Two Flew Over The Buffalo's Nest://Richardson Hotel & WNY Ghost Hunt 2026

                   Date:9/9/26-9/10/26

Destination: Buffalo, NY

Goal: Richardson Hotel, Ghost Tour, Niagara Falls

Distance: 150 Miles

Means of Travel: Driving

Potential Credits: 1

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall brick campus-like building with two towers capped in tarnished teal copper.

Some places just have that notoriety. Villisca. Mansfield. Waverly. People will travel around the world to go ghost hunting and see something spine chilling! But as there are living people everywhere, there are also dead people everywhere, and it’s one cool thing I’ve learned since rediscovering the paranormal as an adult. The closest haunted location to you could be right there in your community, maybe even somewhere you’ve been before. While I was in New York for job interviews this fall, we made a few days out of one of these lesser known local places.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett and Keely, two 30 year old adults, pose before a tall brick building, with Jarrett's arm around Keely and green Meta glasses on his eyes.

While Keely and I can travel the world as a couple of badasses with situations and needs, not everyone was always so lucky. In the past, people who were sick, neurodivergent, going through stuff, or even women who wanted to leave their husbands, were subject to horrific treatment in psychiatric asylums for those labeled “insane.” In these institutuons, people were electrocuted, lobotomized, and worse, behind closed doors for life for some. One such facility exists in Buffalo a few hours upstate from Keely, and now operates as a hotel in the preserved building. Once the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, it is now known as The Richardson Hotel.

Plan was to drive 2 hours to Buffalo, check in, snoop around a bit, get dinner, and then do a ghost tour I’d found downtown. We would then get back and explore for real once it was nighttime. Then, we’d tie up loose ends the next morning and go to Niagara Falls.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Behind a temporary but overgrown fence sits a series of brick buildings boarded off with rotted plywood.

Upon getting there, we navigated an adorable neighborhood and Buffalo State campus before finding the backroad entrance to the complex. And Lo and behold, much of it is still abandoned! The hotel takes up the most prominent building at the apex of the V-shaped campus, but the ones further down the wings are crumbling and overgrown. This is straight out of Scooby Doo!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A brick building with tarnished copper roofs and two towers has a glass facade reading "THE RICHARDSON HOTEL" under a cloudy sky and mist.

The glass atrium through which you enter is new and was added when it was turned into a hotel. Beautiful, but we need the elevator.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A sign reading "RICHARDSON HOTEL" over a doorway in brick flanked by house plants, with signs pointing left to the elevators and right to the restrooms.

And behind those stairs is this creepy boiler room-esque chamber, which houses two small museum galleries and the elevator up to the lobby.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A woman pulls a suitcase behind her wheelchair around the bend of a curved hallway with tall windows and white walls furnished with seating.

We were sent to the left down the Olmsted Wing and into the ADA room at the very end of the hallway. These little common areas are curved, designed to deter the practice of lining up beds in the hallway of an overcrowded asylum. The doors to the wings require a key and they’re heavy!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A wall art shows stone accents on a building featuring a bison head.

Long, beautiful hallways feature little commons tables and these nice canvas photo prints of various sights in Buffalo.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A view out a window of the building amid changing leaves and overcast skies.

It was a little rainy, little misty out there, and New York gets dark earlier than back at home, so the atmosphere was amazing for where we were.

Once you’re in your room, you can tell what this was. Tall, narrow chambers with huge, barred windows separating you from the world out there. Keely said that they were built this way to encourage the patients to think upwards towards god.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A placard on Henry Hobson Richardson hangs on the wall.

Keely and I went back to that basement to check things out with their museum, which is home to two rooms about architecture and a room and hallway about the asylum. Here is Lipsey Architecture Center, dedicated to telling the story of architecture in Buffalo, talking about Henry Hobson Richardson, the man who designed this place.

On display were roofing samples, prints, and models, and I understand they plan to put more out in the coming years.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A placard in the corner of a white brick room has info on Frank Lloyd Wright.

While we didn’t even want to begin to mess with accessibility here, there is a Frank Lloyd Wright house in town too. Buffalo is one of the architecture capitals of the world!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A wheelchair of wood with spokes and foot plates made of lumber panels sits on a white display pedestal.

This shows a little about life committed to Buffalo State Asylum For The Insane. Think this period wheelchair looks like it would hurt your ass? Keely actually used one of these in a school play, and she can confirm that’s the case.

Mental hospitals as benevolent institutions is a truth that has a lot of tropes to overcome. In Hollywood, these facilities are all murderers, straitjackets, and padded rooms with screams echoing down the halls. But in reality, the past was a mix of both, and these are remnants that prove the former. Here’s a look around and a weaving loom and music stand that would have been used for constructive, rehabilitative activity.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: On a white wall sits a baby photo and picture of a cast iron pan next to a placard.

In the hall is a community project put together by the locals. It’s very simple: write down the story of your family member who was committed here, and a photograph of their possessions. Many of these stories were very sad, and most of the project centered on women who either had mild forms of mental illness (postpartum depression, anxiety, etc) or had been put here for wanting to leave their husband, as that was once deviant behavior.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A framed photo of a baby book on a wall next to a white piece of paper about the owner's time at Buffalo State Asylum For The Insane.

This person's comfort possession was her child's baby book, that broke my heart.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A dark staircase with Victorian design choices and modern aesthetics alike has light pour into the shadowy room through wide windows.

“It’s not a puzzle, it’s not a podcast. It’s real people,” Keely said last summer at Villisca. And this is kind of what brought me back to ghost hunting. We only know so much about the past, wouldn’t the ultimate primary source be someone who was there hundreds of years ago still hanging around? If there’s any chance these people’s stories can be told or better understood, we owe it to them to try.

I also got some new toys to play with here: dowsing rods! These pseudoscience-y devices are similar to a pen but with telescoping rods on a swivel that have little weights on them. When held out, the pair of brass tools will cross one another, supposedly when over a water well or in the presence of the paranormal. Maybe I was crossing them subconsciously, I think I was holding them pretty straight and you have to put a pretty noticeable tilt to them to will them to change angle, but we got more than a few hits on these around the hotel.

The screamer is just because I'm a dick.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A plate of Buffalo wings with ranch.

I earned my wings in Buffalo! Okay, I've had the authentic New York buffalo wings in Elmira many a time by now, and they're amazing. Well, Keely took me to the hotel restaurant, and they had a special on Buffalo wings! Literally the best wings I've ever had. They practically fall off the bone, sauce spice level is perfect, and no need for breading when you can get the skin this tight and crispy. 10/10, perfect Buffalo wing and worth the trip alone.

"Ranch or bleu cheese," our server asked. When I asked for ranch, he told us "eh, we can't all be perfect," as Keely glared at me with disapproval.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A monument in a park surrounded by blurry framing at night.

After this, we had a ghost tour to get to, and because of service issues at the restaurant, we were suddenly on a time crunch! We drove to the agreed upon spot in Downtown Buffalo, and struggled to find the guy, until I got a phone call back from US Ghost Adventures (same company that owns Villisca and the Lizzie Borden house) and we found Temu Adam Lambert. Despite the email saying to find a man with a lamp, he had no lamp, apparently this was only his second tour ever!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A skyscraper of concrete has Celtic-inspired accents etched into its cement, framed by incandescent bulbs.

Buffalo's Prudential Building has these insanely cool Celtic accents on it, but beneath its foundation, someone's maybe been chilling longer than they should have. This beautiful architectural marvel was once the brain of operations for Buffalo's Magaddino crime family, and the Mafia is rumored to have put someone down in the basement, as it's known to have a lot of paranormal activity.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A building with a tall clocktower is lit up at night with red and blue.

According to our guide, Buffalo was the first city to have electricity in the States, largely owing to Nikola Tesla's hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls. While I'm not sure if this electric lighting is in reference to the 250 or Bills Mafia, this was Buffalo's old city hall. Grover Cleveland once worked here, "the coolest man to serve two nonconsecutive terms as president."

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A circular square in town with an obelisk in the center at night.

"What is the difference between man and pig?" This site here served as grounds for Buffalo's first and only public execution: a gang of highwaymen known as the Thayer Brothers. Like all the greats, they had a cult following, and their whole thing was some weird inside joke or whatever revolving around swine. When they were to hang right here in Buffalo, John Love's last words were simply, "what is the difference between man and pig?" And the whole crowd, who had gathered to watch their deaths, began squealing and oinking as the lever was pulled. Legend has it, on a quiet day, you can still hear the oinking of the crowd in the roundabout.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall brick hotel on a city street corner.

"It's named after a Muppet," we were hinted at the name of this hotel. The Statler, which was the first hotel to have a bathroom in every room we were told, REALLY freaked Keely out. And rightfully so! We learned that this was one of Western New York's most haunted building. People fell from the windows, drowned in the pools, strange things happen here.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A city street leads to a column-like monument at night.

On the way up, Keely and I had been talking about Ley Lines and Freemasons for the lastest Lightning War novel I'm working on. This was shot from the obelisk where the Thayers were killed, and see the monument down the street? The Masonic personalities that shaped Buffalo believes that this was a Ley Line, and built two monuments and a train station on the stretch.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A column-shaped monument at the center of a green city park at night.

"What was that?" I asked, seeing something odd move at the base of the steps. Like a "blink and you miss it" sort of thing. Nobody else had seen anything! Strange...and then our guide tells us what this spot was. There was a ton of light rail activity across the street, this used to be the train station...a train station where young men were reportedly carted off to war during conscription. This is a huge theme in my novels, and I've always been disturbed by the practice of ripping someone away from their home and throwing them into battle because of their sex, with absolutely no say in the matter. Ghosts, we've noticed, sometimes only show themselves to people they want to see them. Maybe Lightning War guy was their individual of choice on this dark, drizzly night in Buffalo?

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A dark, creepy hotel hallway at night lit only by globe-like bulbs in modern chandeliers.

Afterwards, we returned to the Richardson, and went back around the hotel. Not much happened, spare a hit on my dowsing rods here and there. While it may not have been as active as Villisca or The Myrtles, my god it was creepy! At nighttime, its liminal and has a sort of "Backrooms" vibe to it, and knowing what it used to be certainly does not help.

Well then...we were outside our room, and I see a flash of white move amid our reflection in a glass window. I do the thing where I ask Keely what she saw, not ask her if she saw what I saw. She says she saw a woman in a white dress down the hallway! We follow down the dead end, to the window where I saw the reflection and turn right, and discover it's a dead end. So I whip out my handy dandy dowsing rods, approach the hotel room doors, and surely enough, it they crossed outside one of them! Whoever she is, she wanted to show us something here.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: In the grass is a small copper model of a complex showing a large building with two towers and two rows of buildings angling off from it.

The next morning, we woke up, got Burger King coffee and breakfast Doordashed, and explored just a smidge more. The back of the hotel has this nice copper map of the campus, showing just how little of Buffalo State Asylum For The Insane's infrastructure is being used for The Richardson.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall brick building with two towers capped with copper points has three arches at the entrance atop a set of stairs, with pink flowers in planters.

The view from back here of the building was a nice one, but the paths were gravel so it's hell on wheelchairs.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A small outdoor seating area with wooden pavers and patio furniture sits high off the ground over the Richardson Olmsted campus. 

Also found this strange empty patio on the third floor, no clue if we were even allowed out here but I felt some of the pavers move underfoot so that was unnerving.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett and Keely cuddle at the edge of Niagara Falls, slightly wet with falls mist.

We then closed the day out by popping into Niagara Falls. While I'd been to the Canadian side in 2023 and as a child, this was my first time in memory going to the American side, which was run a bit more like a state park. While Niagara Falls is Niagara Falls and is always pretty, the views here I didn't think were as nice, and the wind kept blowing so much mist over here I couldn't get any good shots because my lens was impossible to keep dry.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A view of Niagara Falls from across a chasm of blue water, with an urban cityscape on the other side.

I wanted to go to the Canadian side for the infamous Burger King coaster credit, and to of the haunt maze at the same venue, but turns out, it isn't wheelchair accessible! Because it is a "legacy building," they don't have to install an elevator around the 13 steps into the basement where the maze is located. But turning it into a Burger King and putting a roller coaster on the roof is okay! We watched the casket-shaped cars navigate the wonky track from a distance.

It was an expensive night, but one that was worth it! Maybe not as active as we had hoped, but even if it's not, you're at one of the nicest hotels you've ever been to. It's comfy, it's historic, the spooky vibes alone are amazing, and their chicken wings slap! Definitely hit it up if you need to make a night out of Buffalo!

My Future Is Riding On It://Cedar Point 2026

                  Date:8/22/26-8/23/26

Destination: Sandusky, OH

Goal: Cedar Point

Distance: 156 Miles

Means of Travel: Driving

Potential Credits: 0

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A yellow roller coaster train navigates an overbank of blue steel track on white supports, with a red tilt coaster tipping forward in the background.

“It’s my favorite place in the world,” I tell people. In 2011, some dumb high school junior from Dayton who was on a roller coaster hyper fixation for the fourth time in his life, received a card on his 17th birthday. Opening it up to hear it burp the birthday song, inside was one sentence that would change my life: “Good for one visit to Cedar Point.” And that trip with my dad, sibling, and vomiting buddy Drew became a day that would live in infamy as I went back almost every year since. I’ve seen the place grow and change as I’ve grown and changed, it was an escape from the stress of engineering school. I was there when Steel Vengeance was announced, I rode it on its charity night, RMC Connection did media day for The Boardwalk, I even had my 21st birthday at CoasterMania and maybe three annoying thoosies showed up because I wasn’t one of the cool kids yet. That isolated stretch of lake peninsula near historic Sandusky, with its colorful twisting steel tracks and sandy Great Lakes shoreline is my favorite place in the world. And today would be my last time visiting this place as an enthusiast’s home park.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Two college aged boys in an onride photo of Millennium Force.

And 15 years later, Drew is accompanying me again. Just as he did the first time when I went with family.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A knoll off to the left of the highway has a sign reading "ARMSTRONG AIR & SPACE CENTER" under a cement retaining wall and sphere.

Drew got off work Saturday at 4, leaving us to head up around 5:30. On the way up, you pass iconic Ohio landmarks rich in culture like the Armstrong Air and Space Museum, Adult Videos store where truckers are welcome, and a barn with a big purple fetus painted on it.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An amusement park rises over a parking lot.

The drive on the causeway is iconic, but at sunset it’s a whole new level.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A night photo of Cedar Point's entrance with GateKeeper overhead.

Good evening, Cedar Point!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A carousel on an amusement park midway at night. 

In 2013, a time I spent a lot of time here with my cousin, someone on the old Rollercoaster Tycoon forums was doing a speculative project in which Corkscrew had been removed and Dragster had been extended into its plot. And I remember in his storytelling, he put the Google Glass GUI over the game screenshots to show it was in the future. Much further in the future, I was living this. Today, I was living this reality. While Corkscrew was still around, Dragster had been extended into its current form. And for the first time ever, I had Meta glasses.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett wears a green, yellow, and purple tie dye shirt and sunglasses with an Energylandia buff on his head with Steel Vengeance at night in the background.

Plan was to head back to Steve, snap a POV at night, and head back to the hotel.

First time ever filming a POV with these things, and man was it a wild experience! LensCrafters was chill enough to install a heat fit strap that was very secure, but still, that’s quite an intense ride to casually wear $300 of wearable electronics and trust it’ll be safe! Also took a bit of getting the hang of knowing when it’s recording and the like.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A slice of square, crispy pizza with bacon and ranch toppings.

I had 10 minutes left, and wanted to get back in line for Steve, but it was down. So we went to Maverick…and learned that not only was it down, but it was due to an approaching storm. We hoofed it to the front of the park as the wind picked up, seagulls fleeing in the breeze before us. Knowing we wouldn’t make it to the car, we took shelter in Hugo’s just as the sky opened and drenched the Point.

Hugo’s is one of the better places here, especially if you like Detroit pizza. The crispy square pillows of toppings are probably the best pizza at any park. Shoutout to the hardworking staff keeping it open past close for storm refugees! We waited it out and enjoyed a walk to a car in total nighttime calm, before heading to Avalon Inn.

 

Next morning, we started the day off with beautiful GateKeeper, the first ride added to the park since I started going and served a role as "the new one" to me for some time. I was so excited when they announced this beautiful B&M wing coaster after riding Wild Eagle, featuring an inversion I'd built in RCT since childhood, an amazing lakeside location, and of course, those insanely cool keyholes over the entrance. While it's fallen far from my top ten, I still have a soft spot for it and hit it every time.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A vintage archway with a mouse holding cheese reads "WILD MOUSE" in letters on colorful blocks.

Drew decided to sit our next ride out, so I elected to snap a quick Mouse POV while we were over there, filming on this coaster uniquely for the second time after having the honor of doing Media Day on The Boardwalk in 2023 and filming for RMC Connection. While its spinning is now more controlled than it was that legendary day, you'll still get a pretty good ride out of it.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A rusty metal gazebo overgrown with vines has a "HAUNTING OF ERIE ESTATE" sign over its entrance.

They were setting up for Halloweekends, including that amazing Erie Estate haunt I love that's actually haunted. Something tapped my shoulder in this maze last year but nobody was there, I swear!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A blue roller coaster train spirals down a vertical twisting drop of red and white track.

Time for my #1, if anyone remembers last season's negative initial take on this ride that got me badly flamed online for daring to bad mouth the King of Cedar Point. While I stand by my claim that Top Thrill 2 was an ignorant shitshow from an engineering standpoint, I get the less educated do enjoy the ride on a shallower level, a level I can sink to the way I enjoy Chinese Takeout or an Adam Sandler film.

This was the most nervewracking POV I filmed all day, as you've just taken a $300 investment 426 feet in the air at over 120 mph hoping the little strap on the stems holds it to your head. The Energylandia buff I was using to hold the strap in place about blew off despite holding it with my hand and wrapping it tightly around the straps.

This single video has since broken the internet and the comments are gloriously stupid, highly recommend a scroll through if you need a laugh.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Top Thrill 2 crests its towering top hat of red and white track with a white and red scaffold tower and blue corkscrew track in the foreground.

Another note about Dragster so y'all can threaten my family again for old time's sake: it sucks in the front now with that pathetic acceleration. OG Dragster was a front row ride, now with the extra speed, you wanna ride Top Thrill 2 in the back for that glorious pop of ejector over the top!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A plate of rice, a roll, and some fish with a pink cocktail on a table overlooking the lake.

We then got food at Grand Pavilion with a gorgeous lake view, featuring their rice and beer battered fish. So good! I was irresponsible and snagged a cocktail as well, courtesy of their bartenders who are always chill.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A black and green coaster train hops a wave turn of red track.

Our next ride was the whole reason I wanted to come back: their newest ride from last year that I only got to ride once. Siren's Curse is an incredible piece of engineering, to contrast Top Thrill 2's year long mechanical delay. Great ride system, insanely cool trick with the tilt track, the main layout is every bit as good as the gimmick that calls riders in, and the onboard audio is a certified banger. Because they were still figuring things out mechanically, it operated sporadically last fall, so I wanted to ride it a few more times.

Took a more vocal, reactive POV of the front row to capture just how scary this really is. We rode in the back last time, but up front this time, and they’re totally different experiences. Up here, it’s all about the tilt, wherein the back, you get a better ride. 

After Drew epically lost his lunch in the station, I was asked “wanna ride again?” So I hopped into the empty seat and took it! We got another fun POV with this woman and her family in the middle of the train, featuring a cool look at the tilt mechanism’s fulcrum.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A red roller coaster sends a black and green train down a vertical drop from its tilt mechanism into a dive.

Siren’s Curse may not have been intended to live at Cedar Point, but man is it a master class addition. It looks good where it sits, people stop to gawk up at it every time it tilts forward, and it’s the second best ride here if you ask me. It’s an absolute grand slam for the park, and I hope to see more like it.

Magnum was next in the pecking order, so we headed around and I took a lap in the coaster’s famous vomit seat. My first few years coming here, this wasn’t a coaster I liked, but after discovering this row in 2015 it has consistently been a top 5 in the park for me. You’ve got what’s basically a mine train car with a simple U-bar handling borderline RMC airtime and it’s completely ridiculous, I love this thing. Also the most innovative coaster ever built, if you ask me.

Since it was there, I swung by Gemini for a quick lap, which got kind of fun when I saw they had sent an empty train to race us! I was in the front row of the red side’s back car so I could see a train full of riders racing one that was completely empty, it was an odd experience. Gonna be a boring game of Money Train!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Gemini's station with people loaded into the red train.

We rode this on that fateful 2011 visit here, when Drew famously and epically cropdusted on the catwalks, hanging his head out the train and burping up a trail of puddles as the train traversed the layout. But more importantly, I was here at a coaster club event (yes, I cringe at my involvement as well) in 2015 when some random gay kid invited a bunch of us to play some game he was calling Money Train, so I went with him. There, we added each other on Facebook, and I learned of some poor souls banned from TPR by Robb Alvey for liking Papa John’s Pizza. This rando would then blow up my DMs while I was at Kennywood a few weeks later to make sure I sat in the back, a total bro move. Ben would go on to become one of my closest friends ever, and one of the few I would retain from this dark chapter of my life, the dude is great and we may not be friends had it not been for that dubious Money Train game.

Next up? The content I had wanted to make the most! A front row POV of legendary Steel Vengeance was on my work order!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall wood supported steel roller coaster does a rise up to a turn around a tall lift hill.

This coaster probably has the most memories of mine, going all the way back to the final, trimless, sprinkling night ride I got on Mean Streak. Watching the structure transform, the famed Frontiertown Hootenanny at which it was announced, riding it on charity night, even its creation was two years’ worth of lore to me. And since then, I’ve seen many a running of the bulls, many a child cry on this coaster, and enjoyed enough blissful 29 second ejector rides to have spent several minutes off my butt. My favorite coaster here, and while it’s already getting eclipsed technologically, it will always be one of the greatest coasters ever built.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A gunmetal-colored coaster train flies around an outer banked hill on wood supports.

Largely responsible for kicking off the war on loose articles industry-wide, and adapting with those amazing double sided lockers that have swept the industry by storm, the idea I may one day film on this ride was unheard of. And having once taken a iPhone 6+ to the face on Diamondback, I’ve always supported these policies. I remember waiting 2.5 hours without phones to ride this with other RMC Conn guests at Halloweekends 2018, during which we got so bored we started saying disgusting words such as “moist” and “dongle” to torment one another for sick entertainment. Hand stamps, plastic zipper pouches, TSA agents, they went through it all in the war on phones. But in this futuristic day and age of wearable electronics, I could safely film on this and that’s really cool.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A view from Steel Vengeance's brake run looking into the station.

We broke it! As we hopped over those brutal final bunny hops, we slammed into the brakes, and a gentlemen approached us on the catwalks and told us it would be a minute.

Fuck. I had to pee.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A pie pan lined with tissue paper holds sliced steak, a biscuit, and a bowl of chicken and dumplings.

After exiting the ride and relieving myself, we went to my other favorite restaurant in the park: Farmhouse! Drew had gone here before I did when they opened it, and on that awful 2022 birthday trip when I discovered my DSLR stolen, him dragging me to Farmhouse was the best part of my 28th birthday and saved the occasion. The steak here is so good! While it was beyond well done and looked more “congratulations” at Grand Pavilion, here it was nice and rare. Shame to see they got rid of the chili, but the chicken and dumplings I got instead were also great.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A silver coaster train with a cowcatcher and Maverick logo on the zero car swoops around a turn of red track.

Maverick! While I love this ride, I can never quite make up my mind exactly how much I love it, and while I do sometimes like it better than my first favorite ride here, it’s never been my favorite in the park. Such a cool coaster, though, and a great LSM lift concept I’m surprised we haven’t seen since. “I bet nobody will want to ride Maverick as it isn’t very tall,” I remember my father said as we approached a 1 hour queue.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A red roller coaster dives down a short lift hill's beyond vertical drop over a twist of track.

I remember my buddy John and I were here in 2016 and applied to be in a photo shoot the next day that was asscrack of dawn early, to which I borderline dragged him. Morning shoot on Iron Dragon with empty VR headsets was interesting as we were basically blindfolded, but later that day we got to shoot on Maverick. And that entailed just staying seated and going back around over and over again, it was pretty epic. We’d turned our loud thoosie shirts inside out for the shoot, mine a purple Hydra: The Revenge, but John’s unfortunate choice of a neon green Fury shirt got him deliberately placed away from the camera!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Four men and a woman sit in a bronze coaster car with orange seats and restraints.

And here’s another crazy memory, happening in real time! For those who do not know, I am face blind, and struggle to recognize people as a result. I’m waiting on the platform when this crazy blonde woman is excitedly waving to me, who the hell is this? “Do I know you?” I asked. “My name is Jess!” She replied. And I did know her! We’re friends on social media and met at ArieForce One Media Day, in the time between last time and this time we saw each other, a whole coaster opened and closed. But it was great seeing her and her friends!

I love this ride, but like I said, the layout is weird to me. Best parts are after the drop and the whole finale after the launch, but I don’t think it feels paced consistently. The stuff that is paced well feels great, but I feel it relaxes and breathes too much in the turns. However, unlike Pantherian which has the same problem, the layout is good and varied with blitz sections, snappy inversions, airtime, and an awesome launch.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall blue roller coaster with silver supports careens through an overbank.

It was time to walk to our last ride, and one that holds legendary status to both of us. Drew’s first #1, a former #1 of mine, and a ride so great he spent the whole drive home not shutting up about it except to puke out the window. And while the enthusiast culture that surrounds this ride has come to grind my gears in recent years, I do still like it despite its days of being best in the world behind us.

“Millennium Force was the best!” Drew said for the millionth time.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A red coaster train navigates a blue length of track held up by silver supports.

I have always struggled to fit this ride, even at my smallest, and I know others who have had the same issue. Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of Intamin’s old school T-bar design, I feel like a ridiculously short belt isn’t a good replacement for a minimum point, especially with all the variance they can have. As iconic as the red blue and yellow trains are, new rolling stock would do this wonders!

Shoutout to the ride op who got my belt to click, we’re rolling! While there are some nice sustained floatery ejector moments around the layout up here, I honestly have come to enjoy this ride for the sheer speed of it. The pacing is ‘lax, but your surroundings do a great job of letting you know you’re booking it at 90 mph. It goes through stuff, rather than over a flat field.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall giga coaster with blue track and silver scaffold supports has a blue train ascend.

As special as this coaster is to me, I hate the culture that surrounds it. It is not the best roller coaster in the world 26 years later, and this "best in the world" phenomenon is a tradition, not a valid opinion. Beast and Millennium Force were arguably the best in the world when they did open, but I feel the community latched onto that and couldn't bear to let go as they were eclipsed by the progression of technology. New enthusiasts think it's the best in the world because older enthusiasts think it's the best in the world, and they want to fit in. If this coaster is someone's #1, it's their #1 because they want to belong and scream "aWwW yEeEaAaHh" at night like a friggin idiot.

So publicly? I bash this ride because I refuse to be one of their kind. But I'll gladly get on and have a hell of a time, enjoying it the reasonable and appropriate amount it deserves.

We headed out after, swinging by Pagoda to snag a few souvenirs, when I noticed Ben’s beloved Blue Streak without a line. So I had to jump on and film a POV for him! Ending my time with Cedar Point as a home park on the park’s oldest coaster.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: On left, two high school aged men pose for a photo with a blue sign reading "MILLENNIUM FORCE." On right, the same two men, now in their thirties, recreate the photo on the left.

Well, Cedar Point, it’s been real! Here I went from a loser high school deadbeat, to a college kid tangled up in the most unbelievably dumb drama, to the closest to a functioning adult you’re gonna see me get. Special thanks to Ralphie over here for doing this for the first and last time with me, this park is so much more fun with company, you rock and please keep coming here even if I can’t, you may even get a Crash Bandicoot game out of it!

It is, after all, my favorite place in the world.