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allykat4416 · 5 years

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Meme Trip 2k19, Pt. 6

Date: May 24th

Parks: Waldameer in Erie, PA//Knoebels in Elysburg, PA

After the theme park equivalent of walking through your childhood home after a tornado struck, it was time to dial it back and hit up some smaller parks. I’m really glad we did two tiny, family-owned establishments in one day. It really helps with comparing the nuances between them, since they already feel so wildly different from the bigger corporate ventures.

For what it’s worth, Knoebels is still my favorite of the two, but both are fantastic little parks. Hit the jump to squee over how adorable they are with me.

Waldameer is a park that—surprise, surprise!— I never thought I would get to visit. I had heard about it because of their Gravity Group installation, and we had attempted to visit last summer but it never panned out. We had originally shelved this until our August venture out that way {it’s nice to be able to openly talk about future plans on here and not worry about any dumb motherfuckers infringing, thanks Tungle} but decided to hit it since we’d be coming through the area anyway after all in May.

I’m incredibly happy we did. Waldameer looks like a giant, souped-up county fair. I often felt like I was back in the old County Fair area of Dollywood before the 2006 revisions, down to some of the flat rides they had for the young’uns. It brought up a lot of stuff my memory and time must have buried deep.

It’s a really small park because of this, but that was definitely not a complaint with my foot feeling the way it did. It’s really clean and all the employees were incredibly lively and friendly. They took the time to talk to us and banter. At one point, we saw some just up on a stage and singing for the hell of it. So cute. So happy.

We didn’t eat there besides a little cookie that we split, but that ended up being for the best since Presque Isle has a lot of really cute independently-owned diners. We hit one of those and I think we have a new favorite place to eat in the area!

Comet is a nice little kiddie coaster, and it’s great for what it’s supposed to be. One of the ops was training, and I’m glad we had the chance to kinda help her out with her new gig. If I hadn’t been hurting so much with my foot, I would have been down for another ride on the way out. I’d like to have seen how it ran after it had a chance to get warmed up. As for the other kiddie credit, we were fairly sure they wouldn’t let us do Ravine Flyer 3 without a kid in the party, so alas, the credit wasn’t acquired and a proper opinion shan’t be formed. Big tears.

Steel Dragon sure was a credit. I always figured I wouldn’t be a huge fan of spinning coasters, and I assumed that rightfully so. The transitions weren’t as jarring as I anticipated them to be from seeing the ride on the midway, so that was at least a pleasant surprise. Still, I don’t hate it as much as I do the S&S Free-Spins…probably because this didn’t even really spin that much. I don’t think I would ever ride this again either, but the two wooden gems in the park make up for that and justify so many further visits.

And then there's the star of the show: Ravine Flyer 2.

RF2 was my third Gravity Group at this point (and thus far, still is. Someday, Oscar, I will ride in your wacky taxi!!) and I have to say I enjoy the things they’re puttin’ out there into the world. KyFly is a gem of a family coaster, and Voyage is objectively a really, really good ride despite my negative personal associations with it. Ravine is no different, and it’s quickly earned itself a spot among my favorites.

RF2 was also where I was able to get my first true, bona-fide zen ride. For those of you not in the know with the lingo (and that would require being part of the community, so again I yearn for your innocence), a zen ride is when you’re the sole and only rider on a coaster train.

There wasn’t any grand revelation, probably because I was feeling weirdly at-peace despite all the shit I had been told earlier that morning. It was just me, the ride, and that one lone guy going under my bridge on PA 832 on his chopper. I’d love to try a night ride on this thing sometime. I think my favorite part of it is the hidden drop right under the main lift hill when you get dangerously close to the hillside. I also like how they opted for a more GCI style curved first drop.

We left around 2 once we’d finished up our lunches, which was a lot later than we had intended on staying. But hey, we really liked Ravine Flyer. From then on, we hit the road back towards our original starting point.

I’ve said a lot about Knoebels, and I do maintain that it’s my favorite park I’ve visited thus far besides Dollywood. There’s such a charm to it, and maybe it’s the redneck in me or maybe it’s because I’m not a Penna local, but it will always hold such a dear place in my heart. I feel like I’ve stepped back in time in the best possible way.

Flying Turns was quite unique, and I’m glad I decided to bite the bullet and ride it. I’d skirted around getting this credit because I had heard they weigh you for the ride, and my BDD-having ass was not about to be part of that shit. I didn’t know the specifics of the weighing, and it’s instead like the scales on the now-dead Slidewinder at Dollywood. It was an interesting experience and I’m glad I decided to face my fears and go on it. I don’t think I would ever wait in the line that thing seems to accumulate again, but I appreciate the love the park poured into making this ride a reality. I respect that.

Twister is a ride I said last year that any visit to the park would feel incomplete without going on, and that statement has held true. Though we only got one lap, Twister is always such a fun coaster and criminally-underrated. We love one twisty dude from PA on this blog, and my opinions on this ride have only spiked. It’s probably my second favorite at Knoebels now.

Due to Foot Problems, I didn’t go see if I needed a kid to ride Kosmo’s Kurves. Still, it isn’t like I won’t be back, and I have some wiggle room in my quest for a Very Special 200TH. I assume it’s probably exactly like Big Dipper at MIA; these kiddie credits all seem to blend together. I don’t really feel like I lost anything by missing this or RF3.

And then there’s Phoenix. Oh, my sweet and beautiful girl Phoenix. I really fucking despise this community but I’m glad they’ve left you alone for the most part. I’m glad that this is probably the closest I’m going to get to a “universally liked” coaster that’s also one of my favorites. Phoenix really is the unproblematic fave.

I know I rambled on and on in my first trip report on Knoebels about how Phoenix took me by surprise and quickly ended up one of my favorite new rides of that excursion. (And it probably would have been had we not done I305 a few days later.) RF2 had a similar case of what I hereby dub “Phoenix Syndrome”---where I had heard very little, but still very good, things about the ride going in. I had no preconceived notions of either ride, and they both managed to blow me away. If you must ask, though, I do prefer my firebird between the two.

If you keep up with the Golden Ticket Awards (and I pity you if you do), Phoenix won Best Wooden Coaster last year. In the interview for the issue, Dick Knoebel went on the record as saying “The happiness it (Phoenix) brings makes it seem as if it’s doing what it can to repay us for providing a second chance to thrill riders.” It’s here on pg. 46, if you want it. I believe in citing sources.

There were a lot of emotions going on this trip, and a shit-ton more after it, but now more than ever Phoenix makes me feel purely...good. And that’s something this hobby has been losing rapidly for me, hence why I deleted IG not long after returning home from this. Not a lot about this feels good anymore, as you can glean from my CePo and MiA reports prior.

But for a brief moment? When I was at Knoebels, watching the tracer lights going around the lift in the dark? That didn’t matter. Instagram, RMC, the rankings, the piss-ant enthusiasts that are cancers on this fucking pastime? Nonexistent. It was just me, Casie, the other goofballs having a blast on that orange train, and a survivor of a ride.

Disclaimer that I think the Golden Tickets are a sham, and I really only ever keep up with them because of Teh Dwamaz in my personification stories. But dammit, Phoenix, you know what? You deserved that shit. And yeah, I’ll admit that some of her peers (not namin’ names) are better from a purely-ride standpoint. But no other wooden coaster will ever make me as happy as this one does. Even if you never win it again, you’ll always be my favorite. I love you.

“Phoenix has risen to the top, and my heart is happy." And this hobby has lost too much happy. I gotta hold onto it when it presents itself.

#trip reports

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ourrvroadtrips · 7 years

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May-June 2017

We made a few visits up to see M & E after our Smokey Mountain adventure. But basically shot up and down 95 stopping over at Walmarts when we had to to maximize our time in DC. Also got up to NYC a bit. But our traveling days were put on hold when we welcomed a new E into the family 10 weeks earlier than expected. It was a very scary time for all involved but thank God all is well and we were able to make our first trip since January. We picked up the RV at Port St Lucie- still having some under warranty stuff taken care of and headed up 95 on my birthday. Had a fantastic BBQ lunch at Daytona Pig Stand and then went all the up to Hope Mills, NC (where you can't stay at the Walmart overnight). Hadn't planned on driving that far but a tornado watch was posted around 5 PM for the area we in (and planning to stop overnight in) and it wasn't ending until 11 PM. That was bad enough but around 5:30 it switched to a warning covering several counties basically saying that the storm had produced rotation and we should take shelter now and not try to look for the tornado but even if we were trying to see it we probably wouldn't be able to since the storm was so bad. Not what you want to see on your phone driving down 95 in a very large RV. No exits in sight and where were we going to seek shelter anyway? We decided we would pull over and lay in a ditch if we saw anything but as the warning predicted we could barely see a few feet in front of us. I was searching madly trying to figure out what county we were in and as I was scrolling down the warning with a corresponding map of the counties of South Carolina trying to figure out where we were, where the storm was and where the warning was I saw that they added 95 between mile markers 89 and 110. We were at 112. Great.... Needless to say we spent a very tense 1/2 hour until we were further north and the storm turned into just light rain. We agreed we should keep on driving until we were well out of range! Next day we saw on TV there was a tornado just a few miles from where we were. Can't wait to do a summer drive in the Midwest! But the good news was we were able to see M & E (who will now be referred to as E1 (as opposed to her cousin E2- no way are we going with big E and little E- way to much thinking about E2's size as it is) Decided to stay Wednesday and Thursday nights in College Park for a well deserved rest (thank God my mom got a good medical report) and headed up to NJ with the RV and hit no Memorial Day traffic. Thanks other Ls for letting us park in your driveway. I'm sure you were the talk of the neighborhood! Had a great time with family and friends. Then packed M, D and E1 into the RV for the drive up to Binghamton NY. First time we had passengers and it went really well! M & D rented a car and continued up to Colgate for their 10th year reunion and R & I had a great time with E1. Hadn't been up there in 10 years- saw R's old house, took E1 to the Discovery Center, which she loved- just like her mom and uncle, wanted to see the baby giraffe in the zoo but we were all too exhausted, ate in Sharkey's once (spedies, perogies, clams and kielbasa- light lunch) and Cortese twice and brought spedies from Lupo's back with us. Furthest north we've been with the RV- very excited to add 4 more states to our map. Lots of fun and fantastic food (just as good as we remembered). Met up with M on Sunday and ditched our plan of going to Lancaster since M had developed a bad cold and it was supposed to rain for the next few days. Got back to DC Sunday night- E1 was a real trooper! Will head back to MIA probably Friday- no stops along the way, just Walmart overnights because we miss E2 and want to see her asap! Really too bad you can't be in two places at once!

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