USRoadTripper

I have the main page bookmarked, so I go there first and look to see if there has been a major site update. In forums, I start with Theme Parks unless I have posted something in random and am wanting to see the resonse. Then I'll read random, then Ask Alvey. I rarely look at the games board because a lot of the photos are so big and take forever for my slow dialup to load! Every day, usually from work and from home. I'll keep it up in the background and reload every now and then. I'm sure it makes it look like I'm online 20 hours a day, but I'm not Just the first because there are usually not enough new posts in between visits to spill over on to the second page. I agree with everyone that I love the photo TRs, random and regular. Mainly I'd look at posts that are started by someone I know, or deal with something that interest me first. After those, I might scan the others, or might not, depending on how much time I have. Of course, I always scan for my own topics first just to see if anyone has anything to say in them I'm in the chat probably 4-5 nights a week for some amount of time, and find it to be my favorite part of the site! Great people hang out there and we never fail to have fun. I also enjoy the regular updates and looking through old updates when I get bored. I don't read the stickies much either. I don't read any of the ones in Random and only read ones in Theme Parks that pertain to me (like Beech Bend and Photochop stuff). I also think the search function could use an upgrade. Searching for certain posts by certain people is quite difficult. I tried searching for author=USRoadTripper and keywords=random TR and it gives me no results when I know I have posted just a few! Hence why there was no Photochop entry about Wally from me...his photo TRs were too hard to find! Just a thought for you. Aside from that, I think the site is just fabulous the way it is. -Julie

I will absolutely be there! Anyone have any questions they want me to ask??? -Julie

The worst I can think of on short notice is X-Flight at Geauga Lake. It is normal queue up until the stairs up to the station. Then there is this one legth of queue blocking you, so you have to walk all the way down to your left, then all the way back, then up the steps. Of course this made every single person jump over or under the queue to avoid the completely unneccessary long walk out of the way. Not sure why they don't just open it up and put a chain there to block it off if the extra queue is needed. Best queue - Dueling Dragons for theming and simplicity, and Space Mountain for air conditioning! -Julie

I'm Magic Mountain. 48% Theme, 82% Rides, 60% Atmosphere, 28% Value -Julie

The Outpost at Epcot sells soft serve mint chocolate chip ice cream. It's the only place I've ever found it, and it's heavenly! -Julie

I've eaten at that Whattaburger! My mom and I got off the highway to find food and I just about passed out when I saw Whattaburger! Hadn't had one in over ten years, and the line was OUT THE DOOR when we stopped there. It was good, but not as good as I remember from the one in Corpus Christie in 1994! -Julie

With Katrina doing what it did, I've heard this asked a lot recently. Assuming I have my kitties, I'd grab my folder of negatives and burned CDs of the last 15 years next. I have all my negatives in one place, as well as CDs of recent digital pictures and "all my important files" on my computer. I specifically put this together after Katrina just in case I was ever in a "grab one thing" situation. Assuming that is already protected (since it's photos), I'd grab my scrapbooks next, as there is tons of non-photo stuff in there that I'd hate to lose. Assuming those are protected also (since they are like photos), I'd grab my teddy bear next -Julie

Lunch is always a much better time for finding reasonably priced meals if you can make your big meal of the day for lunch. 50s Prime Time and Sci-Fi Dine-In at Disney MGM Studios are well within that range and offer plenty of variety. Beaches N Cream at Boardwalk also falls in this category. At Epcot, San Angel Inn is pretty reasonably, and a meal at Teppanyaki Dining Room (depending on what you order) can run from $15-20, and well worth it in my opinion! Most restaurants will have very reasonable lunch prices. Dinner is obviously higher. -Julie

Is the "Dive...dive...dive" quote from Universe of Energy? They say "dive dive dive" at one point, but I don't remember what the next line is! -Julie

I remember seeing teh show about then when #15 was on the way, and they stressed that they were not in debt, did not get any sort of government assistance, and that all the children were well mannered and well educated. Sure I think it's odd that you'd have so many kids, but they really did seem like normal kids in that special. Older ones helped dress and feed younger ones and stuff like that so it didn't fall all onto mom, who served as mom, teacher, chauffer and chef! If they wanna have more, have more, so long as it doesn't effect my taxes! And about college, I can almost guarantee you that every one of them will be drowning in loan debt by the end of school (that is, if the girls don't follow like mom and become baby factories!) -Julie

Julie and Kevin's first trip to Carrabba's! This is Kevin eating a scallop. We both thought this picture was so sexy that we decided to open a new fetish website - www.canadianmeneatingscallops.com At least the fried cheese was fantastic! OMG!!!! Kevin eating squid!!! Barf!!! Julie says "Yep, here's the proof! I'm at Carrabba's!" Kevin is excited to get his first Carrabba's credit. Hello Carrabba's!!!

Kevin is the guy who drove from Canada to Florida! Duh! Hello!!! -Julie (who is scared to admit that she likes fried rice!!)

Julie does not have a boyfriend unless there is something Kevin hasn't told me yet! -Julie

Elissa - Neither of us like drop towers, so we didn't ride Acrophobia. It was open all day though, and always seemed full! Bill - Dippin' Dots are little balls of hard frozen ice cream. We both got rainbow ice, which are like water popcicles, but they also have ice cream flavors like cookie dough, cookies n cream and mint. They're really great, and look like little marbles when you first get them. They are very, very cold! -Julie

The day after our random fun day at Adventure Science Center, we started the day early to head for Six Flags over Georgia. I've been to the park four or five times and make it a priority to visit every season, but Kevin had never been! I picked him up at 6:00am at his hotel and we started off in search of breakfast. We stopped at a McDonalds, where we both had breakfast sandwiches and hash browns. Just as we arrived, I realized that I didn't have my wallet, so we had to turn around, which put us about half an hour behind schedule. We stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center near Chattanooga and got chocolate milk, which has been the tradition for years now. We arrived at the park around 12:30m EST and ate a picnic lunch of sandwiches, cheese cubes, pickles and biscotti in the car before heading inside. They had parking trams running, which I'd never seen before, even on crowded summer days. As we entered, we had the obligatory group photo made, then rode the sky buckets over to Cotton States area. Our first ride was Ninja since it was the first we passed, and it was a walk on. I'd heard the tip from bunches of people here that the first row of the last car was the best place to sit, and everyone was right! It was by far the most pleasant ride I've ever had on Ninja...I didn't get head bashed at all, and while it wasn't smooth, it was definitely rerideable in those seats. Next stop was my baby, Great American Scream Machine. I love everything about the coaster. It is the consummate classic coaster to me. We rode in the back, and it still continues to pack great drops, tons of airtime and lots of speed! All the negative comments about it recently are completely unwarranted in my opinion, and this coaster kicks some major ass. Kevin loved it too, and we both loved that we waited less than 5 minutes for it. Superman: Ultimate Flight was the next stop. This coaster is in a three way tie for my #1 coaster (TTD and S:RoS SFNE being the other two). Kevin had only ridden two really crappy flying style coasters before...X-Flight at Geauga Lake and Tomb Raider at Canada's Wonderland, so I was excited to see his reaction to a *good* flying coaster We waited around 20 minutes for it, which was the longest wait of the day. Almost needless to say, he loved the ride, and agreed that it's barely even comparable to X-Flight and Tomb Raider. We stopped to rest for a moment and got some Dippin' Dots. We both read the sign wrong, and we both read it to mean that a medium cup was $3.50. Turns out they were $6 a piece! Someone needs to make the sign clearer! Being too embarrassed to return Dippin' Dots, we paid it and sat outside. We chatted with a mom and son about coasters, and we encouraged him to try Ultimate Flight since it was his first day riding coasters. We climbed the hill up to the carousel next and decided to ride the Rockin' Tug since Kevin hadn't ridden one of those either. Well, he hated it, go figure! We rode the carousel next, which is lovely, and includes depictions of Jesus making out with half-naked women. We descended the hill, and headed for Canyon Blaster. This was the only credit in the park I didn't have, so I was stoked. Kevin found out the hard way that the lap bars are not male-friendly when the male ride op shoved the bar down into his crotch. His voice was still kinda high and squeeky last I spoke with him. Canyon Blaster is a nice coaster though...I was expecting something smaller, but this is a well fleshed out family coaster. It was nicely themed too throughout the queue and station. We took in Monster Plantation, which is a favorite. It's so bad, it's good. It's so horrible, it's adorable. It's so ugly, it's cute. We waited about 15 minutes for it, so it and Superman were the only two significant waits of the day. Kevin liked it, and responded the way most people do to it....shock, mixed with horror, mixed with delight. We decided at this point to circle back across the front of the park, then head to Gotham city, picking up the credits along the way. The next coaster was Georgia Cyclone...which has always been one of my least favorite coasters because it's so rough. Well, I'm not sure if it was what seat we were in, or if it's just changed, but it wasn't too overly rough this time! It shook us a bit, but it provided some absolutely insane airtime this time. I'm not sure if maybe it was always that rough, and I just percieved it as rougher than it was. Since then I have ridden Predator and Mean Streak, so maybe my perspective on what's rough has changed! Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when this coaster didn't beat the life out of me. Georgia Scorcher was next, and it's a nice stand-up, but nothing to write home about. The g-forces make my legs itch, which is why I prefer Chang and Mantis to Georgia Scorcher. I'd asked Kevin if he wanted to do the indoor Scrambler, so as we passed it, we hopped in line. We ended up waiting inside the building through three ride cycles before we got on. It's definitely one of the fastest, strongest Scramblers I've ridden, and the best themed! On the way to Gotham City, we got sidetracked in the old Great Gasp area by spraypaint marks on the sidewalks. We found the first couple of vertical pieces of Goliath, then watched a informational video about it. We passed on Freefall and headed into Gotham City. We got in line for Mind Bender first, and basically walked into the last car. I love this coaster as well...truly a top notch coaster. I do feel sorry for it though, as two of my top five coasters are in the same park, so I feel like I don't give Mind Bender the credit it deserves! It's a fantastic ride though, with great drops, great airtime, and best of all, just those tiny little lap bars holding you in during the inversions! We jumped into a gift shop for a bit, and made a potty break before getting his last new credit of the day, Batman. This Batman is good, but is only average compared to other inverted B&Ms that I have ridden. This ride was a true walk on, making us wait only seconds in the queue. It is smooth as glass though, as are almost all B&M inverts I have ridden. The gift shop contained many unique items also, such as a Vertical Velocity keychain and a Kingda Ka playset modeled by Batman. At this point, we made a startling discovery. As we tried to decide what to get for dinner, we realized that we had inadvertantly been acting like Robb and Elissa all day! I mean, we'd started the day with a meal at McDonalds, had taken plenty of coaster photos, spent a little too much time oogling at the constuction spray paint marks, and had successfully credit whored the park in one day! So we said...Carrabbas for dinner! Might as well end the day the Alvey way too. I said that if he didn't mind, I'd love to ride Great American Scream Machine one more time since I love that coaster so much. So we hopped on the Sky Buckets again and made out way back to Lickskillet. On our last ride, I decided to try and keep my hands up, which is something I almost never do on coasters. But I did it, and it made the ride even that much more fantastic! I will miss this coaster this off-season! We were both tired and starving by this point, so we headed back to the front of the park. We made a stop in a gift shop where I got a t-shirt (which ended up being too small for me!!) and we found lots of random busts of Shakespeare and stuff in between all the park merchandise. Our last stop of the day was at Guest Relations to see about getting directions to a Carrabbas. We ran into Mary and Blair working there, and they were by far the most helpful Six Flags employees we'd ever encountered! I had questions about the season passes for next year, and about Goliath and all. As Mary went to Mapquest to get our directions, Blair was asking if we were in ACE, and we said no, that we were in something better that was free and friendlier So we told him about TPR, and he promised to check out the site. We also said to look for his picture in a few days because I would be saying nice things on TPR about the both of them! Mary came back with my directions a few minutes later, and we thanked them very much for their help. We found the Carrabbas very easily and were seated right away. Everything on the menu looked great, so we started with a sampler appetizer platter. It has some great fried cheese and bruschetta...and squid! Blech! Kevin ate all the squid, despite the waiter trying to get my to try some. For our entrees, I had Mezzaluna (chicken, spinach and ricotta ravioli) and he had seafood skewers with cavatappi. The food was great, but the herb olive oil and bread was my favorite part of the meal! We were stuffed when we left. After making stops in the bathroom to "learn Italian", we started the four hour drive back to Nashville. It wasn't as bad as either of us thought since we had each other to keep each other awake. Once we got home, we exchanged digital pics on his sisters laptop, then said our good byes. We'd had an awesome day, and I was so glad that Kevin had enjoyed it. It's one of my favorite parks, and I was glad that it was one of his favorites too. -Julie (Carrabbas pics will be posted later!) Blair and Mary! The two most helpful Six Flags employees ever! Probably the most random thing I've ever seen in a theme park. Using Shakespeare to sell Ninja mugs. We also found this Viper postcard...according to RCDB, this coaster has been closed since 2001!!! Isn't it time to cut the losses with the merchandise? And what's this? A Vertical Velocity keychain for sale in Georgia??? Here, Batman models a lovely Kingda Ka playset. The Toxic Accumulator...in other words, "The random spot where nasty water collects and we can't do anything about it." Kevin explains that his other car is a Batmobile. Our onride photo of Georgia Cyclone. I am having a blast, Kevin looks scared to death, and what is that girl in front of us doing??? Julie's credit #160...Wile E Coyote's Cnayon Blaster! Here is Jesus on the carousel making out with a half naked chick. Ugh...get a room, Jesus! Kevin hates the Rockin' Tug! (And yes, my tongue is still multicolored from the Dippin' Dots) Kevin enjoys his $6 Dippin Dots. Here is the obligatory "Julie and Kevin acting like pimps in a theme park" picture. He loved it! Thought I'd throw in a better close up of the typo on the Mr. Mxyzptlk sign in the queue. Kevin is super excited to be riding a good flyer! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SuperKevin! And Superman: Ultimate Flight. Coaster Photo #3...and that's all the coaster photos you get in this TR! Great American Scream Machine! Coaster Photo #2. Oh...Ninja! Coaster Photo #1. I love how Six Flags trains their spiders to create intricate webs like this one during Fright Fest. Kevin and Julie, ready for some coaster action! Kevin at Six Flags over Georgia! Julie discovers that someone had left the machine at the Welcome Center open, and she tries to steal some chocolate milk.

Robb, consider my entire October cleared -Julie

My bad, I didn't see them. I even looked to see if anyone had posted anything similar before I posted mine. But it's true...no random shovel in yours! haha We were there on Sunday, and got on all the coasters except Deja Vu (it was running when we got there, but was not running by the time we made it from the parking lot onto the sky buckets). The longest wait we had all day was Superman at about 20 minutes, then Monster Plantation at 15 minutes! Everything else, I'd guess, was less than 10 minutes, with Ninja, Batman and Mind Bender being walk ons. I wish parks were open during the weekdays in October because I'd plan all my coaster trips in Octobers! -Julie

Coming in late on this thread, I know...but what you are thinking of was called Nestle Magic...predecessor to the Wonderball. Nestle Magic were hollow chocolate balls with a plastic ball inside that had a Disney character you could assemble. My mom and I tried desperately to get an entire set of the characters but weren't able to before they yanked them from the shelves not even a month later! I remember sets of Aladdin, Hercules and Lion King, but I know there were more than just those. My mom and I bought them by the case when the store owner told us they weren't gonna be sold anymore, and we still didn't get one whole set between us! Once they discontinued those, they had the candy and stickers inside...not anywhere near as cool as the Disney characters! Now of course I love Kinder Surprise, and it's probably a good thing they don't sell it in the States, as I'd spend too much money on it!! -Julie

Bears. Boxers? Briefs? Depends? -Julie

So Kevin was in Nashville with his family this past weekend, so we had planned a couple of outings to keep ourselves occupied. His family and I went to lunch at Market Street Brewery on Friday afternoon, and we'd planned on Six Flags over Georgia on Sunday...which left all of Saturday afternoon to fill. So I thought "Where is a good place Kevin and I can go to be goofy? I know! Adventure Science Center!" It's a kids museum, but as you can see from the pics, it was plenty fun for a couple of goofy adults too Part of the exhibit was "Bodyquest" where they teach you all about how your body works and why it does what it does. There was plenty of candid talk about pee, poop, puke, toots and whatnot. The highlight was getting to "take a ride on the colo-rectal slide!" hahaha Complete with crawl-through intestines! I think the entire Bodyquest exhibit would be perfect for Wonders of Life since it was very educational, yet fun and funny at the same time! Ok, onto the pics! Our final stop was the gift shop, where Kevin tried to gingerly handle the "pocket volcano." Thanks for reading! And "Which foods would make you have smelly toots?" Our last stop was the "Grossology" game, where you are asked gross questions and see who gets the most right. My two favorites were "Poo is made most of..." The exhibit tries to eat Kevin. Dum da da dum...Microbeman! ...and who doesn't like a good inclined plane every now and then? Kevin the archaeologist with his large bone. We then stop for a moment to play checkers. Kevin decides to consult the invisible man on the stool next to him for some pregame advice. After descending the Adventure Tower, we stopped for a Dippin' Dots break, and Kevin held all of Nashville in his hands. We're not too big to climb to the top of Adventure Tower though! We both scaled this huge collection of child sized heart slides, vertebrae ladders and tactile tunnels to reach the top. We were pooped, so to speak. Kevin reluctantly decides that, for once, he is too big to go down the child sized bone tunnel. Julie climbs on the skin climbing wall. Here is Kevin sitting on the lap of a man who has no bones. Poop Happens. The object was to roll a little poop ball around an intestine maze and try to get it to go out the hole at the end. "I'm poop!!!" Why Kevin, fancy seeing you here in the intestines! Kevin ponders the question "What's poop?" And is it just me, or is the corn sticking in the cartoon poop hilarious?! Kevin gets into a fistfight with a uvula. Julie and Kevin are *way* too excited to see sheep tapeworms on exhibit. Dr. ManHunk explains that this X-ray does not look good, and that the patient may have some serious complications. As soon as Kevin arrives, he is mercilessly sucked into the lungs to learn about respiration. "Hi, I'm Kevin. And this is the Adventure Science Center!"

I was at the park with my friend Kevin yesterday, and got a few first hand pics of the construction. Turned out to be an extremely fun day, so a TR is on it's way. -Julie The coaster was going up so fast in fact, that we walked by later in the day, and they were already done! Here is an onride photo I took for everyones enjoyment. And here is a random shovel!!! You must keep the whole process in perspective...that it is not all just heavy earth movers bringing us all of next years excitement. Shovels like this fine one are putting in overtime for our enjoyment as well. And here are some footers in the nearby games area. There were spray paint marks all over the games area, so I bet most of it is gonna be queue. Looks to be going up very quickly! Here is a little more verticalness for everyone. I speculate that these are station supports. All this is in the old Great Gasp area. Yay! Goliath is vertical! Looks like a piece of the brake run to me.

I was just pondering today if anyone else on TPR had this credit... http://rcdb.com/id2437.htm -Julie

Mr. Big bars are the best candy bar I've ever eaten, and you can't get them in the States! Wafer, cream, caramel, crispy rice, nuts and chocolate all in a huge bar! Luckily I have a supplier near Toronto -Julie

Making of Me...the ride! -Julie

1. Me! - Journey to the Center of Robb (definitely a ride I don't want to ride!) 2. Coasterfanatic - Soarin' over Soren (too hilarious!!!) 3. Smallish - Big Splat River Rapids (another definite no-go!) -Julie