Date:8/6/2021-8/9/2021
Destination: Eastern Pennsylvania; New Jersey
Goal: Dorney Park, Hersheypark, SFGAdv
Distance: 580 Miles
Means of Travel: Driving
Potential Credits: 3
Let's say for a second...I died. I probably deserved it, I probably did something stupid like ripping a tag off a mattress or eating Pop Rocks and Coke, and not a lot of people probably cared. But I died, and I'm at the gates of heaven, and St. Peter finds me with my book. "Hmm," he says, "very interesting. Volunteered with the Special Olympics, takes photos for people free of charge, stands up to bigotry online, made a coaster group that makes people happy." He continues to scroll through, "some questionable online behavior, social trouble, seems you feel remorseful for a lot of this." He scrolls further in the book. "You spent HOW many days in Facebook jail!?!?" St. Peter proceeds to flip through the memes section of my book, looking at all the horrible yet dank af memes I've made over the course of my life, and tries not to cry or vomit. Jokes about execution, abortion, and mutilation fill the pages in the tome as he turns them in horror. "Oh fuck that shit, you aren't good enough for hell, you're going somewhere FAR worse!" He pulls a lever, I fall through the clouds, and as I approach the flaming lake where Satan's soaking his red warty feet, I strangely feel no fire.
I fall through, hit the grassy ground, and look around. I'm in a cornfield, beside a country road with white dots painted on it. A white pickup truck speeds by blasting Bruce Springsteen as my eyes meet a sign: "WELCOME TO NEW JERSEY: THE GARDEN STATE." Fuck. My worst fears had been realized. There was a hell.
I always knew I was going to hell for my memes, but I didn't expect Satan to come to me in 2019! Just as Railblazer hit my number one spot and I grew concerned about the viability of the Raptor system, which had not been a big seller since its debut the year before, Six Flags Great Adventure announced Jersey Devil, a larger version of the single rail coaster. Did it look as good as Railblazer? No, but it was bigger, and was the next evolution of the concept, so naturally I wanted to give it a try. After a year in limbo with COVID-19 taking its toll on the East Coast, Coaster Crew planned a 2 day event at Hershey and Six Flags Great Adventure, featuring 2020's Candymonium and 2021's Jersey Devil. And the next thing I know, my goofy ass friends Ben and Leilani are practically begging me to go. Sure Skyrush might be down, but Chocolatier looked good enough to be worth the trip alongside Candymonium. Then El Toro goes down, which sucks but at least we'll have Jersey Devil to look forward to! Right?
...right?
Well my buddy Drew had been wanting to hit both parks for a long time now, so I decided to just let him hop in my car and turn this into a big ass friends road trip straight out of Paper Towns! The region trip might have been in May, but this would essentially be a second one almost. Before the trip, we elected to stop at Dorney to use meal plans and get credits for those who've not been there, and Great Adventure's event of the Coaster Crew portion was dropped, leaving it just a normal day at the park.
...and then two days before, Jersey Devil goes down. But hey, cross your fingers, that's a lot of time to fix something if it's minor. So keeping an eye on Jersey Devil and hoping it reopened was the plan.
Day 0
As usual, Draggin' Drew was late for the crazy day when I leave work and drive out to get the gang together, stuck in traffic for a good hour to push our ETA back. When he finally got here, I rushed him into the car and got us on the road, cooler and all, and we headed to northeast Ohio to grab the third member of the travel party: Leilani.
"WHO'S READY TO FUCK SHIT UP WITH LEILIZZLE???" she shrieked as she ripped her door open and headed down with her suitcase and shit. We headed to the Wendy's in town to grab dinner (I used the restroom and walked in on a crazy guy with his pee pee out in front of the sink and mirror) and we headed to the Pittsburgh airport to get Ben. PIT wasn't bad at all, but my crazy distance driving at night over the hills of northeast Ohio made Drew a bit carsick in the back. Finally, we found Ben at Arrivals, let him do his flight attendant thing and load our luggage into my trunk, toasted the trip with a Hershey bar and AJR, and headed to the hotel...
...and after we group hugged it out in the parking lot, checked in, took our stuff to our room, some of us changed, set up the air mattress for Leilani, and everything, the hotel A/C didn't work! We took our business elsewhere across the street to a much nicer room anyway.
Leilani left the room for some reason but left her phone unlocked, so Ben and I turned her Facebook into a funhouse.
After the boys had a little jam sesh that I filmed, and Ben had a little spill, we hit the hay.
Day 1
Being the two that can't sleep, Leilani and I were up first (though her air mattress going flat on her forcing her to sleep on the floor probably was related as well) and rode the scary elevator to the hotel lobby for a spot of breakfast. Finally, Ben and Drew woke up, we all got breakfast together, and threw our stuff in the car for the drive out to Amish Country.
What's this? Ben was cool enough to do a flight attendant safety demo before we got on the road!
The drive started out fairly normal...
...and then my friends started acting like they normally do and shit got interesting.
Finally, we arrived at our first park on the trip, albeit a small one: Dorney! I went here on the Pennsylvania 2015 region trip and didn't think too highly of the place for a few reasons, but we all needed credits and a few of us had meal plans we could use, so we stopped in.
Talon was our first coaster of the trip, only because it was supposed to close at 3 for Grand Carnivale (oop it never did) and we wanted it. I didn't think too much of it the first time, and I didn't care for it much now either, it's okay and not offensive at all but it does nothing no other B&M invert does and feels very generic. Ben however loved it, so good on him.
Drew was hitting 150 next, so we made it something big: Hydra! My favorite coaster in the park, the dispatch was annoyingly slow as the two ride ops were gossiping like the platform was a junior high slumber party as they checked restraints. Coaster was good though! That jojo roll, while not as good as Copperhead's, is still the OG, and the unique hillside layout was great as always.
The other poor bastards then went on to get the kiddie credit while I chilled with my camera. When I went to check on them, they were making the final lap of Dorney's Zamperla death machine crying out in pain. After feeling an odd mix of schadenfreude and genuine sorrow for my friends having to endure that for a credit, they got off, had a good complain about it, and we continued on.
With dining plans to use, we elected for Chickie and Pete's (I don't think it's the chicken restaurant that hates gay people, is it?) for a Philly cheesesteak. After having to push past a family that couldn't figure out the kiosk, the employees were super rude and incompetent, straight up asking me what I wanted when I politely asked to use my dining plan on a cheesesteak. So we order, we go wait to pick it up, Leilani gets us a table in the dirty dining area, and we wait. I get my sandwich and go sit down and eat...and then Ben comes over. Already upset with the poor service, he sets his down, and his precariously balanced cup of cheese pulls a Simone Biles triple Yurchenko whatever all over his crab fries, and he's PISSED. They balanced his cheese on top of the food instead of properly putting it in the basket so it didn't spill, something he informed us you never do in food service. I snacked on mine a bit but restrained myself on the crab fries, knowing we had bigger fish to fry later...
Thundercock was next, a giant pile of #RMCitorWreckit that I about fell asleep on last time I was here. Yup! Same thing as last time, boring and rough, and we rode in the second to back. Ben and Leilani rode closer to the front and loved it, but Drew and I got off hating the damn thing.
Ben and I had yet to agree on a single coaster in the park, yet both of us had the same negative opinion of the park itself.
Steel Forceless, a coaster that I found underwhelming last time I was here, was next, and to be honest, it redeemed itself bigtime! Still no Magnum, but not at all the airtimeless snoozefest I remembered. But the excitement with this one started when we hit the brakes. Drew, who I rode with, was feeling a bit motion sick between Chickie and Pete's and back to back coasters, and just up and hurled all over Steel Force's train! Ben and Leilani were looking away trying not to chain vomit (I never got why the human brain sometimes sees vomit and things "gee that's fucking nasty let's make more!") but they're freaking out while I shrugged it off, used to his spewing vomit all over coasters across our ten years of friendship.
At least the coaster was better than I remembered! I guess!
Possessed was next, and Drew, remembering the time he spewed vomit all over CP's midway after getting off Wicked Twister, elected to sit this out as Leilani Ben and I dealt with this Intamin impulse coaster. I like this coaster, don't get me wrong, sucks they killed the holding brake, but it's fun!
We saved the new experience for last: Cedar Point's legendary Demon Drop. Not the biggest drop tower guy but they've grown on me in recent years, and a former therapist of mine told me a story about this when it was at CP so I wanted to ride it. Ben hates drop towers and Drew had just lost his lunch, so the two of them let Leilani and I be the crazy motherfuckers in the group as usual. Not gonna lie, it scared the shit out of me seeing how clanky and rickety it was, and the lack of seat dividers and grate for floor. But the ride itself I really liked! The drop is pretty standard, but getting slammed on your back instead of normal brakes was an interesting sensation. The return mechanism fucked my shoulder up a smidge and Leilani's horrific shriek busted my eardrum but it was a small price to pay to ride such a cool and unique ride. This is lowkey the coolest thing in an otherwise boring park!
So we attempt to leave Dorney Park's parking lot (little known fact: their parking lot is the unspoken eighth layer of hell in Dante's Inferno) and Leilani checks her phone...Wicked Twister is leaving Cedar Point! We watched the cool video, Ben sulked a bit since it was a ride he worked in his Cedar Point days, and I got right to work making the memes as usual.
(DISCLAIMER: I used her image in my meme but that does not mean I like the person at all, Cardi B is a cunt and a rapist and she can burn in hell for all I care.)
But Wicked Twister twirling away aside...we had bigger priorities as we sped through Amish country!
Three words: Shady Maple Smorgasbord. The best Amish restaurant ever. Huge ass Amish buffet, the restaurant is the size of a fucking temple and you get all you can handle of over 100 offerings for like $25. Needless to say we did it!
You didn't do Shady Maple right unless you walked out having tried everything you wanted to try and yet still hating your life. I literally had to stuff my face and overeat to sample everything I wanted. Chicken croquettes, kielbasa, pierogi, cajun catfish, salmon, and their iconic mashed potatoes were the best. I wanted to pull a Drew and vomit all over the place after eating this, that's how I know I did it right!
After this we headed to the hotel in Lancaster, I cracked open a lukewarm one (at least it was Shock Top, I can't do shitty beer after a day of theme parking), and hit the hay. Got a long day ahead of us at Hershey's Coaster Crew event the next day!
UP NEXT: A sweet day even without the best coaster, my crazy ass hits the caffeine, and people finally push me over the edge and I have a full blown mental breakdown in front of the whole Coaster Crew!
