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Wow, the mega-lites look awesome! Great video featuring a few different aspects - I need some glasses like that...

The Twist and Shout coaster was new for 2013. I picked up the credit this summer when I was there.

I'm so far behind but that's ok. I'm still enjoying the game. I would put my people on 12 hour quests and make sure I took a driving break during our trip to try and keep my cash up.

I like them. I skim them when they come in to see if I missed a topic of interest. As others have mentioned, sometimes I end up skimming a few threads because they are very chatty and sometimes I miss topics that I find interesting.

Great TR and pictures, Chuck! It looks like the crowds were much better for you than they were for me. Everything at KBF had a 1-2 hour wait including Mrs. Knotts restaurant. I'll get a TR up soon about my experience.

We hit two national parks during our recent cross country trip: Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest. Here are some pictures: Grand Canyon National Park has a nice campground at Trailer Village - they are paved, relatively level, and quite spacious. Don't mind the deer wandering through the campground. The Grand Canyon is awesome to see during sunset. It's even better to go in the winter like we did so you can go down the bus shuttle road that is normally closed to cars. The scenery is really breathtaking. The winter sunset colors are really beautiful. I couldn't stop taking pictures. There is a great Mexican restaurant in Tusayan, the town right outside the entrance. My food was good, but my wife said that was the best burrito she had ever eaten. On to the petrified forest - my daughter got bored after about five minutes. I was really interested, though. It's intriguing how the wood turned to stone. Here you can see the rings of the tree. There are some random scenes like this that are cool. They also have a memorial to Route 66 that used to pass through here. In fact these power poles are the only thing left standing. The road bed used to follow along beside them.

Yeah, I'm surprised how much I liked it, too, after seeing some comments on here about it. Coaster experiences are so subjective. I can see how some people may hate it if they get in an unbalanced car and hit some of that ejector air time when in an awkward position. I was lucky and stayed upright most of the ride. Anyway, I was putting it off but my daughter said she wanted to ride that more than anything else in the park so I made sure we got it in right before the park closed.

We are back from our 6,000 mile journey to the west coast and back. I have numerous trip reports to share over the next few weeks but will start with SFMM. If you would like a quick pictorial version of our trip, you can check out the 196 photos I posted on our facebook travel page here. We arrived in southern California on Friday afternoon, 12/27. We had 3 1/2 days in SoCal so obviously I allocated 2 days to Disney and 1 day to KBF. That left a handful of hours for SFMM. Since we have 2013 SF gold passes it was a no brainer to head up there and get some coasters in. My wife wasn't interested in making the hour+ journey up to SFMM so just my daughter and I went. We arrived to lots of people, which we expected during the holidays, and especially since it was a Friday night. After scoping out the park and knowing we only had 4 1/2 hours, we opted for Platinum Flash passes with the $15 add-on for YOLOcoaster. Although I usually take 1-2 days at a park to make a full assessment of it, I didn't have that opportunity with SFMM. So trying to discount everything I have heard about it and give my own opinion, I found the park to be an average Six Flags park. It was exactly what I expect when I go to most Six Flags parks and as such I was not disappointed. What disappointed me was the park operations. It looked like they were running most of the trains on most of the coasters but they seem to have no urgency in dispatching trains. Since we shelled out over $110 each I expected to be able to get a majority of the credits in. Instead we often ended up waiting 15-30 minutes in line after showing up with our FP return time. That put a damper on our progress and limited us to 10 credits. You will note that we spent $55 each for a Fast Lane at KBF a few days later and picked up 8 credits there in less than 2 1/2 hours despite KBF being noticeably busier than SFMM. Despite me spending too much money at this park on the Platinum Fast Passes, we did have an enjoyable 4 hours or so at the park and look forward to our next visit to pick up the rest of the credits. On to some pictures and commentary. Welcome to Six Flags Magic Mountain - my first time. Viper is photogenic but we passed on it initially hoping to pick it up on our way out. Wonder how that worked out... Flash Passes were a necessity on this day although a waste of money for Platinum. If I had it to do over again I'd go with Gold since we didn't save much time with Platinum due to operating procedures. Our first ride of the day was Tatsu. It was fun but didn't exceed Manta at SWO. All the stations were packed including Tatsu. They were running both sides which is something I haven't seen much during my travels to Six Flags parks. Apocalypse was an unexpected surprise. I loved the ride! After the fact I see that this is a CGI woodie - no wonder I loved it. I have no idea what this is. I was getting plenty of free oxygen just walking past. We chose to save this until last since we aren't fans of stand up coasters. We ran out of time so we will have to hit it next time. The hot topic for SFMM right now is Full Throttle, AKA YOLOCoaster. On to Colossus. We only rode the Red train and I was not impressed with this coaster at all. After getting a reservation time and *still* waiting 15 minutes, we were lucky and got front row seats. I thought the ride was great except for the length. I was shocked when we got to the station wondering where the second half to the ride was. Yet another Goliath which is a different coaster than any of the other Goliaths we rode. It was average for a hyper coaster. Some standard Six Flags false front buildings that is their classification of theming. They are in good repair making them fun to look at but not adding much. Green Lantern - need I say more. This was top on my daughter's list and it did not disappoint. We were lucky and got in a balanced car. I usually prefer floater air, but the ejector air I got on this was awesome! This is one of the top coasters in this park and I will return to SFMM just to ride this again. Great concept on the cars - no discomfort to me. Any control panel enthusiasts out there? Here's an op station shot for you. Semper Fi! We wanted to do this but ran out of time. Next time we will get it. The YOLO station looks good to me despite all the controversy over it. The young generation that this is aimed towards seemed to enjoy it and have a good time. It is certainly different than any other coaster station I've been in. SFMM was decked out for Christmas - at least around the front plaza trees. Good bye SFMM. Until next time. For the RV enthusiast in me, I really liked the RV parking with a canopy. That would certainly help to keep the heat down during the summer. I wish more parks did this - kudos to SFMM for this nice touch.

It looks like it will be Apollo's Chariot at BGW in April if we don't take an unexpected trip to Orlando.

Thanks for the TR and pictures. We enjoyed this park when we were there a couple of years ago.

Yeah, the only time I like returning players is when they do an 'all star' season that is only returning players. I don't enjoy it as much when they mix them up.

Carowinds (30 minutes away) Dollywood (3 1/2 hours away) Six Flags Over Georgia (4 hours away)

I used Window 'smart' phones for 5+ years, but it was a major pain to do anything but send email. Texting was a chore so I finally gave up after Windows Mobile 6 and switched to an Android. I liked my Samsung but battery life sucked. We'd be at an amusement park and I'd use my phone half as much as my wife and go through 2 batteries in a day. She'd still be at 30-40% on her iPhone at the end of the day. I finally caved in and now have an iPhone 5. Operationally it's not much different than a droid but I use my phone a lot and often go 2 days without charging. Since I'm on call 24/7/365 the battery life alone will keep me using an iPhone into the near future. My 7" tablet is a Nexus 7 and I love it. I waited a couple of years for the iPad Mini but they want too much for it in my opinion so I pocketed the $130+ savings.

I've cancelled plans to go to Disney twice because the mine coaster wasn't built... I know, you were referring to the GP and not us enthusiasts but I thought I'd mention that.

I'm probably not having issues since I'm a noob and my town is much smaller than most of yours.

I just got in without issue.

I personally love mouse coasters and thought I had seen it all. Apparently not - I never even considered a looping mouse. It looks like a great concept.

All those bands pulled out because nearly all of their fans signed the petition.

I thought I replied to this but I guess not... Anyway, thanks! I'll check out Fable after the holidays.

I agree. That ornament is great.

I completely agree. What a creative and awesome idea!

The clearing next to Intimiator is getting a restaurant complex as part of the $50 mil expansion.

I have gotten 1 coin so far from gift bags.

I haven't gotten money yet. I got a few ice sculptures and Christmas house theme on four of the houses.

It is being moved - supposedly to the area near Nighthawk and Panda Express. I hope to be able to get a tour of the park early next year. If so I will have an off-season TR to share.