After reading Joe E's post,I was a bit suprised. My husband and I expected the same kind of day, what with rain predicted and Raptor, WT, MF and Maggie down, but we persevered and ended up enjoying the day thoroughly.
We drove down Wednesday afternoon so the hubby could hit the dragstrip in Norwalk and run his F150 Lightning. It was hard for me to see CP while on the Edison bridge with such nice, clear weather and knowing we weren't going until the next day when rain was predicted. But knowing we would only have a 10 minute trip to the park from the Red Roof Inn in the morning, I was hoping the rain would at least hold off until we got our ERT over with.
We also found a great place to eat in Sandusky that is open 24 hours. It's always been a pain when we were hungry after CP or the dragstrip closes and not having a place to eat. Even the fast food places seemed to roll up the sidewalks at 10 pm. So, anyone who is interested, Dianne's on 250 is open 24 hours and has a wide variety of food. Saw some CP employees there in a table across from us. We headed back to the Red Roof to get some sleep about 11:30 pm.
We got into the park with our JC memberships and went straight to WT. My husband, at 6'5" and 260 lbs did not fit in the test seat with a good two inches preventing him from latching the seatbelt. BUMMER! He decided he'd wait in line with me anyway. After 15 minutes of testing, we saw the mechanics arrive, and opted to head to MF instead. But when we got there, MF was down "for mechanical reasons" As they were testing trains, including the yellow train with water dummies, we decided to stick it out. Glad we did because when Millie did open (around 11 am) we got two good rides in the very back seat. Yellow was moved back to the transfer track, and only the blue and red was running.
We expected Raptor to be down due to wind, but were suprised when we heard Maggie was down. We walked back toward WT to see if it was up, and made a stop to ride Draggin Iron (yeah, it's slow and tame, but still an okay ride). From there we continued on to WT which only had a 10 minute wait! Lucky me. My hubby sat out while I took three rides on WT, the first in the very back seat, the second in 6-4, and the third in the back again. I'm going to have to try the front sometime as the airtime I got on the upward spiral in 6-4 was awesome.
From there we worked our way over to Blue Streak which had no line. BS didn't seem to be running as fast on the backward course as it did on opening day, but still smooth. It was then we discovered Maggie was running and decided to work our way back.
This is the year I've vowed to overcome my fear of Power Tower drop side, so on our way back to Maggie, we made a stop at PT for the 10 minute wait. I still couldn't open my eyes on the way up, but I did manage to open them on the drop down. I think a few more rides on PT and I may have it licked!
On to Maggie. It was a walk-on, and we sat in 1-3. Maggie was running fast and the airtime kept us out of our seats, much to the distress of my husbands thighs. Once was enough for him, so we headed to Gemini.
We were both a bit disappointed to see only the red train running, but Gemini is still one of our favorites and took a spin in 1-2.
Since the hubby's back was beginning to twitch, he wasn't sure he wanted to ride Mean Streak, but was willing to wait while I did. As I got to the entrance, he came up behind and grinned that he changed his mind. We were planning to eat and leave afterwards anyway, so he figured he'd take his chances. If his back hurt too much, I could always drive home.
He didn't ride MS last year, so he hadn't ridden with the trims firmly in place. He agreed it didn't make the ride as exciting, but he was also thankful it ran smoother than in the past. Even so, he realized when we got off that his back didn't hurt anymore! Maybe MS popped something back into place for him.
We hopped the train, waved to the humping skeleton and headed down the midway for a very late lunch in the Midway Market. We have to agree that it's the best place for the money. We thoroughly stuffed oursevles and headed out of the park just as it began to sprinkle.
All in all, we had a great time. The rain held off, the temperature was perfect, and we got to ride everything we wanted to except for Raptor. Lines were minimal with our longest wait 15 minutes for our second run on MF. Even late in the afternoon when we got off the train, it seemed the line wasn't more than a 45 minute wait.
Glad we decided to stick out the initial bad luck.
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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead
*** This post was edited by OldCPer 5/16/2002 7:32:38 PM ***
Glad you had better luck than I did. Any ride I walked by seemed to die . Good to hear yellow was at least running. Maybe something is screwd up with the blocking, i dunno. I knew the last 2 days would be good to get it out.
What time did it start raining there?
*** This post was edited by Joe E. 5/16/2002 7:50:19 PM ***
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Brent Haley
Gemini Crew '02
I was with my hubby...tall, blonde, full beard who was wearing a tan/red tropical shirt. I was probably the only woman there in cargo pants. Sorry we missed you. I met an acer, Roz, a coasterbuzzer, Michael, and Joey (?) Stewart. I thought it might have been Joe E, but he was in front of me in Millie's line and rode the first train out.
I'm not really sure when it started raining consistently. We hit a brief sprinkle that almost turned into a shower just as we headed for the parking lot. We left around 3:30. I read on Coasterbuzz that Raptor came up. GRRRR
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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead
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