Erik Johnson

I could be wrong, but I do not think it has happened yet.

Cool. I was too tired to play last night. Should be good this evening though. I finally got around to organizing my house yesterday. Looks much better now, especially my world domination room. Hopefully my persimmon tree will be ready tomorrow. Again, thanks for updating the first post Robb.

My last two visits to SFoT were really good, I was just really disappointed in my last visit. I hope that they make many customer service improvements in the future.

You just reminded me of the TPR Midwest 2007 trip where we went to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. We visited the park just a few weeks after the horrible accident on the drop tower. When our buses arrived at the park we were greeted by, if I remember correctly, both the PR staff and the park president. They went way out of thier way to make sure that we had a great visit to the park. The entire day the service and friendliness of the staff was almost Silver Dollar City quality. I was simply shocked that we were in a Six Flags park.

I sure hope that is the case. I will make another return visit in a couple of years, hopefully they will be back to normal operations then.

Ok, let us head on over to Six Flags Over Texas. This was going to be my third visit to the park. The first time was in 2009. The second time was for TPR's Texas Giant Bash in 2011 which was a simply wonderful event. After that visit I ranked SFoT just after Six Flags Great Adventure as my favorite Six Flags park in the chain. Boy, have things really fallen far. Sure we already knew that the two best coasters in the park were going to be closed (New Texas Giant and Shockwave), but you would have thought that the park would have been a tiny bit hospitable to a group of 100 (with many international and first time visitors). The answer was a big, NO! As much as Robb and Elissa tried, the park said no to any ERT, backstage tours, or even a simple hello from management. Mind you, this was planned before the Texas Giant accident. It also did not help that operations were quite abysmal even with a Qbot. It was pretty obvious that the park needs to spend more time training employees. It pretty much became a, "Screw You, Six Flags Day!" I am sure that I will make it back in a few years, but they really need to do a shake up with the upper management of the park. With that said, not everything was a total loss. Robb and Elissa had a surprisingly awesome alternative side trip planned for later in the day. We ended up heading over to Summer Adventures. Summer Adventures is a small, temporary park that is located at the State of Texas Fairgrounds. This year they wanted to test out a concept to open up some of the fair attractions in the summer. It was an amazing opportunity because I doubt I would have ever made it out to the State of Texas Fair. Ok, do you want some photos? Texas Sky Screamer is really tall. 400 feet tall! New for 2013! Awww...Stupid Six Flags. First ride of the day. Rules of the ride. It was a fun ride, but I thought the ride cycle was a bit short. Also, operations were simply dreadful. As much as I like Mr. Freeze, I did not even bother with it this visit. Just when you could not think Six Flags would sink any lower. Stupid Six Flags. I should say the New Texas Giant is my #1 steel coaster. The station was all covered up. I think that they should move the school to a park that I like....ummm maybe Silver Dollar City. After a few hours I bailed to go to Humperdinks. Let us head on down to Dallas. Summer Adventures >>>>>>>> Six Flags Over Texas Good to know. So that is what a 500 foot pole looks like. Intamin's newest ride is a 500 foot tall observation tower. It just opened in June. Close up of some mechanical things. I spy a kiddie credit. It just towers over the big wheel. Nice view of Dallas. Cotton Bowl. Many buildings which will be full for the State Fair of Texas in Sept. They have a skycoaster. I see another coaster. Intamin Shadow Yes, this would be the third and final coaster in the park. They have a Windstorm here. The water tunnel was amazing! This has to be the most wacked out, super intense one-of-a-kind kiddie coaster on the planet. It looks innocent enough, but it really spins. I sure hope Robb posts a onride video of it soon. Photos do not do it justice. Single rider! Wacky Mouse! TPR take over! Weeeeeee... Close up of the front of the train. Let us check out this puppy. Go this way. History of the ride. Rules of the ride. Just relaxing on the big wheel. One crazy flat ride. Up and over. This should have been renamed Sauna of Death: The Ride You do get a nice view of the area. Cotton Bowl. Checkers anyone? Oooooo..... I always ride these things. This one is an older one. Here is some history about the ride. The dark ride was fantastic!! Bill Tracy designed this one. He was the best. I loved this room. Does it count as a credit? It had some descent theming on the outside as well. Paul survived. Log Flume! Random Indian. Into the tunnel of doom! For a fair log ride, this one was not too shabby. Uh oh! Aaaaaahhhhh! Evil Tree! Evil....Mushroom? The big drop. The fun house facade was pretty fancy. Oh, yeah, we also had an hour of ERT on the Flow Rider with dinner and alcohol after the fair closed! It was an amazing evening! And we leave you with a scary clown robot.

I sure hope my truck sized salad helped to offset the calories from the cheesecake.

^ lol. I am sure it was the same expression for SFoT as well.

The following day was Sea World San Antonio. This park was pretty much unchanged since my last visit in 2009. Sea World has two really great coasters. Great White, which is a fantastic Batman clone, and Steel Eel, which in my opinion one of the most underrated coasters in the country. Onward to the photos! Good morning, Sea World. Shamu lives here. To start things off, we had a wet ERT session of Journey. While it is certainly a lot less elaborate than the one in Orlando, it is still a fun ride. Testing the boats. Ready to get wet? Up they go! Another group of suckers...I mean riders. Steel Eel ERT? Yes Please!! I think it is one of the most underrated coasters in the country. Great fun, and lots of airtime. Front of the train. There were a few hardcore TPR members who took full advantage of the ERT session. A train full of super happy riders! Still the best coaster sign ever! Sure it is a Batman clone, but they are awesome. Good and forceful! Run away from the shark! No long waits for this version. I still have not done the new version in Orlando, but it is nice that you can simply walk in to see penguins. A Lemur joined us for lunch. The penguin turned my hat around, honest! It is also time to retire those shorts. Ski show! Pretty sure this was the first time I had seen one of these in person. We also checked out the new Pets Ahoy show. It really looked insanely packed, so I decided not to venture into the newly themed waterpark. Friends. Feeding time! Shark! Shark! Shark! This is actually a cool Sea World shirt. Time to head on out. A TPR tradition! Time to trade snacks from all around the world. This brought me back. I had not eaten one of these since High School.

This is the start of my photo trip report of TPR's Texas/Midwest Trip 2013. As always these trips are the highlight of the year for me. Let us first start with Six Flags Fiesta Texas. The last Time I visited this park was during TPR's 2009 Texas trip. I always thought this was one of the better Six Flags park in the chain. While none of the coasters are top ten material (I can't say how Iron Rattler is, since it was closed for our visit), it makes up for it's scenic location. With that said I think that some areas of the park could use some sprucing up and fresh paint. We did have two great ERT sessions at the park. Thank you Robb and Elissa for that. Anyways onward to some photos. What do we see in the background? Going to be a hot one! We meet again, Fiesta Texas! Eric, you should be smiling! Awwwwwww..... We had an awesome ERT session on this great floorless coaster. Heading up to the station. Everyone was able to get in many rides before the park opened. At one time, this was the largest loop on a coaster. It is Superman! We also had ERT on my favorite coaster in the park, Poltergeist! Lots of rides for happy TPR riders. It is my favorite of the, "Flight of Fear" Premier coasters. Baking on the brake run. TPR takeover!! "Run for you lives!!!" Something new has been added. This is the Sky Screamer that is not named after Texas. While a lot smaller than Texas Sky Screamer, this one had a much better cycle. Just follow the sign for an awesome air conditioned lunch. Yay! Iron Rattler! Awwww..... I like the new logo. The front area of the ride looked nice. Nice detail. So close... I am sure I will make it back in some near future. Train! It does look a lot better than the old busted wooden one. We still managed to get an iRat walk back tour. The final drop. Into the tunnel! Twisty! Group shot with iRat. We got to go up to the top of the cliff. I love how crazy this looks. Lots of crazy overbanks. Backwards view of the inversion. The top of the final hill. The other side of the hill. I do not think I have ridden the train before. Falling water. Purdy! Hi, Superman. These rides are fun. This one was pretty good. Good ride, I always like Batman/Clone coasters. It was certainly more forceful than it was in 2009. Some of us escaped the heat to the Cheesecake Factory outside the park. This was my salad. The S'mores cheesecake was amazing. Evening Sky Screamer rides was the best! The sun was starting to set. The, "Texas is better than everything else show" is still the best Six Flags nighttime show. Though I think the version in 2009, was better. (They shortened it and removed Zeus). Still it is not to be missed. More ERT!!! At night! Sky Screamer at night was really cool. Say goodnight to the sleeping dragon.

Glad to see it back up!

The shovel occasionally creates gems instead of coins on the special rock of the day.

Heading home now, I will be ready in 5.

FYI, I did get the final Best Buy items. If anyone wants them, I can order extras.

I usually just leave extra rare items in front of my train station for other visitors.

Check your catelogue on the catelogue machine in the store. It lists all of the items you have collected in the game. It also lists the price of each item. If it says not available, you can not buyback that item.

Wow, talk about a fall from grace. In the first couple of years I would certainly would have called Hades a top 20 ride. I wished that they simply spent the money doing a full retrack instead of a layout change.

Pretty sure Mack did the trolley ride.

If you really want to ride the Texas Sky Screamer, make sure you head on over there first thing. The line can get long and the operation of the ride can be quite slow.

Really? That is awesome! I am glad it is not another Wing Rider.

Powder Keg at Silver Dollar City last Saturday night at around 11:00PM. Riding Powder Keg at night was an amazing experience!

Been an awesome trip so far. The Summer Adventures park at the fair grounds was a fantastic surprise! Especially with the cool dark ride that I had no idea existed.

I also have perfect fruit to give you as well. You can only plant perfect pears in your town since pears are you native fruit. You can sell them for $3,000 each in other non native pear villages.

^ Most certainly!

I have bananas. I added your friend code so all you need to do is add mine if you'd like (see first page). On another note, does anyone have a perfect pear? I seem to have sold mine the first day not realizing I couldn't grow another one. I can give you a few. Just let me know when you have the time.