Photo TR: Conneaut Lake Park

DerekRx · July 19, 2005

After enjoying the carp and Saco, we drove back to Conneaut Lake Park to get me some of my last remaining Pennsylvania credits. We got to the park shortly before the night wristbands went on sale, and instead of purchasing a full price POP, we decided to wait until 7. We walked around the park, looking at all the rides not yet opened this year for the poor struggling park. Its sad to see a place barely functioning, and although its hard for places like this to compete with Disney or Six Flags, its also hard to let go of something so old and classic. I wanted to walk around and look at the whole park, but unfortunately the skies were about to dump some rain on us again, so we took refuge at the Beach Club. After getting our beers and watching the locals in the water from the pier, it started to rain again. This one lasted about an hour, and then the rides started to reopen.

First to open was the Blue Streak. I hopped on with Greg and we were off in the back car. The ride was pretty good and smooth. It reminded me a bit of the Lakeside Cyclone, only without the laterals. A good old fashioned woodie, not too high on thrills for this era, but its nostalgic, and doesn’t need any sort of gimmick to obtain ridership. I took 4 more rides on the Streak before heading over to Devil’s Den. I saw the infamous “gum wall” which is disgusting as we made our voyage on this shopping cart on a track. I’m not sure if it’s a roller coaster or not, but it fit’s the criteria enough to count it as one. It had some pretty decent tricks in it as well.

Finally I needed my Toboggan credit. They took the roof off the ride this year, ridding it of its “bang”. The ride was closed when I got to it, but they opened it up after getting approval and running a few test runs. As I made my way towards the lift, I rolled back. The op attempted a few times to get my car to engage with the lift, but it wouldn’t. I was evact-ed from the car, they put the dogs back down, and sent it through. After it made it all the way around, they put me in the other car and tried again. This time it made it made a connection with the lift and I was going up. “Cha-ching!”

We then decided to have dinner at Hotel Conneaut. Sadly we saw no ghosts of Elizabeth, some little boy, Mr. Peanut Carp, Saco the fisherman, or the Blue Steak ghost. On the way back to Pittsborg, we stopped at Hank’s Custard for some vanilla and banana custard. Good stuff that should always be had on the way to or from Conneaut Lake.

Next up: KennyKon!