Photo TR: Lansing, Michigan and Cedar Point

[rileybrands]

This past Wednesday-Friday I was in Lansing, Michigan (Weds and early Thurs) and Cedar Point (late Thurs and all fri). I'll put the two pictures in groups.

 

Here are the ones from Lansing.

 

My dad, who's written over 20 books, including one on Teddy Roosevelt, was invited to Lansing, Michigan to give a talk on the importance of him visiting Lansing in 1907. We were put up on the private access concierge floor in the Radisson in downtown Lansing and really liked the town!

 

Part of the celebration was Tweed Roosevelt speaking in the Michigan Senate Chamber about his great-great grandfather and a re-enactment of T.R.'s speech to the state congress. Part of the re-enactment included the re-enactor driving an authentic 1902 REO car from the Michigan Library of Historical Archives to the Capitol. I couldn't get any pictures of the Senate, as they didn't allow us to take pictures, since the Senate was considered in session at the time.

 

This is the first time I've ever taken a camera on a trip for a trip report ever, not just for TPR. I don't really know why, but I'll be trying to do it much more now.

 

Hope you enjoy!

Michigan Capitol. Being a fan of visiting state capitols, and because I live in Austin, I was intrigued to learn that Elijah Myers designed both capitols!

It was tough to snap a picture from our hotel room. When I turned off the flash, the ISO lowered, and the ISO wasn't manual on this camera. Oh well. This shows the Grand River.

Not far from Detroit we saw this awesome water tower for the community of Twelve Oaks.

Go Blue! University of Michigan

Zooming by a Michigan's Adventure billboard. No visit this trip!

Me chillin' w/ A-Coop.

Dad happy to get off plane. At O'Hare, we had to wait 2 hours to catch our regional jet to Detroit.

"Ahhhhhh! It's so early!"

First to Chicago, then Detroit. Then rental car to Lansing.

[rileybrands]

Here are the rest of the Lansing pics.

Me in front of statue of Austin Blair, Michigan's governor during the Civil War.

Me in front of Capitol with T.R.'s portrait behind me.

Roof of Michigan House chamber. It has every state's seal, with Michigan's at the front end of the chamber.

There are about 10-12 of these chandeliers in the Michigan House. Each has approximately 4,000 crystals and is cleaned once a year.

Michigan House

On the tour of the building, they will NOT let you forget that Ford was from Michigan.

Upon further investigation, we see part of Michigan's state seal: an elk with a shield that reads "Tuebor." It's the state motto. It's Latin for "I will defend."

Chandelier outside of Michigan governor's office.

Capitol Rotunda. Max height of 267 ft.

[Chris Benvenuto]

Trust me, Lansing isn't in good condition right now. Mainly due to the problems with auto industry and having our state as a majore producer of cars leads to one thing

 

Cars+foriegn jobs+crisis+Toyota+Lansing+state debt at 905 million= EQUALS ONE EFFED UP STATE!!

 

Trust me, now isn't a good to live in good ol' Michigan.

[rileybrands]

Oh I definitely heard all about that, and I wouldn't want to live there. It was a... pleasant... place to visit. It was unbelievably quiet. It's obviously not a real tourist destination.

 

My dad and I were talking about how Michigan didn't have a really strong "back-up" industry to go on in the case that the auto industry ever fizzled out. Correct me if I'm wrong, but other than the auto industry, there was the steel industry, rubber industry, and glass industry there, but they depend a lot on the status of the auto industry.

 

Also, because of Michigan's strong auto worker unions, foreign companies don't want to put plants there because they'd have to pay higher wages than in many southern states.

 

This isn't true just with the auto industry, but also with any big industry. In order for the auto industry to regain some ground, they're really going to want to try to make health insurance part of the public sector, so that they can sell their cars for less. That's how health insurance works in Japan, so they can sell cars for less. Any person will want to buy an equal value car for less, so they'll buy the Japanese car.

 

I'll start posting the Cedar Point pictures now.

[rileybrands]

Part I of Cedar Point

(I felt so stupid after leaving b/c I realized I hadn't taken a picture of Millennium Force! I wanted to get a picture from the outside of the park, but right as we were leaving, the battery died!!! The reason I don't have tons of pictures of Maverick is b/c this was my first time there and b/c there are so many pictures out there already, especially on this site)

Magnum, with better overview of pretzel turnaround

Magnum in turnaround

Magnum coming back from pretzel turnaround on bunny hill

Magnum after curved hill, on it's return trip

Magnum XL-200 on second hill

Thursday had a .5 hour wait not going out of station with one train. Friday they were running two trains!

MILLENNIUM FORCE! AMAZING FIRST DROP! Awesome airtime on first drop and all three hills. It's weird. It looks like there wouldn't be airtime from afar. It looks like it's going slowly over the hills from afar, but it feels so fast!

WT from Giant Wheel. Dad thought it was Twisted Sister. I told him there were two coasters called Twisted Sisters. He acted like he knew it all along.

Wicked Twister! Fun ride! Back row is great. A little yanking on the pull-outs but fun. Awesome feeling in back when you reach top of back spike! Foot choppers!!

I love how close it comes to the ground. Anyone know if this has ever been a problem? We saw a kid throw a basketball at the track right before the train came by.

Corkie in its second corkie.

Dad and I both went on Corkscrew. It really was a lot better than I thought it would be! Dad was fine in the loop, but got a little dizzy in the corkscrews.

Wheeee!!! Power Tower! I like the blue towers more, but the red tower was dad's favorite.

I found this little guy next to TTD.

Hahaha it's funny. The part where Iron Dragon really swings the most is as it comes into the brake run.

More Iron Dragon

Iron Dragon! Fun ride! A little jerky at the helix at the end! Love the dive into the mist! Dad (roller coaster wimp) really liked this one!

Uh.... it's boring. I thought the first drop would be good, but at the top, I remembered about the trim brake. All the hills where I thought there could be airtime there wasn't. There are so many of those huge slow curves. Zzzzz....

"Ehhhh... Mean Streak. Let me see for myself."

As if there aren't enough of these!

Zooming to the finish line!

TTD. Wow! What an intense ride! Not my favorite in the park! MF is! It's just as soon as it's over you're just getting excited and "revved up!"

Gemini from below. I really liked Gemini! However, I learned my lesson not to ride it in the back row. The only time it was racing I rode blue in back row and it was pretty jerky. Still great ride!

Gemini testing

[FeelTheFORCE]

Great pics so far! Can't wait for CP part II!

[rileybrands]

Cedar Point Part II

And now I leave you with Magnum going off into the sunset! Stay tuned for Cedar Point Part 0.5! You'll see what I mean!

Mantis

Mantis. BLEH. I did NOT like this ride. It was running really rough. Why does it have longs that are so long considering its lack of quality? This was one of those rides where I couldn't wait for it to be over!

We LOVED the antique cars!

Dad after conquering Blue Streak. There's great airtime on this ride but I just wish Cedar Point would pay more attention to the ride! It's a great little ride but there's jackhammering!

Raptor zooming by after MCBR. Taken from hot rods queue line

From Wildcat's queue.

Wildcat. Dad and I rode this. I was surprised by how smooth this was! Really nice floater airtime! You gotta love Schwarzkopf's coasters!

Maverick with train after launch tunnel

Maverick

skyhawk at night. nice airtime. crazy!

Raptor Snaptor. I found you can avoid the slap if you stick your head out as far as possible.

raptor up close. is it just me, but after the first flat spin, is there a weird almost trick-track element?

Raptor from Giant Wheel. I really liked the ride, but I feel like it's showing it's age. the mcbr were barely noticeable and weren't on strong at all! got a nice slap from the restraint at end!

me riding maXair. can't you tell where I am?

more maXair

maXair. The sensation is absolutely amazing!

[rileybrands]

My take on Maverick:

 

I was able to ride Maverick three times while I was at the park. Since my dad didn't want to ride, I found it great that, although there isn't a single rider line, when there's an empty seat, they'll pull single riders out of the line and let them jump to the front of the line. It was great! I had just entered the covered switchback part of the line and they called for single riders and it saved me probably 50 minutes of waiting. It was great!

 

There was horrible stacking! They usually had 3 or 4 trains waiting outside the station. Luckily all were running though, as it did save time for people waiting in line!

 

Since they send two trains out at a time, it stinks if you're the second train (the one that has to wait for the first train to reach the tunnel), especially at night, because that means you have to sit there, and there are TONS of bugs buzzing around. Luckily, during my night ride, I was the first train. I found the launch hill exciting, and the 95 degree drop is great! You can tell you go beyond vertical and your butt really comes out of your seat in the back row, but it's not long at all. You really get airtime in any of the cars, but is most pronounced in the back. The canyon after the drop has multiple, smooth direction changes. At night, when the ride seems to run faster, you get ejector airtime on the first airtime hill. The twisted horshoe roll is VERY smooth and taken at the perfect pace. At night, you really slow down in the tunnel and there are great special effects. I've heard there's supposed to be smoke in it, but I didn't experience any! (In the day, you don't slow down in the tunnel for really any time). The only real jerky parts of the right are the left turn out of the tunnel and the descending curve into the S-bend. The water canyons really get you wet at night! The S-bend is nice, but doesn't really add anything. The Stengel dive can bump you into the restraint, but if you lean with the ride, it's very smooth. The airtime hill at the end has great airtime. Great fun!!!

 

By the way, the restraints were very comfy!

[rileybrands]

I have a question about Iron Dragon.

This also happens on some other Arrow coasters too, like Demon at PGA for one.

 

OK, so why is it that the lift hill does this weird thing where it seems to stop, then start, then stop, then start, then keep doing this, as if it keeps breaking and then fixing? It's like this rhythmic movement forward.

[hemmy]

That is strange, as it seems sometimes it has almost no power.

 

Last Monday, Tuesday Mantis in the front was pretty darn smooth, much less head banging than everyone complains about.

 

Also, I thought Wildcat, Disaster Transport, Iron Dragon are very underrated rides.

[rileybrands]

That is strange, as it seems sometimes it has almost no power.

What specifically are you referring to?

 

Last Monday, Tuesday Mantis in the front was pretty darn smooth, much less head banging than everyone complains about.

That's weird that it changed so quickly, b/c i was riding in the second row far right on Thursday.

 

Also, I thought Wildcat, Disaster Transport, Iron Dragon are very underrated rides.

Yeah it's so true!

[rileybrands]

Cedar Point Part 0.5!

 

This is the drive to Cedar Point I forgot about before!

 

So much of southern Michigan and northwest Ohio is very rural. Both are quite different, but are both quite rural.

Does anyone know the name of this town? It's one of the first towns you pass on 127 S as you come into Ohio.

127 S. Smooth sailing until Ohio Turnpike, when traffic got a little greater

Baptist church in Michigan near Ohio border

Just south of Jackson, MI

[Chris Benvenuto]

Good to see you had fun.

 

State budget crisis or not, thanks for giving us a visit. We really like visitors, visiting the local state industry or not!

 

But, I'm going to CP on the 21st, so expect my PTR the next day.

 

Take Care!

 

Chris

 

EDIT: you said you passed a local town on the way to CP? I think that's Bellevue, not sure though.