arby

No matter who you are or what you do, there will always be haters. As I've gotten older, I've learned to just ignore them.

That looks like fun. Thanks for putting together the video. The park has not worked into our schedule when we've been in the area. I hope to hit it and Iron Rattler on our trip out west the end of this year. This is just in time for Shark Week on the Discovery Channel (starting 8/4)...

You're welcome. Since this is my home park, I'm keeping a close eye on the project and will continue to provide updates as anything real develops. I'm not into a lot of the speculation, either, so my updates usually just include the facts that I see and not the rumors that I hear. I do like watching progress, especially on bigger projects like this. With that being said, I did talk to some people while I was investigating but I'll keep that to myself since they are strictly rumors. One pertinent bit of information came from an outside engineer who was working in the bus parking lot. He was there because it was raining and he was looking into how the water was draining on the property. He also said that the blueprints he was carrying would be of no interest to me.

It appears there is something big going on at Carowinds. I've heard reports of utility markings and survey stakes being spotted so I stopped by this morning to get an idea of the scope of the project. The yellow and the green dotted lines are marking the potential boundaries of the project since I saw utilites marked throughout those areas (I added the green line after I realized the blue flags I saw in the lower right were water lines). All the orange dots are survey stakes. Additionally I found two trees and one power pole marked with blue and pink tape which I marked in purple and connected them with a purple dotted line. At first I thought maybe they couldn't figure it if was going to be a boy or girl. The numbers on the map correspond to the pictures after the edited Google map. 1 2 3 close up of bottom of tree of #3 above 4 5 6 7 8 Lookie! A footer! Psyche, it just looks like some irrigation work behind drop tower. On a side note, it looks like the new Scarowinds haunt maze will be Zombie High School. I wish I could have gotten a better picture but it was difficult balancing my good camera with a telephoto lens and the umbrella since it was raining.

...or some kind of room that has padded walls.

You do know that many ads on web pages are based on local browser history. That's not always the case, but often the case.

If you use Outlook and are looking for a new way to interface with Twitter, you might want to check out TwInBox. www.techhit.com/TwInbox/twitter_plugin_outlook.html The nicest feature that I use is Search/Track/Group. If you want to track all tweets that have coaster in them or the hashtag #coaster, for example, you can setup a search filter and have it go directly to an Outlook folder. What's even better is that it doesn't limit the search to people you are following but all of Twitter. Other programs have let me search by hashtag or a word, but if there are a bunch of tweets, it's a pain to go back very far. This program keeps each tweet like it's an email so it is easy to go back through the list as I have time, which is sometimes only once a month or so. One tag I track has thousands of tweets in the corresponding folder from the past few months from people all over the world.

I tried some time ago but it gave me a headache.

Thanks for the reminder. Now I recall why I didn't make reservations; because they require 2 nights. We only wanted one night so decided to show up and get a site that way. Due to our length, the sites they have at that particular campground are limited, anyway.

They are definitely getting ready to start something near the front of the park. Reports I'm hearing are that there are lots of utility markings around the front plaza and the front gate. I also hear that they continue on to the entrance of Planet Snoopy. I'm not big into speculation so for all we know, it could be nothing more than a new restroom. I will try to make it back over there soon and map out the area where the markings are to get an idea of the scope of the area they're planning future work.

^^Let me know the name of that campground so we don't go there. We've come across a few campgrounds like that during our travels. The Knoebels campground looked nice. Glad you enjoyed it. My only piece of advice about it is to call ahead and not go there if you have a big rig and none of the front sites are open. We made the mistake of stopping by the campground without reservations and all the front sites were full. In our adventure to get turned around in the tightly packed campground, we nearly took off an air conditioner from a low hanging branch. Fortunately they allow you to park by the woods in the main Knoebels parking lot so we set up there and ran the generator all day.

^That's a fun woody. We were scheduled to hit it on our way back from our Spring Break Texas trip and it was broken down when we got in around 2:00. The manager told me the part was due in that day. While we were eating a late lunch we saw FedEx show up with the part. They had it up and running a few hours later so we were able to enjoy it before heading back home.

Not only am I an amusement park geek, I am a computer geek which may be obvious to some from the picture that I have three monitors on my PC. In the interest of minimizing cost to keep funds available for theme park trips, all three have been collected over time so they have three different resolutions, hence the black bars in the picture above. I used to use four but it was taking up too much of my desk space. I now use the fourth one with my laptop so it has a dual display.

Thank you, both. We now know we're in for an adventure during that time frame.

Great report, Chuck! I really enjoyed reading it.

We're planning a cross-country trip around Christmas and I've been 'allowed' four days in Los Angeles between Christmas and New Years. My first thought is to try to hit Knotts, California Adventure, Disneyland, and SFMM during those four days. Am I being too optimistic in thinking we can get all of that in? I'm most interested in the first three but it seemed a waste to not hit SFMM for at least a few hours since we have a gold Six Flags pass for 2013.

I was there for a couple of hours after work last night and nothing stood out to me except a few spots of spray paint in the plaza. If it were something major, I'd have expected the surveying to be done quite some time ago. I'm hoping this is so that they can redo the parking/entry road. I did note these markings back in May on the right side of the pavilion near the bus parking. Once again, I don't think they are anything major but it made me wonder if they were moving the fence.

I remember all three. We used to go to CP and GL every year when I was growing up until I graduated high school and the Marine Corps stationed me in the south.

I dusted off my Magic 8 Ball and figured I'd give it a shot. Q: Will Intamin make the new KI roller coaster? A: Yes Q: Will B&M make the new KI roller coaster? A: Yes So it's official. The manufacturer of this new coaster will be a joint venture known as I & B & M. Sorry this didn't add to the discussion but that's the first thing that came to mind when I read Chuck's comment about the Magic 8 Ball...

Yes. They are in rows 4, 5, and 6, if I'm not mistaken.

^love it! Here are a few of mine.

Thanks for the friendly welcome, Palmer! Great shot of Afterburn as your avatar. I'm happy to have Carowinds as my home park. It has a decent selection of coasters and rides. What are your favorite rides in the park? My obvious favorite ride is Intimidator. In fact, as we continue to travel and experience more parks and coasters, it remains in my top 5, primarily because I'm an air time junkie. I'm hard pressed to find another steel coaster with the amount of air time that Intimidator gives. Afterburn is also a great coaster, and often underrated, primarily because Carowinds hasn't done much to make itself a travel destination beyond Intimidator. Other than Woodstock Express, the rest of the coasters in the park are average, at best. They really need a great woody. But getting away from coasters, my favorite ride is Boo Blasters. While it's not as good as Spiderman or WWHP at IOA, it's hard to go wrong with a classic Sally shooting dark ride. EDIT: Wow, how could I miss the flyers? They are also a favorite of mine!

I've used Paint before and it works well. I find it degrades the picture quality a little more than I like although that's kind of a moot point for general files that get posted online. I thought I would share Paint.NET, a free program that seems to retain better picture quality while still significantly decreasing picture size. www.getpaint.net/

I hope you had a good time, edh, and didn't get a fast pass beforehand. I stopped by for a few hours on Sunday and the crowds were light. All the lines were very manageable and I don't think there was more than a 10-15 minute wait for anything, except Nighthawk. I only ride Nighthawk about once every year or two when I'm either at an enthusiast event or taking someone to the park for the first time. I am trying to get some credible scoop as to what is coming for 2014. If I hear anything, I'll post it here. I'm new to TPR's forums but I live close to Carowinds so go throughout the year. I see some previous questions about Scarowinds, which I love - it's a great event but VERY busy. You can find a couple of entries in my travel blog on Scarowinds (not that I'm trying to put a plug in for it - if needed, I can post that information directly here).

Although you are probably aware, if you stay at an on-site resort for Universal, it includes express passes. With the express passes, you should easily be able to do everything you want at Universal in two days. We were easily able to do Busch Gardens Tampa in less than a day. We went in early June and all of the lines were very manageable. If you want to save a few bucks, you might want to consider the Orlando Flex Ticket.