TR: SoCal Coaster Weekend 2007

[the_rock401]

The TR from my visits to The Price is Right on Wednesday and Thursday, March 7 and 8, can be found here.

 

FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 2007

KNOTT’S BERRY FARM

BUENA PARK, CALIFORNIA

 

By the time I rolled into the Holiday Inn Buena Park on Thursday night, I was wiped out. It certainly did feel good to get behind the wheel of a vehicle after being at the mercy of Los Angeles County Transit for the previous two days. A hot shower and the bed felt good after two cold nights out on Fairfax.

 

Jerry and Tim, two fellow enthusiasts from Minnesota, flew into town on Thursday and were greeted by near-deserted conditions at Knott’s. Thanks to our 2006 Valleyfair passes (mind you, they work until March 31), it cost us nothing to get in there. They had thoroughly abused everything at Knott’s yesterday, so by the time I got into the park at 10 AM that Friday morning with my Valleyfair pass, they had thoroughly abused everything there.

 

We had breakfast at Denny’s across Beach Blvd. from the Holiday Inn, and then went down and entered the park. The park was had many school groups from the area present today. Tim pointed out that for the kids, this must be the field trip from hell, staring at the blacksmiths and the craft shops while millions of dollars in coaster firepower flex their muscles a few hundred feet away. First stop was Ghostrider, which was definitely not running like it was on the Friday of Solace 2005. It was ROUGH. The train was shuffling big time, and the trains were riding on the upstops over the top of the hills, a lot like Zeus at Mt. Olympus at Wisky Dells. I’m not sure where to start when it comes to working on Ghostrider.

 

Another problem with how they were running Ghostrider is that at the open, the crowd was almost back to the stairs, but only one train stayed on. For that matter, one train stayed on for the entire day. I’m not sure if that changed during the evening Solace ERT, but it was 1 train all day. Lines in the station did improve later in the afternoon, but it never shrank below 15-20 minutes for a middle-row seat.

 

Having had the stuffing beaten out of us on Ghostie, we opted to head back to get on Xcelerator when the time came for it to open. While waiting by the log flume, we talked with a big gentleman and kids from Arizona. They were in town with a church group, and they just so happened to be coaster fans as well. We would see this gentleman again at Magic Mountain on Sunday afternoon.

 

The clock struck 11, and we proceeded directly to the X, as I would simply proceed to call it. Since we were ready when the rope dropped, we went straight to the front row of the train. Jerry didn’t even try to go with us, as he found out yesterday that he wasn’t going to get on the Xcel.

 

After a couple of rides on the Xcel, we got our Vekoma ride on Boomerang, then wandered back to Silver Bullet to see if the line had died down any (they were to the bottom of the stairs at park open). Sure enough it had, and we hopped on Row 6. I still don’t understand why all the SoCalers are so down on Bullet. Ride was similar to two years ago. If anything, it was more forceful than it was the last time I was here. Over the course of the afternoon, I greyed out a couple of times in the helix.

 

The afternoon would progress much like this. Ride Bullet a couple of times, back to the X, then Montezooma’s Revenge once or twice. Stop to use the bathroom, repeat.

 

One particular ride on Ghostie really stuck in my craw. Towards the latter part of the afternoon, I was riding in the second row of the train. About 2/3 of the way up the lift hill, I look at the fella in front of me and see that he has whipped out his digicam for a POV video. Suddenly I get very nervous, because if anything happens to that camera, guess whose noggin is the first target of said camera? Yup, me. I spend most of the time focused on making sure that camera doesn’t come out of his hand, swearing that if it does, it will lead to public humiliation back at the loading platform. While the ride ended uneventfully, and he had the camera stashed away by the time the train got back to the platform, I stopped at the on-ride photo booth and saw that his POV run was caught on on-ride photography. If Knott’s does go after this guy, they’ll have the evidence to do it.

 

It came to be around 5:00, and we ended the day with as many rides on Silver Bullet as we could physically handle. The crowd had thinned out noticeably, and towards the end of the hour, we were getting off the train, going down the exit stars, going back up the loading stairs, and getting on the train after it came back to the station 3 minutes later. I think we had about 12 rides over the last hour of operations, during which time it got mighty brisk in the LA basin.

 

After the last train went out with us on it, we finally staggered back up to the front gate. We see the line of out-of-towners who had checked into the hotel and were ready to get into the evening session of ERT. We make our way out to the car, and then go over to the In-n-Out Burger of Buena Park. If you are a fan of hamburgers, and do not stop by an In-n-Out while visiting southern California, you deserve to have the full weight of the California Penal Code thrown at you. A double-double with fried onions is one of life’s simple pleasures, IMHO.  Throw in some French fries and you’re set. The only thing that wasn’t mentioned until later is that I forgot to get some fried onions and dressing put on the fries. But otherwise, I had nothing to complain about.

 

After supper at In-n-Out, it’s back to the hotel to pick up my car for the drive to Valencia. Jerry and Tim opt to go up the I-5 through downtown Los Angeles while I decide to try out the bypass around downtown by way of the 91, 57, and 210 freeways. I must say, driving across the Los Angeles basin was exciting in a hair-raising sort of way. One minute the pack is going 50 across all four lanes plus the diamond lane. A few minutes later, you’re wound up to 80+ in the slow lane with cars blowing by you like you’re standing still. Anyhow, I missed the Magic Mountain Parkway exit (stupid lane swaps), and I pulled into the Hilton Garden Inn Valencia to find the other vehicle had just pulled in. I had traveled 25 miles further than they had, and the only reason why they beat me to the hotel was that I missed the Magic Mountain Parkway exit.

 

The hell-on-wheels drive across Los Angeles wore out what little energy I had left from the park, and I was also glad to see the hot shower and a bed again. Zonked out hard, getting ready for a tourist run through Los Angeles tomorrow morning, then up onto the Mountain come afternoon.

 

Paul