Volkanu Makes The Cornfields Pop://Lost Island Theme Park 4th of July 2023

                     Date:7/2/2023-7/4/2023

Destination: Waterloo, Iowa

Goal: Lost Island Theme Park

Distance: 500  Miles

Means of Travel: Driving

Potential Credits: 3

Water...Earth...Fire...Air...

Long ago, the four nations shared the midway in harmony. Then, everything changed when the thoosie nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements could stop them, but when the world needed him the most...he ***vanished***. 

A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the New Avatar. He was sipping a beer at Thirsty Voyager. Turns out he'd gotten the whole "save the world" memo, but somehow took a wrong turn and ended up at a theme park in a random part of Iowa, one that also happened to feature four realms with four elements, a race of air people that built gliding/flying machines, and a fire area with intimidating red and gold Asian architecture. And a Polynesian village that suspiciously resembles the one in the second James Cameron film with the blue people that shares its name with that Nickelodeon cartoon. And although this park is great, they've got a long way to go and need lots of support if it's ever going to be as successful as the neighboring casino and waterpark. But I believe, Lost Island can become an elite tier park!

Couple years back I'm talking to some rando enthusiast online that claims in a few years he's gonna have local access to some place called The Lost Island, which I'd not heard about at all but upon learning that they were building a full sized park in some little rinky dink Iowa cornfield town, I just kind of shrugged it off as one of the many parks that get proposed and don't make it. But over the years, talk picked up, construction photos came out, we learned that this was the park that purchased Kanonen from Sweden, and the next thing you know, it opened up last year. And I honestly didn't know what to make of it. Their star coaster wasn't ready and I didn't see much of the place, but this year, it's been a different story.

It's the dog days of summer here, it's Ohio, it's hot, and Fourth of July is on a Tuesday. Meanwhile my job is super slow right now with not a lot of work that needs done. So my Fourth of July plans are to go to tai chi and Dungeons & Dragons on Saturday (normal Saturday for me), sit on my butt Sunday, let a hot day drag by Monday with most people taking the day off, and sitting on my tush again Tuesday. Yeah, no, wasn't about to do that. Meanwhile, an increasing portion of my coaster social media has told me about how great this new park is and how everybody should go, and with me discovering $225 in unredeemed credit card cash back on my travel card, I waffled with doing this. Didn't seem like the best plan on paper, with only Sunday thru Tuesday to work with and trying to budget my trip I'd be missing Adventureland just two hours further, and all that way for a relocated SLC and tiny Intamin? When you put it that way, it seems like a total waste of time off and money and car miles. But with all I was hearing about the park, how friendly it was, how nice the theming was, the quality of the dark ride and them having one of my favorite flat ride types, add all that in with me being a total sucker for anything Polynesian or tiki and I just had to do it. This park needs our support or they won't be around in the future, so I wanted to do it now, not then. Because there's no point in waiting around for the park to get awesome when it needs guests in the present for that to happen. So in the eleventh hour as I got ready to leave for work Friday afternoon, I bit the bullet and asked my boss for Monday off. I was going to Lost Island!

Day 0- Giving Iowa A Try

Couldn't sleep, what else is new, so despite having been out til past midnight playing Dungeons & Dragons and it being 7 am I decide there ain't no rest for the wicked and get on the road. It's a little drizzly, and boring as anything, but nothing a good Spotify podcast can't fix.

Found this pretty lake at a rest stop in Illinois.

I had planned to stop for lunch, but decided against it. Five hours into the drive of aliens, murder mysteries, ancient civilizations and the like, Drew called me, and we talked for a bit before I saw something!

It wasn't the giant river I crossed. Or the Quad Cities Airport sign just before it. Or the deer crossing sign with a little puff decal implying flatulence stuck near the deer's anus. It was the "IOWA WELCOMES YOU" sign that followed all of this. So I get to the rest area to put my feet on the ground and get the state credit...and of course the first thing I see is a giant spillage of random corn on the ground and this sweet elderly white woman asking me if I'm from Hawaii because of my shirt. Iowa, Jarrett has arrived. With his ugly pineapple shirts and all.

Drew and I chatted a bit more as the Quad Cities turned into, well, this:

 

Yeah. Heywood Banks's (local comedian, he's a bit like a Weird Al kinda guy) family-friendly comedy music was a staple growing up in my family and this song was my first exposure to Iowa. Yeah, he's not wrong.

Eventually, Corn, Corn, Corn, and more Corn turned into Cedar Rapids (passed the Quaker Oats building/grainery/whatever so that was kind of cool) and it turned into, you guess, more corn. 

Eventually, I rolled into the hotel parking lot to be greeted by this cute little diner and old people slowly shuffling through the parking lot...and sausages on the ground. What is it with Iowa and food where it shouldn't be???

So I check into my room, get my stuff up there, I'm proud of the time I made, yes...then I realize it's like, 5 pm and I've got nothing to do. So I decide to drive up to the park and maybe get some photos from the parking lot, turns out parking is $10 instead of free like I thought (Google wrongly directed me to the "Parking is free" on the waterpark section of the website when I googled Lost Island Parking), so I turned around and went back to the hotel and remembered they have a pool!

Nobody, and I mean, NOBODY used Howard Johnson's pool, when I walked in there all I heard was the faint hum of the filtration and my own footsteps, greeted to a water surface resembling a turquoise pane of glass. So yeah, I brought a seltzer with me, technically not supposed to but nobody gave a crap, there were no kids and I was careful and properly threw the can away. I was expecting a lot of this trip, there were a few things I didn't expect, and I certainly didn't expect to have a pool to myself this close to Fourth of July.

Dinner was calling, so I got takeout from the cute little diner next door. While I was there, a lady from the Lost Island Facebook group recognized me, so that was a little creepy we just both happened to be in the same place when I hadn't even been in town for three hours and wasn't even at the park. But she was nice and shook my hand and welcomed me to Iowa, and that's when I realized how nice this place is. People are so kind, and it's not something you see that often in the Midwest. But what a better welcome to the Midwest, well, different part of the Midwest, than a good ol' American German-influenced pork tenderloin sandwich! Got it with cheese and BBQ sauce on it and oh my god it's to die for!

After dinner I went back to the pool for a bit, then went back up to my room and played a little RCT3 on my laptop for mindless funsies. But all that pool time and the fact that I skipped lunch was catching up with me, so I nuked some of the leftovers I brought from home and enjoyed three day old curry with a little Avatar, perfect before visiting the four elements park tomorrow!

Day 1- Air! Water! Earth! Fire! ...Wacky Worm!

Of course I wake up way too early, it's me, what do you expect? So I go downstairs, do hotel breakfast, have the brilliant idea to put my waffles and sausage on the same plate so I can do the syrup thing alongside a biscuit with gravy and some Froot Loops, knowing I'd need a big breakfast if I had a big day ahead of me in the heat. So I did that, packed up my hotel room, checked out, and headed to Lost Island!

From the highway, Lost Island looks a lot bigger than it is because it's flanked by a huge casino and water park, but the place itself is fairly small. Let's see if good things really come in small packages!

The walk up to this park is already iconic. I'd heard so much about this, everyone's posting that beautiful tiki house entrance with the carved wood and thatched roof, and honestly this is part of the reason I wanted to go. I love all things tropical and tiki, I've got a home tiki bar in my house, and gimme a little rum and some mixers I will bartend you up something that will make your night and ruin your morning! I had to come to the tropical island four elements park, and this is what convinced me that I was actually here. Matugani, Volkanu, all that was about to be mine for the day.

I got in the ticket line (and by line I mean like one family in front of me) just in time for it to open up. Tamariki dude and I are ready to roll!

It's Avatar. Like, this is not a joke, whoever came up with this concept was clearly a fan of the show, and this midway alone proves it. There's no way it wasn't inspired by the brilliant work of animation, I felt like I was in the Fire Nation capital but with the bad guy that sounds suspiciously like Mark Hamill not home for whatever reason. 

Matugani was gonna be my first stop, being an Intamin and all, but it wasn't ready to go, so I shrugged and just did Volkanu first...and I'm gonna make an executive decision and not review it until later in the trip report, but all I can say...WOW. I wish I had saved that for last, it's integral the the park's backstory and a worthy contender in the discussion for best dark ride.

There's also a little shrine with handprints carved into the rock, if you placed your hands in the impressions it would cause a little jet of water to shoot up from below.

And by now, Matugani is ready, time to awake the snake!

Surprisingly, I went from the beautifully themed queue at Volkanu to...not much in line for Matugani. it's a cattlepen, under a little stone underpass below the track, and into a fairly bare station, which surprised me because the exterior is beautiful and has a nice snake shooting the train out its mouth like venom. And later in the day, I would learn that this coaster actually has a pretty cool backstory that the queue just does nothing with, sadly.

Side note: I heard that an early version of the park's concept was that it was gonna be lost lands like Atlantis and Lemuria and the like, would not be surprised if Yuta began conceptual life as Eden considering the presence of a tree and a snake.

My first ride on Matugani was a back seat ride, per the advice of the station grouper, saying the left side was smoother than the right. So I took his advice, and I'm glad I did!

Back in my infancy of coaster enthusiasm, I was convinced Intamin was the best manufacturer, and to this day, I think they still were at the time. They've always been ahead of the curve or around it, and their rides have stood the test of time way better than some others just by being so ahead of their time. And Matugani is no exception. Does it go toe to toe with Velocicoaster? Not a chance. It has its flaws. But it also has its pros. You got a dying breed of hydraulic cable launch directly off the platform, the top hat gives some airtime depending where you sit, good hangtime in the loop, but the main star of the show is just how quick, violent, and whippy some of those transitions are! It's like, blink and ya miss it!

So let's break it down. Matugani starts with a pretty powerful hydraulic launch, think diet Stormrunner, but instead of rolling forward and building anticipation it just yanks you right out of the station, accelerating right past the station gates and little hole in the wall and the snake fangs before rising up into a teeny tiny top hat, like a those little top hats you see on those dancing hamsters they sell at Hallmark stores. It's not very big, but it does have airtime entering the element if you're in the front, or leaving it when you're in the back. Leaving that, you head over one hill, which provides the first pop of ejector, before slamming into a perfectly circular loop that gives hangtime as it slowly crawls through the top. From there, it's a turn started and ended with the best part of the ride, a snappy, quick ejector transition that's on the same level as Wildcat's Revenge or Intimidator 305 for just how snappy it is. After that there's a bit of a lull, as the turn doesn't really do much and misses the airtime moment, but after it finishes on a high note with a Banshee/Thunderbird-esque slow inline roll that dumps you out of your seat quite nicely. 

All in all, I like it! It feels like a spiritual predecessor to Copperhead Strike, which isn't a bad thing at all considering I love both small launch coasters themed to snakes. Lots of hangtime, few snappy moments of poppy ejector, the presence of tiny top hats and perfectly round loops in both layouts, and one ends with a slow roll like the other starts with. I give it a golf clap, not able to go toe to toe with the elite coasters that have 15+ years technology on it in my top ten, but I definitely enjoyed myself on it.

Yuta's main square has the shrine containing one of those little archaeological dig things, with little brushes and fake dinosaur bones in a sandbox. The ruins surrounding it have a message of taking care of the earth, something I would learn is a huge theme in the story of the Yuta people.

I also couldn't help but notice that the park was playing music from Sid Meier's Civilization VI in Yuta, which happens to be one of my favorite games.

Snagged a cup of water from here since it was starting to get toasty and I was beginning to feel the whole "no shade" issue this park has. Inside looked nice, reminded me a bit of Sat'uli Canteen at Disney's Animal, though the menu was pizza and burgers.

Alright, onward to my favorite of the four elements! Awa, the realm, not the mother goddess worshipped by the blue people on Pandora in a Polynesian village that suspiciously resembles this, is all about water. And of the four it's by far the one I personally always felt the biggest connection to. I keep fish, I have competitive swimming experience, and currently I'm learning tai chi aka waterbending. Not to mention water being one of my favorite Pokemon types along with steel and dragon. On the app you have to select a realm to be a part of and this was my choice.

And sadly, I think this area has the least to offer of the four. It's beautiful, I love the Polynesian look to it, but even in an already quiet park nobody was over here. Their big rides are a splash battle and a Ferris Wheel, and I honestly think the big draw here is the Thirsty Voyager tiki bar at the very tip of the park. But no coaster, no nice dark ride, nothing quite on the level you'll see in Mara Yuta or Udara. Their shrine is a little water play structure with this really cool water globe at the centerpiece.

I did run into these two costumed characters here though, and they were super nice and super into their roles. Speaking with the accent, using words from the Lost Island language, and even struck these "adventure poses" so I could get some good shots of them!

Alzanu's Eye is the park's ferris wheel, which I rode for a few shots, didn't get many good ones because of the safety railing and me being careful and not standing up or anything, but I did snag a few decent ones.

Honestly some of the best things in Awa are the views it provides of the other areas.

Another very nice-looking restaurant was Whalebone Grill, didn't eat here either but I considered it. Liked how the architecture mimicked a baleen whale opening its mouth. And also very Avatar 2 in appearance.

Udara was the next. Aligned to the element of air, the Udara tribe are a crafty, tinkerer race of inventors, builders, and engineers that are skilled in crafting flying machines. If you've ever seen the Avatar episode "The Northern Air Temple" the similarities are undeniable.

I did Nopuko Air Coaster first just to tick another credit off the list, expecting an SLC, but one that wasn't quite as bad. Boy was that wrong! The ride ops even explain that it's a rough ride and that you should sit near the back for things to be a little bit smoother, but I wanted to film a POV so I sat in the front. Huge mistake, most of the ride is pretty standard, the best part is actually the helix at the end, but entering the rollover it hit me so hard that it made T3 look tame! Like, I saw stars and my neck was killing me when I got off of it.

Fortunately the POV came out pretty good!

My favorite flat ride is Skyhawk at Canada's Wonderland, so I was very excited for Udara Aviators. Skyhawk is a Gerstlauer Sky Roller, which puts seats on bearings equipped with flaperons on a Windseeker-like tower structure, enabling riders to either rock back and forth for funsies or, in the outer seats, get the flaperons to actually spin the seat like a propeller blade for a very intense ride. Udara Aviators is a Sky Fly, a cousin to the Sky Roller, that instead puts riders on a Top Scan-like angled arm that sweeps them at a 45 degree angle from flat on the ground to a 90 degree angle with the earth at its highest point. I love getting these spinning, on Wonderland's I spun it so hard I lost my hearing from greying out as long as I did, and the Ninja Turtles Sky Fly at Mall of America is pretty good too.

And I really like it! I'd put it right in between the two, yes the Sky Roller lends itself to more flips and better capacity and the insanity of being that high up, but this spins much more easily than TMNT because it's outdoors and you have the breeze to work with. I got it spinning the most of anyone on this particular ride, and the view you get of the beautiful Udara area and the park definitely help sell the experience. I love getting to be a human pinwheel for a few minutes! It's hard work holding the flaperons in place with all that going on but that's part of what makes it so intense.

I went and tried Nopuko again in the back per the ride op recommendation, and it's a little smoother, but not by much. You're basically trading off a less painful rollover for an all around more rattly ride in the rest of the layout. Sorry, gave this coaster every chance I had, and I still love this park for several reasons, but Nopuko is sadly not one of them.

I went to retry Udara Aviators again, but we only got two sweeps of the boom before they had to E-stop it for a mechanical problem.

   

  

Wanting something a little less spine-shattering, I went and did Skyborne, completely surprised at the level of detail and theming that went into this ride. This isn't an ordinary S&S tower, there's a whole story to it pertaining to the Udara people: they used to live in a floating city before Volkanu's escape brought it down. Now this race of tinkerers and inventors are working on technology to return to life in the sky, and you're the guinea pig test pilot that gets to strap into this and give it a whirl for the first time! Hopefully it works better than an Oceangate submarine!

They have this cool photo op in the queue too! Avatar Jarrett is back, Firelord Ozai is going down!

I can't get over how much I love this queue I'm sorry. It's even air conditioned!

There's even a really cool preshow! I filmed the preshow and a POV for you all to enjoy! Great little drop tower, the view is pretty nice and while it's a fairly basic ride, the theatrics and pizazz did elevate the experience as a whole.

(Language Warning: You probably aren't clutching your pearls at this if you read my blog, but the girl next to me accidentally got a little too into the whole "fly like a bird" thing and had a bit of a...fowl mouth on the way down. We laughed it off and it made the POV pretty funny but figured I'd say something.)

My next stop was the fifth realm, though it's the smallest. Tamariki, or Spirit, is the kiddie area for the park, complete with children's rides, and a playground structure.

Time to get Wacky with the Worm! I actually like the theming on this one, it's not some carnival ride it actually matches the rest of the area, and the little cartoon worm is funny.

A POV I shot of the second best coaster at Lost Island. Well, what you can see beyond the big stupid worm head.

With that in the bag, I swung back around, did another ride on Volkanu (this time getting to see the preshow) and then went to go find lunch.

Lunch was Thirsty Voyager, something I kind of have to do given I have a home tiki bar in my apartment. It's a little bar on the waterfront with booze and noodles, super nice and super relaxed. Plus there's little water jet structures nearby you can use to cool off in the heat. Though the frozen blue raspberry vodka lemonade I got cut the heat no problem.

For noodles I got the Thai spice with chicken ramen and it was pretty good! It was about standard for theme park stir fry but I much prefer this to say, Six Flags chicken fingers and fries.

As I sat there and ate, I tried to dive a bit deeper into the Lost Island app and what it's for. I had been collecting treasures all day, though I wasn't sure how, but I had managed to unlock five story videos: an intro that explained the whole "Volkanu gets loose" storyline, and one for each of the five realms.

The Awa are a seafaring race of navigators, though exploration was put to stop by Volkanu.

The Mara were a society of feared warriors who were charged with stopping Volkanu.

The Yuta Guild was a society of merchants and craftsman that were imprisoned underground for failing to live with the earth, before an emerald serpent lifted them to the surface and taught them to share with nature. Now they must help in the fight against Volkanu.

The Udara Tribe, as I said earlier, were a race of inventors that had a floating city that was destroyed by Volkanu.

Water rides were next, so I went around, changed into my spare t-shirt, swim trunks, and flip-flops in the family restroom, and made a bee line for Yuta Falls.

It's not quite as extensive as the themed queues for Volkanu or Skyborne, but there is an indoor queue for this log flume/splash boat/thing. I loved this little waterfall out front, though, reminded me a bit of Enchanted Tiki Room's little shrine in the queue.

And this had a wait which made me happy! Waited like 20 minutes for it!

Yuta Falls is somewhat of a hybrid between a splash boat and a log flume in terms of ride system. You sit in small boats that hold six people, three rows of two, and it has a figure eight layout but the drop is taller than what I usually think when I think of a log flume.

And while I'm definitely Team Rapids verses Team Log Flume, I rather enjoyed it! Both drops get you fairly wet, and the second one is nice and scary and I love the rockwork and water wheel prop that frames it. Only (very minor) grievances I have with this are that the splashdowns can be a bit rough with just a seatbelt so I advise bracing on the grab bar, and there's just a bunch of empty space in the turnaround between the two drops where they could've done music or theming or something.

Come ride along with me!

...because someone else did! Michelle, someone else who has a blog that I'd gotten in contact with via the Lost Island Facebook group, was there that day and just happened to be at the exit when I was returning to the station. So we met up and rode Yuta Falls together and just had a blast. She was just getting back from a trip to South Africa so she told me about that, we talked about the park, and she even got a nice lady to snag our photo for us after getting good and splashed.

Check out her page here!

The bartender at Thirsty Voyager and I were talking about the fun app game stuff to do at the park, and she asked me if I'd looked for the Tamariki totems around the place. This was the only one I noticed but he was cute! If you've ever heard of a game called Hollow Knight the character designs here remind me of that exact art style. Like it's cute, cartoony, and animated, but it's so visually pleasing I can take it seriously.

While I was still wearing my water clothes I headed over to the splash battle in Awa, to find it was open but a mechanic was still messing with one of the blasters for some reason.

This is a ride type I love. My first time going to Dollywood in 2008 was when River Battle opened and my family power lapped that thing with our Q2Q and just had a heck of a time leaving no man dry in the process. 14 year-old Jarrett even figured out that you could step away from the blasters on land, wait for the boat to pass, and then get them from an angle they couldn't shoot you back, a lady even called me a turkey for it. It's a brilliant concept, it's interactive, and I was so angry when they tore it out. However, I sadly couldn't have that experience on this one. I was the only one on it, and a splash battle of one isn't a battle at all, not even any funny cartoon props to shoot like Dollywood had on theirs. It's a beautiful ride, I love the Polynesian outriggers as boats, but it isn't going to work if the park is gonna be as dead as it is for now. And even if it did, my blaster didn't work even though the ride op claimed it had just been fixed when I told him.

COASTER CLUBS: If you have an event at Lost Island, do this ride as a takeover! This would be so fun to do this exclusively with whatever club I was with!

I continued around, changed back into my normal clothes at Whalebone Grille's family restroom, and snagged another ride on Udara Aviators.

And I wanted another, but I got stuck on it! The arm lifted up, the seats unlocked...and then locked back up. The ride op had to get a supervisor who gives us the "so sorry for the inconvenience, we'll get you down as soon as we can" talk, and here I am worrying I won't be off this thing til 3 am and I'll have to piss in my pants with no bathroom access, but luckily maintenance was awesome. They got us off within ten minutes and told us to come back if they can get it fixed because it's a great ride and one of only two in North America. But sadly, it was not fixed and spent the rest of the day down. But the second to last ride I got on it before getting stuck was great, I got some damn good flipping there. It's a great ride, it just goes down a lot for a flat, and I really hope the park can dial that in in the near future because everyone deserves to experience this wonderful innovative ride type.

Headed back around, with the day nearing its close, wanted to do a few more Matugani and Volkanu, but I stopped to gift shop because I needed the Matugani Diamondback logo t-shirt I'd seen!

The gift shop people were also incredibly nice and fun. We talked about my whole pineapple thing because the supervisor was wearing a pineapple shoulderkin and when I mentioned I was glad it was air conditioned, I get, "yeah, it's so hot you can hear the corn popping." So hot you can hear the corn popping, welcome to Iowa!

And what do you know? I got a front row zen ride on Matugani straight after! This was so great, nothing but the sound of the wind and ride hardware as I got launched out of the station all by myself.

Checked out Shaman's Curse (Zamperla Disk'O) real fast since there was no line and I really liked it! The circular disk with the motorcycle seat is way better than the skateboard configuration we have on Surf Dog or Pipe Scream back at home.

Okay, now for one last ride on Volkanu! Wanted to save coverage of Lost Island's signature ride for the very end so let's break this down!

Your journey to defeat Volkanu starts with a preshow, where you're ushered into this nice room by a guide where you watch a film that basically explains the same story I've been telling this whole time: Volkanu threatened Lost Island, he was imprisoned in the Temple of Fire using a golden idol called an Oratika, five thieves stole the golden idol, Volkanu got loose and the thieves were turned to stone statues. Now you have to get the idol and return it to the temple of fire to defeat Volkanu. It also goes over the loading configuration, ride vehicle, and "thermal equalizer" blaster.

Beyond this there's much more queue line, and a few really cool props. This Mara shaman is animatronic and continues to give you the same directions to really drive the story home.

I loved this prop so much!

K I'm riding and you're coming with me!

Volkanu is an absolute masterpiece of a dark ride, easily the best thing outside of Universal or Disney in the States. If you've ridden Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway as well as any of the Justice League Battle for Metropolis rides, there are concepts there you'll be familiar with here. This utilizes both the video game-esque 3D glasses screen shooter system in tandem with physical props and special effects to create an experience that stays varried, doesn't get stale, and more than delivers on the wow factor I look for in a dark ride. We've got a Pepper's Ghost hologram, small pyrotechnic, multiple really cool animatronics, and even smell-o-vision! The show scenes even smell like sulphur and brimstone as you journey deeper into the heart of the volcano!

I HATE that my hands got in the way of my GoPro while I was trying to demonstrate the shooter effect so sorry about that! I had no idea til I watched it here in Ohio!

With Volkanu defeated, I decided to take a few victory laps on Matugani before the day's end, and even took the opportunity to get accelerometer data on it.

Matugani is such a great ride! Flawless? By no means. As good as coasters designed for 2023? Not a chance. But it's a good starter coaster for this park, it's unique to see it pop up where it did, they did a very nice job with the trains and emerald color of the structure, and it feels like a more affordable way for the park to have gotten their own version of Copperhead Strike in their starting lineup.

Got some damn good photo ops towards the end of the day, the sun was exactly where I needed it to be to shoot this coaster.

LROTNOM! The Matugani crew was absolutely awesome, they're so nice, several of them had no problem volunteering to be bag lady with my big stupid camera bag and axolotl shopping tote full of merch. We talked about my adventures and I told them that she was a great machine and I was glad Matugani was in the hands of such a good crew.

With the park closing shop at just 6:30, I had elected to get a head start on the drive home, so my hotel was 2 hours away in Davenport. So I got some maps (special thanks to the Lost Island Guide that went and got them for me!), bumped into a temporary chain fence like an idiot while I was looking down to set my GPS up, and upon stepping out of this tropical paradise I just then was reminded that I was in Iowa when hit with the smell of manure from the neighboring field. You would have no idea this adorable little park that's themed to the teeth is in an otherwise unassuming part of the Midwest.

See ya soon, Lost Island! It's been real and I'm glad I came, this park was worth the drive, not for its coaster collection, but for what it has to offer as a whole.

Drive wasn't horrible, my car was running on fumes when I left the park though so I had to think fast and find the nearest gas station, only to get highway robbed for $3.85 at gallon at some Casey's in some tiny town of two houses four silos and three deer in the cornfield. Listened to a Deathbed Confessions about St. Paul serial killer Paul Stefani so that was an interesting way to kill the drive. Called my parents and grandma to say hi and listened to Ancient World so that took care of the rest of it. Before I knew it I was in Davenport...with a bang.

Now keep in mind, this is the Midwest the night before July 4 and all the crazy Iowans were all fired up to lose a finger, so it sounded like a war zone near my hotel.

I didn't even know this Quad Cities area existed until last year, when Drew invited me to a Dayton Dragons Minor League Baseball game and we got destroyed (as usual) by a team called the Quad Cities River Bandits. Turns out there's a fairly sizeable metro area on the Illinois-Iowa border that's made up of four roughly Dayton-sized, maybe a little bigger or smaller, cities right next to one another. My buddy Grant told me the American Pickers are also around here. 

So I go to check in, there's this grouchy portly balding man that's folding laundry, doesn't welcome me or anything, and just starts hitting and cursing at his iPad. And judging by the cracks and packaging tape on the screen, this wasn't his first time handling it this way. So he goes to check me in, and swears about lazy maids that didn't clean the room they put aside for me and then grumbles something about a jacuzzi room. Well I get my key, bring my stuff in...and look what I got! This guy set me up with an actual legit honeymoon suite with plenty of room and a jacuzzi right in the bedroom. Normally this would be $200 but I got it for only $60 because the cleaning staff didn't clean my bedbug room, I didn't even know Motel 6 had these. So yeah, after getting the guy to figure out why the jacuzzi didn't work (you gotta flicker the switch til it makes the lights brown out then the jets come on), I chillaxed, cracked open a Bud Light Seltzer Margarita, put my laptop on a chair, and fired up Discovery+ as I relaxed with a drink after a long, hot day at a very nice park. I could get used to this!

I watched an Expedition Unknown on El Dorodo before heading to bed (this was not nice, that bed was a prison bed I'd have been better off sleeping on the floor almost), but I knew I had a somewhat early morning the next day. 2 hours down, 6 to go!

Day 2- The Gates of Hell Indiana

I woke up around 9 Dayton time and got right on the road, unable to sleep in that awful bed. But after I got out of the Quad Cities, it got really hard to find breakfast until I took what I could get and got some breakfast pizza and a donut from a Casey's in a little cow town.

Drive was pretty tame, very boring, had to rely on podcast after podcast and taking frequent breaks just to keep sanity, Illinois is the worst state to drive in. I did, however, get my Portillo's credit so that Italian Beef was good, if not a little messy for the car.

And upon getting into Indiana, I find one of these cards spreading the good news of god's love just sitting there on the bathroom counter in the Welcome Center. I got ten points on this card, how many you got??? Clutching my pearls! I sure hope no sports nuts are reading this blog!

So I continued the drive home, finishing off on a podcast about Dashi Dorzo Itigilov, and long overdue, I was finally home!

And to end the trip on a sour note, I walked in and to my horror saw this. The large Railblazer print I keep framed in my hallway had fallen off the wall and the frame shattered! The print itself was okay and I have another frame, but I wanted to get in and not have to vacuum or anything. But here I was, we don't always choose how these things go, and I sadly seem to have gotten the short end of the stick this afternoon. But it was all good! It's Fourth of July, so my family was doing a barbecue and invited me! Just a few hours after I got home I was out the door and ready for some ribs, Amish potato salad, and banana pudding!

Usually after a trip, there's "the question." It could be anything. "Did you have fun?" "How was [coaster]?" And this time, the one I kept getting asked was, "was it worth it?" And my answer is, without hesitation, yes. Lost Island alone was worth the drive. I'm not usually the type to do all that driving for an okay Intamin, a Wacky Worm, and an SLC, but I wasn't going for a ride collection. I was going for a greater collection. The theming, the story, the other things Lost Island had to offer, it all synergizes so well together to create a well-rounded experience that I really hope has the fuel to grow in the coming years. It's the master of all that makes a park good, the Avatar of theme parks, if you will. Plans exist for more than just Lost Island as it stands, an early site plan shows (in addition to Yuta Falls and Matugani originally standing in each others' spots) a spinning coaster near Mara, rapids in Awa, and a flying coaster of sorts in Udara. Whether that's even still the plan or not I have no idea, but I want this park to have a future so badly. Please, if you even remotely consider it, make the trip out there this summer. Lost Island deserves recognition as one of the better parks out there, one with tons of untapped potential, and if that's not enough, the waterpark I hear is amazing as well. I was planning to do the waterpark should I get bored of the dry park, and I didn't even get to it, so that should speak volumes about the day I had there. Wonderful property, very well crafted, the Bertch Family and all others who worked on Lost Island clearly were very passionate about their creation, and you can tell so much love went into this.

Can't wait til it gives me an excuse to get back to Iowa so I can hit Adventureland while I'm in the area.