That isn't a terrible line, and I'd gladly wait in that for such an awesome ride. But the fact that we had 10 skips meant that we eliminated 200 minutes worth of lines that day--effectively lengthening the operating day by over 3 hours! If staying 3 hours past closing is appealing to you, then the Time Saver Pass is appealing to you. It's expensive to plan theme park trips, I get that. But if a park has an effective fast pass system, then it's worth buying it.

Twisted Colossus is far and away the best ride at Magic Mountain, no question about it. It seems personal preference takes over after that, since opinions vary widely on Goliath and several other rides. This would be my top 5: 1. Twisted Colossus 2. Goliath 3. Tatsu 4. Ninja 5. Lex Luthor

Woohoo! While I haven't ridden that one (yet), all 4 that I have ridden are easily the best ride in their park. RMC has yet to build a ride that isn't completely badass.

Music. Leonardo da Vinci or Leonardo di Caprio?

We defeated a 28000 Venosaur Level 4 raid today with a group of 15. I like this raid system. Very fun, and they're all over the city.

Yes, "errday" as the kids say. Level 33 and just did my first raid today! Do you play an MMO game?

Yep. Also, the 50 coins per day cap makes beating ridiculously uncompetitive gyms pointless. There's one at a Baptist church near me that for some reason no one ever seems to fight. I've dropped Pokemon there for months at a time, collecting 10 coins for me every day, just because no one bothers to defeat it. Now, holding a gym for longer than 2 days gives you no reward at all.

^ The difference is that Magic Mountain is a local park for L.A. residents, and Cedar Point is a destination park. Most people have July 4 off work, so there's a strong incentive to just take July 3 off and have a 4 day weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if July 3 is actually busier than the 4th, because of people driving back home on the 4th.

We took it slowly and were there about 4 hours. It's enormous, and honestly one of the best aquariums I've ever been to. It's up there with Shedd in Chicago. It's in two buildings, one for freshwater and one for saltwater. The saltwater building is essentially one giant tank, which you experience on multiple levels and from different angles as you go through the building. If you're into aquariums, put this on the list.

Day 5: Everything's Better Down Where It's Wetter It's fitting that I took a bit of a break from writing this TR, because we definitely needed a break after 3 days at Dollywood. It's a really great park, and I absolutely loved it, but it was time for a more low key day. We stayed in downtown Chattanooga, and Wednesday was devoted to just walking around downtown, enjoying the city, and exploring the Tennessee Aquarium. We stumbled across this fun little exhibit. Noted. Art gives me hiope for the future. Yep! We're in the South! This is a bus stop. There were several fun public art things like this all over downtown. Goal for the day. Who knew Tennessee had earthquakes? We found out the hard way. The aquarium is right up on the Tennessee River Inside the aquarium there be sea dragons. The top floor had a lot of natural light. This guy prefers the artificial light. Sunfish! Lots of not-fish at this aquarium. The girls loved touching the sturgeon. Another room with lots of natural light. There are probably two dozen alligators here in a huge exhibit. By the way, this aquarium does have fish too. Prehistoric turtle shell. Yay turtles! Back to the fish. Another touch pool, this one with rays. Me and you... Lots of cool tropical plants. Including some carnivorous ones. Inside of a pitcher plant or Georgia O'Keefe painting? You decide. I love penguins. Sharks! Coral reef Jellies are super cool. Nice, peaceful deep ocean exhibit. Haha! I interrupt your idyllic ocean scene! This is an Alaskan king crab. This guy is huge. This is a lionfish. Thanks, Eric Carle. Om nom. They killed SpongeBob! You bastards! There was a pretty cool sea-inspired art exhibit near the end. Only you can prevent coral reef fires! Next up: Lake Winnie!

With that much land, they could build 38 new coasters!

You haven't experienced this yet, but when you need to fit 2 adults and 3 kids into a single hotel room, you'd better book in advance. Often there are maybe a dozen hotels in even a big city that allow that, and a lot of them are expensive. For us with 3 kids, that's a big deal. A sh*tty hotel breakfast? Great, saves us $50. Kids, here's your bread, bread, and bread, with a side of bread. Before we had kids, Julie and I did trips like you do. We even went to Canada once on a "we'll figure it out when we get there" trip. Just made sure we had passports, and that was the only preparation. That was back when a phone was just a phone too, because we're old, so we had to look at vacancy signs of hotels we were driving past. Anyway, I'm enjoying the trip report in nearly real time!

Yeah, I think I'd feel weird about that too. It's one thing if the parent knows and has asked you to help. At least you can trust they have evaluated you as an okay person for their kid to be with. Before Evan was tall enough, I was in line for Outlaw Run and there was a family of 3 riding. They saw I was solo and asked me to join them and I rode in the second to last row with their daughter, who was maybe 10 years old. They initiated the invitation, so it was cool, but otherwise would have been really awkward. That's one thing that's great about having a kid to ride with me--not having to deal with situations like that.

Cannonball at Lake Winnie.