Right now I am using Budget Dialup to connect to the internet, because the hotel wireless isn’t working. The Days Inn people say they don’t know what’s wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s not on my end. Budget Dialup is great for emergencies like this, but damn it is slooooow.

Today we tried to go to Carowinds. We started by going for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel across the street from the park - there was a cache there, and we needed to eat anyway. That was a big mistake…it was so crowded! I didn’t even get enough to eat and I ended up buying food in the park anyway. But I did find the cache!

While we were eating, it occurred to me that I might have a more enjoyable time at the park if I rented a scooter. Both standing and walking can be painful for me, especially the longer I do it, so amusement parks are pretty hard. When we got to the park, I rented a scooter for $40. Driving it was not particularly difficult, but driving it amongst oblivious toads who stop short for no reason, walk out in front of you, etc. was a pain in the ass. When we got to the exit of the first ride we wanted to go on, we learned we had to get a booklet from Guest Services that worked like the Disney World Fast Pass system - go to the exit of a ride, get a time to return from the ride operator, and then come back at the appointed time to get on immediately. So we returned to the front of the park and got the booklet; we agreed that I would go get some ride times and then we’d meet up. My first stop was Vortex, where bad signage led me to climb the wrong set of stairs to get a ride time. The guy said I had to go to the other side, so I went back downstairs and went around and came upon…more stairs. By this point I had wasted an hour just dealing with this crap and I decided to fuck it and go it on my own. I brought the scooter back to the front and fortunately they refunded my $40. But we still had the booklet! So A got ride times for a couple of rides, and we went on those successfully - I just sat and waited while she got the ride time, and then I didn’t have to wait in line to ride.

Unfortunately, after two rides in this manner I was too tired to keep going. A had asked “so what do you want to do next?” I opened the map and everything just seemed so far away and hard to do. So we decided to leave - but first we stopped at the Sanrio gift shop and picked up a couple of goodies there. We did get our hands stamped but I don’t see us going back tonight. I feel bad because we spent $35pp on tickets and $10 on parking and a bunch of bucks on food and stuff and we were only there for three hours…but every time I opened the map I just couldn’t imagine having the stamina to do even one more thing. Sigh. Tomorrow we drive home and there are some caches along the way we plan to do.

Today I finally got to go to Six Flags Great Adventure! It’s in New Jersey, and every time I’m on the turnpike I see the sign, but I’d never been before. It was more crowded than I was expecting, so I didn’t get to go on the two major rides - Kingda Ka, which is currently the world’s tallest and fastest coaster, and El Toro, which opened earlier this year, both had lines far too long for my taste. The Kingda Ka line would have been about 60-90 minutes for a 28-second ride, which isn’t an effective use of my time! I did get to ride several other coasters, as shown in my updated coaster count. We didn’t end up going through the safari because we were tired at the end of the day, but also I’d seen the safari area while on the lift hill of Medusa and I wasn’t very impressed.

The most memorable part of the day was when my friend :R: convinced us to go on the log flume. I don’t normally go on water rides, because I’m almost never there in a bathing suit and I don’t ever have a change of clothes. But I figured the log flume doesn’t get you as wet as the river rapids, so it would probably be okay - and :R: had sat out a few of the coasters so I wanted him to get to do a ride he wanted. I sat in the front with :R: behind me, and A sat in the rear seat with C behind her. When my lower legs got soaked after the first tiny drop, I knew it was a bad idea to get on that ride! Sure enough, when I climbed onto the rotating platform after it was all over, I was drenched. I looked like a wet cat who’s very insulted that it’s been given a bath! I never did dry off the rest of the day, and when we got to our hotel room I peeled off cold clammy jeans and hung them up to finish drying.

I did get a couple of souvenirs - a shot glass, and :R: bought the on-ride photo from Medusa and gave it to us.

The Six Flags family is among the best-known theme parks in the United States. While Disney only has five flagship theme parks, Six Flags has twenty in the U.S. and one each in Canada and Mexico. Presently headquartered in New York City and Oklahoma City, the company has been running amusement parks for 45 years.
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Since the earliest days of roller coasters, the name Giant Dipper has been used for wooden coasters across North America. Between 1924 and 1930, five roller coasters opened under this name; today, only two are still operating, both in California.
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I think I lost five pounds today just by sweating. We started at Chocolate World in the morning and then spent the rest of the day at the amusement park. A and I went on the rides and her parents did whatever they did for five hours. We had heard it was going to rain today so we brought our Maid of the Mist ponchos in my backpack but instead it was broiling hot all day. I had already been on the Comet and Trailblazer during a visit many years ago; that was when the Sidewinder was new so it was probably around 1991 or 1992. We rode those again, though, along with the new Great Bear which we really enjoyed. We rode the Wildcat too and we wanted to ride the Storm Runner but it was broken down when we were in that section of the park and we didn’t go back. I’m not disappointed by how many coasters we missed; unlike Kennywood and Canada’s Wonderland, HersheyPark is close enough to home that I can always go there again.

Another coaster we went on was the SooperDooperLooper, which was built in the late 1970s. I remember from long, long ago that I wanted a shirt that said “I survived the SooperDooperLooper” but I hadn’t ridden the ride so I didn’t get one then. Well, now I’ve been on it - it only has one loop and was not terribly impressive compared to newer rides - so I got the shirt! I’m sure the screen printing will crack on the first trip through the washer, so it will have a nice vintage look.

My in-laws have already eaten, so A and I are just going to order pizza in our hotel room. Oh, and I bought my first-ever on-ride photo: it’s from the Chocolate World tour vehicle, with A and I in the backseat and her parents in the front seat.

It seems my body is simply trained to wake up at 7am - or perhaps my back just knows better than to spend too long on an awful bed! I haven’t been able to do much online here because the dialup connection was just terrible: 24kbps and even that didn’t work very well! I’m not sure I’ll have access at all in Canada, because I’ll be turning off my Sidekick to avoid roaming costs and while the hotel in Toronto is supposed to have access, that’s never a promise. So I’m updating from my Sidekick once again, having mostly caught up with reading my LiveJournal friends list on it last night. I have no way to check my aggregated feeds, though.

We had a good time at Kennywood yesterday. The coaster lines were not too unbearably long (less than an hour each, some only 30 minutes), and I got to ride all the coasters! I only ended up in the first car on the Racer, though, and that was in the second row so I’m not sure if it even counts. The weather was quite good; we’d forgotten regular sunblock so we just used the face stick (like a glue stick but with 30spf) on our exposed parts and I didn’t gets a sunburn at all! I only took a few pictures with the regular camera; I took a couple of Sidekick camera pictures too while waiting in line for coasters. I’ll post everything the next time I get decent access. I didn’t take more pictures than that because there are already at least three books and several websites about Kennywood, and those will have much better pictures than I could have taken!

On the way back to the motel we encountered a really horrific accident - our reaction was “but how did that SUV end up on top of those two cars?” (That wasn’t the entire accident, either - just three of the involved vehicles.) Fortunately for us the accident was on the other side of the highway, so once we got past the rubbernecking zone we were fine…but there were hundreds and hundreds of cars backed up westbound; all lanes were closed and people were strolling around to pass the time.

I practiced driving the car yesterday (it’s a huge Pontiac Bonneville) and today I hope to drive at least halfway to Toronto before switching off.

At the moment I am standing in line for the Exterminator, the enclosed wild mouse coaster at Kennywood Park. Immediately behind us in line are two high-school-age girls, both signing; one of them said she is deaf but they both sign at about an ASL I or II level. I tried talking to them but they are typical teenage girls and not interested in an adult geek like me.

We’re near the head of the line now, I’ll write more later!