All Clear

Unless they decide to enforce similar rules that lots of places are turning to, i.e., no bags allowed in the station and sit on your flip flops. This has helped capacity at BGE a LOT this year. And they enforce it well, too. I saw a girl today get denied her ride on Alpengeist (front row, no less) because she had a backpack with her. The ride op politely told her that it needed to be left in a locker or with a non-rider, which she instantly became.

^^Everything about that map looks great except for one little thing...could you depict Villain going up in flames? Kthx.

The whole time I was at Geauga Lake, I had that old rave song stuck in my head, "I'm bigga and bolda and rougha and tougha, in other words, sucka, there is no othah--I'm the one and only Dominator."

Can we get back on topic so I can resume gloating about how my home park is rumored to be getting a B&M while others' get Vekomas?

I think I can speak accurately for all the coaster people in the Richmond area by saying that Canada's Wonderland can have Dominator if we can have that other thing. edit to add: I agree with BeemerBoy and think it would be cool if they shifted stuff around so that GL became a massive waterpark with a small "dry rides" area and two great old woodies.

I took my first trip to Lake Winnie this year just a few weeks ago. I really loved it. It was like stepping back in time, mostly in a good way. It reminded me very much of my childhood park (Lakeside in Salem, VA). It had a lot of the same fixtures, including the gaping-mouth lion water fountain and the clown head trash cans. You won't see stuff like this north of Georgia anymore: It's just wrong on a couple of levels. As far as the coasters went, that was about the roughest mouse I've ever been on, the guy running the worm treated me with such dignity that I didn't feel even a little bit dirty and I loved Cannon Ball so much I wanted to take it home with me. I got a little lump in my throat the first time I rode it. I wish I'd thought to get some of the pictures you got, especially the one of CB from the drop tower. Really nice, that one. (Edited for the sake of clarity.)

Awesome pics! Hey! That girl used to run the Rebel Yell!

Wow. It was that gorgeous and sunny on Friday, then by Monday there was a veritable monsoon that all but shut the place down. I didn't even make it to the park, but just basically turned around and drove 9 hours back home. This was, of course, only after being evacuated from Breakers Express in the middle of the night for an "incident with the building." Maybe I'll get to actually go to the park some day. Awesome pictures, by the way.

^OT: A customer service person told me Sunday (8/19) that RWB would be down the rest of the season. I had asked because it was raining that day and lots of rides were down. I was considering a return trip on my way back home.

I think it's because Griffon>Sheikra.

Let's see, if I chicken out and cancel my trip this weekend, it will guarantee that not a drop will fall...but it's already too late for me to get my deposit back on the room, so...I'm going to go for it, therefore increasing the odds that the whole peninsula will sink, Millennium Force first. PM me if you want to meet up.

Yup. That's a screenshot of it "playing" on my computer. I had closed firefox at that point.

??? And I can't find it on your website. Any help?

Thunderhead at Dollywood and it freakin' ROCKED.

How necessary/beneficial would you say the Q2Q is? I've never been to any place that used that kind of system before and I'll be hitting Dollywood for the first time next week. Do you feel like it really helped you out a lot?

^ Geez. I rode it for about my 40th time last Saturday and I still can't say "meh." It's a sweet ride.

And I'll be there the 8th and 9th. Hooray for nobody meeting anybody!

Whatever they build, I will go there and love it and it will be my favorite thing of 2008. /fanboy

Hooray! Erasure and roller coasters in one happy little interweb community! This is my favorite day on the internet ever. I'm a little jealous because I was not able to see them on this tour. I've held tickets to see them 3 times but only actually made it to the show once (Cowboy tour, '98). Vince dressed as a giant cactus and played guitar during the first half and during the second half, he drank a giant beer and smoked cigarettes while Andy danced his a$$ off. Robbie "not gay but I also like the Pet Shop Boys" Crockett *edited to remove an inadvertent smiley

^ Just out of curiosity, what is the point of your sig?

Family Kingdom on Monday, probably, Unless I decide to pop up to King's Dominion Sunday afternoon.

PKD's Drop Zone has been open recently. XLC is seventeen seconds of misery for me, but there are a lot of people who like it. I tend to get very, very stapled right when it starts to climb the spike, making the rest of the ride an experiment in agony. Also, the last time I rode it, I was holding the bars like you normally would (if you have opposing thumbs) and nearly got said thumbs ripped of when we slammed to a stop at the end. So, yeah. I'm not a fan. If there's no wait, give it a whirl for the experience. It's not worth more than 10 minutes, though.

Grizzly has been really hit or miss this year. A friend of mine told me that he'd been on it and said how awful and rough it was, even near the front and I just said, "Not my Grizzly." But I rode it a couple of days later and couldn't believe the shimmying. I popped up there yesterday afternoon for a bit, though, and it was back to the same perky Grizzly that I love. Who can say? The Hurler, OTOH, IMO, seems to be consistently running waaaaay better than last year, but not as good as 3 or 4 years ago. (I've only been on the Carowinds Hurler once, so I can't really help you there.) The Rebel Yell is not bad at all in the first two cars, particularly if you stay off of the axels, but the track is mighty warped in a couple of places. As I've said before, if they leave it as is, the first drop will soon be a double-down. The jackhammering in the back of the train is nearly unbearable for me. I seriously thought I had vertebrae scrunching into each other. Basic rule of thumb for all the PKD woodies, stay near the front unless you've got prescription-strength painkillers handy.

Just looking at pictures of the bucket on a stick gave me a cramp in my pucker.