EquusStorm

HEY so I was looking through some old family photo albums earlier today, and came across several photos from Opryland from a 1993 trip! I was just 2 years old at the time. There are a few nice shots of a couple of the kiddie rides there. I'll scan them or find some other way to get em up here and post them for all to enjoy and reminisce. I also found a couple of photos from Six Flags over Georgia in 1993, but those photos are very few and not all that great. We'll see.

That's awesome-looking.

Whilst in a vehicle, I visualise a real-time G-force graph. Also one time I scraped a huge chunk of skin off my leg, my elbow, and several other areas after a rather terrible wreck as I was trying to emulate certain roller coaster elements on a scooter; I would've been 13 at the time. And finally, when in a seat such as a pew or another wide piece of furniture arranged in rows, I expect and hope that any second the back of the seat in front of me will produce a lap bar and the floor beneath will roll away and reveal the set of wheels and coaster track that I am so sure lies just beneath the innocent-looking seat. Quite possibly, you might be a coaster nerd if you've done those.

You know what the saddest thing is? I've lived 45 minutes from the park for its entire existence, and I've only been maybe twice, the last time being over 10 years ago. And I never rode Rampage. Talk about regrets!

Thanks, all, for the input! I shall do my best to convince the folks to head for the park on our possible-but-let's-hope-it-actually-happens theme park excursion next year. I don't think any park around here can compare to the glory that is SFOG, really. Seriously considering a season pass for 2013 even if we only manage to make it twice, which would be a stretch given work scheduling but something I definitely want to do. I just figured that Carowinds would be a great place to up my coaster count, have some fun at a new park on exciting new (for me at least) coasters, and get photos standing on the state line as I have never been to South Carolina! Aw. Well we might have to schedule the trip a little earlier then, because amusement parks on hot Southern weekends tend to be... sweaty. Hordes of sweaty people, in fact. Sounds good! I'm game

So uh well, I joined here back in September and made like one post, and now I'm going to start posting regularly, so I guess I need to say howdy here for the purpose of saying howdy. Or something. From Alabama, The Great Land of Tornadoes, Humidity, and Exactly One CoasterTM, I play RCT and RCT2 like the world's gonna end, and in real life I'm a bit of a coaster fan as well. 'A bit' may not cover it, as I am quite obsessed with them, even though I have only been on 'real' coasters at three parks (Waterville USA, Six Flags over Georgia, and Dollywood) and am thus horribly behind everyone else on total # of coasters ridden. 13, to be exact; 15 if you include a couple of kiddie coasters, one in the former Visionland and one in the Gulf Shores park, now SBNO and defunct respectively. But hey, we were always a bit financially unfortunate growing up, and I was too young or short or timid when I was a small thing to go on rides when we DID go until I got older (A couple months ago we went to SFOG and Dollywood for the first time in 8 years and more than 12 years respectively; before those trips my coaster count stood at four, lolz). And at 21 I'm sure to be making enough money soon enough to branch out and go ride the rails of great coasters all over the world. Or maybe just the country for now, travel is expensive at the moment. Besides coasters, amusement parks and their offerings, and learning of the history and mechanics of said rides and parks, hobbies include obsessively studying meteorology (and being a NWS trained spotter many times over), obsessively staring at tall/giant/record trees past and present (and reading about those that happen to be located elsewhere), obsessively collecting coins, obsessively listening to music, obsessively writing lyrics and poetry, obsessively photographing everything, and generally being obsessive. Obsessively. Pleased to meet y'all. Now help me lift these boards so I can start adding running rails so I can build a coaster in my back yard. My budget is $76.83, so let's go from there.

I love love love seeing folks' projects on here, as when I am not online to witness the vast numbers of others doing the same thing, I feel like I am the only person left who still plays RCT/RCT2 religiously. I've been trying to create interesting custom parks over the past few years on RCT2; though my desktop that plays RCT2 is currently packed away due to moving, and thus I can't offer screenshots beyond the few that I already have, my crown jewels thus far have been "Alma's Realm", a gigantic park with intricate details based upon Merideth Ann Pierce's phenomenal Firebringer Trilogy (took me quite a long time to get the landscaping right on it, and I STILL don't have a park nice enough to show off from the scenario! Expect it though) ; "Six Flags Dixie Dreams", a selfish little wish fulfilment park that puts a Six Flags park in my thrill-starved state (as if they'd put one in so close to SFOG! Ha!); "Trackside Farms", which is a relatively realistic park that I made based on a scaled-up layout of a fifty-something acre chicken farm we once owned before losing it after it financially tanked (repaying a massive loan is one of the goals of the scenario, I am so clever); "Friendshipland" which takes off any man-points I may have had and will probably only be appreciated by a few other select people in this forum ahahaha; and a few other big, mostly wooded parks I made so I could eventually build massive coasters in it. Yep. I don't have any overviews of the parks at the moment but I do have a few random shots on the flash drive of some moments in parks I am working on. I don't even know if this is the appropriate thread for such things, but I'm new so bear with me and don't ban me for TOO many years or I might forget my password and stuff. Also, of note, my parks contain very little custom or downloaded scenery beyond a few things I snagged a few years back; therefore most of the landscaping is pretty basic in-game stuff - it's not going to be as fancy as those who can actually make their own awesome scenery and landscaping ideas. That said, let's crash browsers with a few screenshots from SFDD, shall we? SCR3.BMP From humble beginnings, Six Flags Dixie Dreams. I wasn't a landscaping expert when I made the gates, to say the least, so don't sue me plz, it was a long time ago, I am better now. Sort of. SCR6.BMP Winrar! (Objectives aren't that hard, these parks are mostly for my own amusement) SCR10.BMP ... and we keep playing until the whole landscape is a spaghetti bowl full of roller coaster tracks running every which way. That's the way nearly all my parks wind up - not that realistic because I'm sure that a REAL park wouldn't think it financially feasible to add like 59 coasters within its borders. We can dream though. Incredibly, this shot is BEFORE I added most of the BIG coasters to the park. It's on like year 120 now, but I don't have the shots at the moment. Watch this space. SCR56.BMP BONUS, from the awesome Sefton Towers scenario that I downloaded years ago: When 'Big Dipper' just doesn't cut it. And I'm not that great at ride naming, obviously. This I think fits into the 'previews' section nicely because this is what the parks look like after younger me has had a few hundred hours at the helm - now I'm much more experienced with park construction, and I will soon (after the desktop gets hooked back up of course) show what these very parks look like after I start from scratch trying to make them realistic and/or memorable. So it's more of a 'this is how I used to build parks now let's compare THESE shots to those that I make in the coming years' thing.

HOLY SMOKES! That's absolutely mind-shattering. I LOVE it.

Aww. Show some love, Everyone likes a classic arrow mine train. (Well, this guy does ) Oh don't get me wrong, I LOVE the good ole DMT (was either my first or second coaster back in the day! They'd better not ever demolish that gem), it's a must ride every time I'm at that glorious park; for clarity, as I am bound to make horrid mistakes in clarifying my intent, what's pathetic in the sense that I meant for this thread is that 1967 is the oldest offer I can give in this thread of people who I am sure have far more than my laughable 15 (13 not counting kiddie coasters) coaster credits!

Well there was a tiny, ancient, rough as hell Schiff truck-mount kiddie coaster that (according to RCDB) only operated from 2002-2004 in a tiny, now defunct park in Gulf Shores, AL, that was made a thing of the past by financial troubles and Hurricane Ivan in '04; my brother and I rode it in probably 2003, being small enough at the time to fit, but that's hardly even a half-credit if a credit at all, and I'm sure there are tens of thousands of other kids who had been on it. That's about all I got.

Given the pitiful number of times I've been to any amusement park thus far, I've not had many chances to experience the joy of waiting in line for obscene amounts of time. Thunder River at SFoG is probably the longest ride line I've ever been in; GASM and Dahlonega Mine Train would be the longest coaster lines, somewhere between 45 minutes and a good bit over an hour. Of course, that was way back before they even built Superman or Goliath (both of which had ~15 minute waits when I was there a few months back) so had I been old enough and courageous enough to board the bigger coasters at the park at that tender young age, those would have been the longest lines.

Dahlonega Mine Train at SFoG (1967). I know, I'm pathetic.

Steel: Goliath at SFoG / Wild Eagle at Dollywood. Wooden: Great American Scream Machine at SFoG. I really need to get out more.

Carowinds, Carowinds. I hear my dad talking about the park occasionally, as he lived in NC for a while many years ago - and since then, of course, it has exploded into the impressive park it is today. The family is kind of considering making next year's vacation a trip through a few amusement parks in our area; not much in Alabama of course, so we'll be revisiting SFOG and Dollywood, and perhaps Lake Winnie, but for those more well-versed in Southeastern amusement parks than I, is it worth convincing the folks to also swing a little east and head for Carowinds as well? I've never been, and no one in the family has since the late 70s or early 80s, and thus I definitely wish to experience the park if it's feasible. It would involve driving a ways east and finding rooms in the area, so it's gotta be worth our while. What's the park like on, say, a weekday in mid-September, and how does it compare to SFOG? I've gathered a bunch of information and comparisons already, but I would like the input of folks here. If we weren't terribly poor folks currently putting out money to build a house, I would love to convince the rest of the family to also consider heading north towards Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg, but I kind of doubt that's gonna happen anytime soon. Bah! Must work more so that such luxuries can be afforded. Such is life.

I'd been to Opryland at least once, probably twice, before it closed, but I was so young that I never rode anything other than possibly a couple of kiddie rides or water rides. Based on basic SLC height restrictions, I might not have even been tall enough to get on Hangman, at least, even if I had an inclination to do such things when I was a young one. I would've been six last time I was there, and if I had been in the past before that, I would have been no more than 4 or 5. I think I may still have a couple souvenirs buried in boxes somewhere, but I do have a a 1997 park brochure. It's a damned shame what happened to the park, but it happens way more often than any of us would like to think about. Ah well, at least we still have Dollywood.

Adding additional confirmation to Dollywood's policy, I specifically asked on either Thunderhead or Tennessee Tornado (probably the latter, as it takes FOREVER to walk back to the entrance for rerides thanks to the insanely long line layout) and they said it was policy that riders had to re-enter, even if there was no one in line. And the lines that day a month ago were nonexistent all day so it was a little frustrating to have to go back around just to walk right on. But policies shall be policies, I say! Still got 3 straight rides on Thunderhead though because I jogged pretty fast back through the line and the op held the train for a couple of minutes before each dispatch to see if anyone else was coming through the line to board though, hah. I love the off season