All Clear

I would do KD first, based simply on the fact that it will seem a little less like a ghetto dump before Busch Gardens than after. I was at BGE last Sunday and it never got terribly crowded. I don't know how much of that had to do with it being Father's day, though. I've been to King's Dominion a couple of times this year on a Sunday, and while it's not too crowded, wait times are long due to lack of staff and mostly single-train operations. You might have better luck on Saturday when they are likely to be planning on a busier day so they'll be better staffed. In general, though, BGE can handle a crowd better than KD so there's a reason to go there Saturday...I guess I'm not really helping.

#100 was Thunderhead I keep meaning to sit down and try to put them all in order while I can still somewhat remember which parks I went to when, but I don't think it's ever going to really happen.

Maybe it's going to be your mom.

I really wish I could have been to this park when it was so good. Last summer it was kind of dumpy with rude employees. The only non-pathetic crew was on Dominator. In fact, Dominator was the only good thing about that whole trip for me. O, the irony, that it is now out my back door.

I was assuming that it was a ride op who stabbed him.

It's a deathtrap now. Voyage triple-down=awesome. Beast helix=the only good part.

Who is this "they" to which you refer?

Yes, but oddly, it runs about like the forward side ran last season. There's a bump at the bottom of the first drop and the rest of the ride was pretty sluggish and jackhammery. I rode both sides one after the other in the same seat and it was like two different rides. The "always-has-been-forward" side is just plain dreamy in the first two cars.

I don't have any coaster shirts. I usually don't like the designs. I have a couple of park shirts (Hershey, Lakemont, umm...maybe one more...) I like simple-looking tee-shirts and ride shirts are usually enormous complicated graphics with scrawly writing. They don't suit me.

Or 4:30 in the afternoon when it's about 85 and humid...

And by water, of course, he means green sludge.

I didn't find it all that terribly rough, compared to Roar at SFA or Hershey's Wildcat pre-MF trains. I was actually surprised by how smooth some of the elements were. I'd be bracing myself for agony at an upcoming fan turn and get no rattling at all.

I went yesterday for a couple of hours (Memorial Day). Operations on Dominator were phenomenal. They were running all three trains and stacking was minimal. I got on twice in the first 40 minutes I was there. Then I had to wait 25 minutes to get on Rebel Yell. I was third in line.

I actually really liked Gwazi, too. Of the three GCIs with PTCs that I've been on, Gwazi seemed the least wrong.

The Intamin fart would be too disruptive to the Kingsmill community.

Yes. This is indeed a tremendous leap of courage for TPR. Robbie "Erasure was more of a threat to humanity" Crockett

Dominator And Sky Princess

WaWa > Sheets. Fact.

I wish I had done the chairlift when I was there. I got annoyed that it was an upcharge and didn't do it. I stamped my feet and cursed the ride op out and flashed my ACE card at him and everything, but he still said I had to pay two dollars or something. Actually it was more like I didn't have any cash, the nearest-by ticket booth was closed, I was running out of time and I just didn't feel like entering into the hassle so I hit the road instead. Now I think it might have been worth the hassle. We got WaWa in Virginia a couple of years ago. I LOVE it. I would wear a WaWa tee shirt.

A lot of my clients come in asking if I've heard about KD's new ride. Most of them know that coasters are one of my "things." It always takes some explaining when I tell them that I rode it last year. Actually, now that I think of it, the fact that so many people ask me if I know about it does say something about well KD is publicizing their new addition. "You mean they can move them?"

I got some wheels off of Legend at Holiwood Nights a couple of years ago. And they came with a free Pepsi!

It did have the dog-leg on the hill after the first two big bunny hops. And I seem to remember the return had a strange little crook inside that dog-leg before hopping up onto the brakes. You could see it as you waited in line for the giant slide. Not that I obsessed about it or anything. Thirteen years of admiring but not riding...

I think the Shooting Star is the reason I'm into rollercoasters today. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of standing at the foot of the first drop and wondering how people got on to something that was moving so fast. I couldn't fathom how it would ever stop. This was before I had mastered the talking thing (two or three years old) so I couldn't get answers to these deep spiritual questions. The most sad and pathetic part was that I was never allowed to ride it. By the time I was old enough to go the park on my own, it was gone. It still comes up in therapy sessions.

Griffon last Friday.