Florida 2020-Too Region Trip://Day 1~ The Great Busch Gardens Flood

                 Date:7/15/2022-7/17/2022

Destination: Orlando and Tampa, Florida

Goal: Busch Gardens Tampa and SeaWorld Orlando

Distance: 831 Miles

Means of Travel: Flying

Potential Credits: 6 

(There is a shit ton of boring context that goes into this trip, COVID, Iron Gwazi and Ice Breaker took forever to open, couldn't get them on Florida 2020, now doing this trip as a sort of Plan C to my previous two region trip plans to deal with unfinished business from Florida 2020, skip to day 1 if this sums it up for you okay. Or read it all, I don't care.)

Bippity boppity back it the fuck up. Back it up to 2018-ish I think it was. RMC had just unveiled four brilliant creations here in the US, they were the center of attention, and everybody was wondering what they would do next. Some of that speculation involved a certain SBNO GCI dueling coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa, one that reached the bottom of my rankings when I rode it for my first and last time in 2013: the infamous Gwazi. "Did they track that thing with gravel? I never want to ride a wooden coaster again, that was Son of Beast rough!" My father complained as we stepped off that horrible piece of scrap lumber, beaten and weathered from the brutal Florida climate. That horrendous, rough, sadistic contraption of rotted wood that had been shut down for almost five years to erode in the Sunshine State humidity and get pounded by hurricane after hurricane was now in the RMC discussion. Ummm, hell no! No way RMC can fix that! Every time speculation popped up, I'd tell the person they were a loon for thinking it could be done! But I ate my words and my words tasted bitter because the next thing we know, RMC was on site and Iron Gwazi was announced, rocking rails in my favorite color purple and paying homage to the crocodile, fitting to have a coaster with so many rolling elements themed to the badass modern dinosaur that rips its prey apart by rolling around. I went from a skeptic to a fanboy, determined to get down there to ride this thing even if it didn't look as good as Steel Vengeance or Railblazer.

So in 2019, Florida 2020 was supposed to be my year! The proposed region trip would be a week of park after park in the Florida sun featuring shiny new coasters such as Velocicoaster, Ice Breaker, Tron, and of course, mighty Iron Gwazi! It was going to be in November, when nothing is busy there, and nothing was going to get in my way! Right? Right...?

Yeah, no. Florida 2020 was awesome, don't get me wrong, but given the circumstances in which we went, be it social distancing, masks, dystopian plastic dividers in Big Thunder's queue, and fearing for our safety with the election going on, certain aspects of that trip were clear signs of the times. And because of those times, none of the new hotness that was supposed to marquee that trip was ready to go. Busch Gardens was completely cut from the trip and we had to stare at Velocicoaster and Tron behind walls, whereas Ice Breaker looked ready to go but sat totally dormant across that pond. I knew I would have to sort of have a do-over for this region trip.

And that do-over was now! 2022 was supposed to be when I did my Sweden region trip, but then Putin invaded Ukraine and I wasn't comfortable going two countries away from Russia while that was going on, hell I even felt uncomfortable in France which is considerably further. Then Atlanta 2022 was plan B, but with Fun Spot not having AirForce One ready in the foreseeable future, I wasn't about to just wait until 2023 for 2022's region trip. Meanwhile, I'd planned this well in advance, and it was based largely on unfinished business from two region trips ago, so I decided that it's perfect! Florida 2020 gets wrapped up with Florida 2020-Too in 2022! First region trip to repeat two parks, second time seeing both structures of the new coasters, serviced by two flights, two different airports, and two different airlines, and if Iron Gwazi were to number one, second park to have two number ones of mine, and the first coaster (in a way) to have been at both the top and bottom of my rankings. Damn shame I didn't go on Twosday...

Day 0

Let's hit the ground running! I left work, went home, changed, and had mom drop me at DAY, where I would be hopping on an Allegiant flight to St Petersburg, or PIE as it's affectionately known as. I got in, dropped my bag at the Allegiant counter, TSA was a breeze, and found my gate.

I get there, ready to board, ready to go, when Allegiant delayed the flight about forty minutes, citing that it was late coming out of PIE. Okay, no biggie. I sit in the corner, charge my phone, call Beth and bust out my Switch so she can Gigantamax my Pokemon for the flight. It gets here, I set my shit down, pull out my Switch, and fire up Pokemon Shield to finish that final champion battle in the main game. Next to me sits a grandma and a small child, whose parents and brother were in the seat in front of us. And of course, Allegiant's plane is the public bus of the sky and wasn't at all clean. Now, as you know, FAA regulations require at least one screaming child on the plane and if Jarrett's on board, they're required to be seated as close to him as possible. So naturally, I was nervous, but the babby fell asleep and we were all good...

...and we landed and hit a lightning delay on the tarmac because the rampers couldn't get us. So we stuck around for fifteen minutes, were then told another fifteen to thirty, and by then the brats next to me were awake and getting restless and started making stupid annoying noises and somehow made me want children even less. We were told to deplane ASAP before the lightning came back and stranded us on the plane again, sadly I didn't have the gall to yell at anybody to get their shit and run because I'm an imbecile. 

Finally, we deplaned and go through PIE's (very tropical) corridors to baggage claim. And they sent bags, mine was not one of them. And then we waited. And waited. And grew more and more irritable. And nobody was at the baggage counter. Just as we began melting tar and collecting feathers, they announced that our bags were coming, just late because they're short on rampers to get them. But mine came in the second round of bags, I snagged it, ran outside to find Ben blasting Cupcakke in his car to fuck with me, and we got going.

It was storming badly on and off when we got into PIE.

The Miner Mike and Frenchie's were our intitial plans for tonight, but considering I was now two hours late and we had an early gate crash the next day, we just drove to the hotel and elected to get Wendy's next door. They were out of pretty much everything, I ordered the bourbon bacon whatever the fuck it was and I hear "WE DON'T GOT NO BOURBON" in the mic, so I took my loss and switched to chicken nuggets before heading to our hotel. It was a long day ahead of us!

Day 1

"Ugh, ten more minutes?" I groaned when my alarm went off at 8:30, having dealt with overtime all week at work. We eventually got up, got dressed, and hightailed it to Busch Gardens Tampa, shooting for 10 am.

We were told to expect a multi-hour wait to get into the park, but to our surprise, we got right in and went right for Iron Gwazi! Good morning, Busch Gardens!

Iron Gwazi is tall, but just sorta comes out of nowhere since the park is full of dense jungle. You can’t really see it unless you’re near it or on another coaster most of the time.

The queue is basically Gwazi’s with an extra cattlepen in the station where the second track was. Wait wasn’t too bad, some slow SeaWorld ops but that’s to be expected. Our gate crash didn’t take more than 20 minutes.

Ben and I took the back for our first ride on Iron Gwazi. It was time! From denial to de Nile, what even I was convinced was impossible was possible and it was time to Deathroll out!

There was a Battlebots match once between Tombstone and Whiplash where both boys just traded devastating blows until Whiplash gave out in less than a minute, to which Chris Rose and Kenny Florian remarked, “that was thirty seconds of hell on wheels.” That’s Iron Gwazi. Not particularly long, it doesn’t keep winding back up and hitting you, it’s just a few really awesome elements (some more awesome than others) and brakes. My opinion on Orion is controversially that it’s every bit as awesome as Fury without all the excess elements, no drawn out barrel turn to turn the coaster around, no stupid helix to add length. With that in mind, Orion : Fury :: Iron Gwazi : Steel Vengeance. It’s Steel Vengeance if Steel Vengeance weren't so repetitive and had a better mixed layout. And I really liked it! But didn’t want to rank it without a second ride…

The line was a bit longer but we got back in line before it grew to ridiculous lengths.

And it did it! For the first time since the pandemic, I have a new #1! Steel Vengeance airtime meets breakneck Raptor fast forward pacing on this crazy rumble in the jungle.

So, to break it down, it’s Steel Vengeance meets Railblazer. Starts with a little pre-lift floater, then it’s Goliath’s freaky truss lift with basically Vengeance’s drop, they feel identical. Next element feels a bit like Lightning Rod’s outward top hat thing but with peak RMC airtime. From there it rips up around a climb before whipping you around that iconic deathroll element, which isn’t as snappy or violent as Velocicoaster’s but definitely more sustained and not “blink and you miss it.” Afterwards it heads up into that reverse Stengel dive that’s a bit like Outlaw Run’s but, you guessed it, more sideways ejector. There’s a breaking wave turn after that also pulls a surprising amount of negative force. It then hops up and around a 90 degree hop into a floaty stall, which is fun and freaky but probably the weakest part of the ride. The double up with a turn after is pretty awesome in terms of airtime, which is capped off by this freaky trick track into the most violent pop of air on the ride. There’s one last hill and then the ride slams into the brakes, having done all it needed to do to impress and not needing anything else.

I never thought the perfect coaster existed until Railblazer, which might be why it sat at #1 for nearly 3 years, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy to unseat it from that top spot. And Iron Gwazi has a flaw to me, in that it does have a lot of large turns which aren’t my cup of tea in a layout. Controversially, I don’t think Intimidator 305 is all that and a bag of chips like some (usually very toxic) enthusiasts claim because I find positives uninteresting and it just farts around in those turns crushing you way too long for it to really feel like it’s going as fast as it is. But Iron Gwazi gets around it by outpacing this turns. They’re interesting, curved up and down and not just flat, and the ride simply goes fast enough that it feels like you’re rocketing around them with no chance of it letting up. It honestly feels like a Raptor with Steel Vengeance size and ride system, and while it lacks that terrifying narrow rail I like, the ride itself is amazing enough to justify placing it above a masterful coaster that does. It drops you into this breakneck, comparatively low to the ground layout and it just blazes around there. Fucking amazing.

My baby was up next, but first, all the foods! Ben and I went to Crown Colony or whatever it is now and used our meal plans on pizza and cheesecake, and I snagged a mojito made with African rum. And it was strong af and went right to my head. Just what you want before Cheetah Hunt!

Cheetah Hunt is one of the most special coasters ever to me. I was super hyper fixated on this when I was in high school as it was being built, I was the weird kid obsessed with some roller coaster out of state, rushing home to see if any new construction updates were up, to me it was the use of engineering to simulate something really cool and make an art piece that was beautiful on and off the ride. When I finally rode it in 2013 it became my #1, and has since slipped in my rankings, but it’s still a super enjoyable coaster that I find cool and love its aesthetic.

Good thing for Quick Queue because ops on this were fucking horrendous. For a coaster that’s fast like a cheetah their ops were inspired by the African Inefficient Snail. I love the queue for this ride but a coaster with a double station shouldn’t take half an hour for not even a switchback of Quick Queue. Staff your ride, set a goal, and don’t do a former #1 of mine dirty!

So…when I rode this last, I was at 75 coasters and the year was 2013. I was very impressed by the speed, agility, and amount of surprise wait time on this stealthy layout. At 430+ coasters in 2022, I will admit it isn’t as impressive. It’s great fun, it’s still my second favorite in the park, but I’ll admit it doesn’t wow as much as I remembered. There’s ejector, it lifts you out of your seat, the terrain interaction is beautiful, but in the day and age of RMC (Iron Rattler did probably twice the ejector off a cliff the year I rode this) and the modern wooden coaster and swing launches it feels…left behind. It’s a beautiful concept, still my second favorite in the park, but I don’t think there’s anything necessarily world class about it anymore, if there ever even was in the first place

But it’s still gorgeous to look at! Even if they took the sails off of it.

Two coasters that became my #1 nearly ten years apart.

What’s this? Cheetaka, the Webkinz leopard my partner got me that’s totally a cheetah, got to visit his namesake!

Ontu Montu! 

Some Karen mad that their babby was too short to ride held up the dispatch, but Ben and I got on! Montu is a great invert with some awesome whip through those giant inversions, and this time it didn’t die at the end as much as I remember! Fantastic product of old school B&M.

Cobra’s Curse, which was a credit I needed, was over there. But it was closed for annual. Boo hoo, now I have to come back!

We then went to Pantopia for lunch and I had to stop and see the cichlids and gator. 

Last time I was here this was Timbuktu, now it’s Pantopia which is more fantastical, colorful, and has a sort of eclectic bohemian vibe to it. And honestly, I don’t see the hate for it. It’s beautiful.

The food here is the same as the Chinese at Marco Polo in BGW. Make of that what you will.

Time to get wet! I changed into my rapids clothes and locked out stuff up, Beth’s favorite ride here was next: Congo River Rapids! Some of the splashes on this are pretty violent, I was a little disappointed with the simple loop layout and cave waterfall that didn’t get you wet at all. But it’s a fun ride in the jungle and I enjoyed it.

This is where the day took a turn to assholeville. 

Ben and I went to go ride Stanley Flume when we were three away from riding…only for them to E-stop and drain the damn thing because some stupid idiot stood up on the conveyer lift. So we stormed off in a huff and went to snag the Tigris credit I needed.

I love these little Premier Sky Rocket II models, they make great D-ticket attractions for big parks and stand out at smaller ones, that being said the capacity is annoying. Tigris has some cool ruins around the entrance but I think I like Tempesto’s theming a bit better. But this probably rides the best of any of the ones I’ve ridden, there was a sprinkle before we got on but it cleared on so we got wet tracks with no painful rain to the face. 

Then everything went down for weather so we took shelter in Zambia Smokehouse, where they were only staffing one kitchen despite a ridiculous line. I was about to die of thirst when I got up there and asked for several waters and chugged one immediately. Food is typical good theme park BBQ, about on par with Voyagers or Coney BBQ.

With it clearly being a washout, Ben and I waited a few hours before throwing in the towel, spiting me on Grover and screwing us out of more Iron Gwazi, Cheetah Hunt, and the planned photo lap I wanted to take around the park.

When it rains it pours at Busch Gardens, park was flooded so I switched back to my flip flops so my only pair of sneakers didn’t get drenched walking through floodwater. So we sang in the rain and sloshed around the flooded park for a bit and then headed out, taking our loss.

Then we got back to the hotel and got some Angry Orchard and tried to drink off the miserable end to the day. Then Ben went to the bathroom and started panicking that he clogged the toilet. Then I heard the sound of a tsunami cascading out of the bowl and gushing all over the floor like a shoot the chutes boat dramatically splashing down. So I had to call the front desk and burst out laughing asking for a plunger, but by then it was too late. The bathroom was so flooded that Noah was yelling at all the Busch Gardens animals to get on the ark. And then we went to bed, since SeaWorld needed us tomorrow.

All in all? Decent day, surprisingly. Just wish there was more of it. What we rode was awesome, but it sucks missing two credits, especially when Cobra’s Curse looked so cool. I would’ve obviously liked more laps on Iron Gwazi, and a photo lap would be nice to have more quality pictures of the park, but it was what it was and I was a good sport about it. Only critical thing I have to say about any of it is that Busch ops are way too damn slow and I think that’s an opportunity for this park to improve.

But ultimately, it was one of those days I could choose to be a bitch about but I’m going to choose not to. Because the park is super nice with some great coasters and until the rain and the dumb kid standing, I had a blast!

UP NEXT: The theme of everything getting sopping wet on this trip continues as we both melt the ice and break it! Another flight from hell, being verbally abused by a marine mammal for food, reason #385 why coaster enthusiasts suck, and Ben and I get absolutely drowned on Infinity Falls for your entertainment!

Steal Vengeance://Cedar Point Birthday Trip 2022

                 Date:6/5/2022

Destination: Sandusky, Ohio

Goal: Cedar Point, Farmhouse Restaurant

Distance: 163 Miles

Means of Travel: Driving

Potential Credits: 0

(Disclaimer: This blog isn't here to get millions of views and get me internet famous, it's here so I can have a place of my own to tell my story and show it to those that care. However, I do know that there are a few recurring readers, and I'm sure some of that might be for my coaster photography, which I try to showcase in each entry. And if you're here for that, please be warned it's not as good as it normally is. For a pretty awful reason that will be addressed in this trip report, I did not have my DSLR on me as I normally do, and had to resort to my phone and a little point and shoot I used before I had a real camera. The photos here aren't as good, I hate it, but you can thank the jerk who stole my camera. I promise I'm doing everything I can to find or replace the camera and hope to have it back before I get into more shenanigans. Terribly sorry the report looks like it was shot with a potato but you should still read it, because the birthday antics Drew and I got into were a ton of fun.)

Nobody wants to turn 28. I'm getting to that age where birthdays are less about celebrating maturity and growth and more about the grim reaper standing off in the distance pulling out and waving his bony willy at you to taunt you with marriage, aching joints, and getting way too excited over your bird feeder. I've always kept my head up about being thirty not next birthday but the one after, but it's been a challenge. But what better way to keep your head up than by celebrating making it another year still somewhat functioning and having not killed yourself than with a run to your favorite place in the world? Sooner or later, every season I find myself wanting to go back in late spring/early summer when the park opens, so now's as good a time as any.

And to make things more interesting, Cedar Point ripped out their antique cars, made the fanboys cry, and put in a Hooters new restaurant themed to a farmhouse repurposing the bridge as a walkway. Drew had been there a few times this season and wanted to take me, so I invited him to tag along. Happy Birthday to me, let's go ride some coasters and eat delicious food, right?

Right?

Drew and I woke up relatively early for a weekend, and his "on my way" call woke me up, so I got ready. Park clothes? Check. Phone? Check. Keys? Check. Wallet? Check. Car charger? Check. Mountain Dew? Check. Camera?

Camera?

...Camera?

Where was my camera? I remembered I put it in the car for a Wednesday Kings Island trip that was rained out. I tore my place apart. Not in the bedroom, not in my coaster room, not in my car, nowhere. And then when I realized a bag was missing from my car too, I realized what happened: it had been stolen somehow. I texted my folks to make sure I didn't leave it at their place while I was dogsitting last week, in a spurt of quick thinking got my point and shoot, and got outside just in time for Drew to roll up. We got on the road to deal with Ohio's iconic state troopers all the way up to Sandusky and I showed Drew the Facebook jail video, and before you knew it, we were there!

We pulled in...and literally half the park was down. GateKeeper went, Millennium was stuck on the lift, no Dragster obviously, we were on the island by the time Rougarou sent an empty, and worst of all, no Steel Vengeance. But we waited and it opened back up basically as soon as we got there, so we got in line.

Advantage of bringing the little dinosaur point and shoot is that it can go in Vengeance's lockers, and I can bring it into the queue where my DSLR can't go. Needless to say, this isn't exactly National Geographic in terms of quality, but it's better than not having a camera at all.

And the ride was great as always! Honestly one of the weaker rides I've gotten on it, but it was still nice and edgy. Plenty of airtime, plenty of violent tossing, and while I agree with Ben that the repetitive ride experience keeps it from being quite as good as Velocicoaster (and specifically to my rankings, Railblazer), but it's still got that bronze medal as my #3 and there's no denying it's an unbelievable coaster. Best in the Midwest easily and I'll always love coming back here for it every year.

Frontiertown, you are beautiful!

Drew had been here a few times already this season and fell in love with Farmhouse, and always told me he was dragging me there the second he got the chance, so I did the walk of shame across the bridge to go be fat. And I loved that they not only kept this but worked it into the new area. The bridge always looked nice and I wished I could stroll across it when walking around Frontiertown, really glad it was incorporated into the new addition as well as it was. I felt like I was arriving at Grandpa's farm and expected hazy sunshine, tree cover, and a tire swing on the other side.

Farmhouse is so cute! Building is a little tall with the gabled ceilings, but it looks so nice and I loved all the different seating options both outside and on the porch. I think this might actually be big enough to accommodate a crowd of diners on a crowded day, which Cedar Point needs with how bad things get in the fall.

When I saw pictures on social media, I instantly hated the decor. I'm in a People Against Modern Farmhouse group on Facebook that home design shames those Karens that show off their depressing nurseries decorated with burlap and mason jars and corrugated tin and a baby crib that looks suspiciously like a wheat bin for little Braxton. But it grew on me actually being here. I especially loved the windmill turbine-themed ceiling fans. It's cute and cozy while still feeling organic and rustic, something millennial moms don't seem to get when they put this in their home and get roasted on the internet.

The staff here is crushing it for Cedar Fair food. Usually I find this is where you're likely to the people that don't seem as thrilled to be there (and it's understandable, nobody likes work and I've heard food service sucks as a whole), but the Farmhouse crew was crushing it. They have these cool uniforms, they were super friendly with me discussing what I should try, and they were efficiently processing park guests through the line like a cattle drive.

(On that note, what kind of meat's in that chili again?)

We're 'bout to find out! I was on the fence about sausage or steak, but I wanted to try the chili since it looked good and I'm trying to acquire a taste for beans. Drew and the server dude I asked both recommended the steak, so that's what I picked. And I was not disappointed! I was a bit iffy on trying steak from a theme park since I usually order mine so rare it can still moo, but it looked to have a good cook on it, and it does! Simple dish, just smoke the steak and season with salt and pepper, but the smoke adds so much to the flavor. A few bites I had were a bit tough, but nowhere near inedible shoe leather. And the chili was amazing, incorporating both leftover steak and sausage into the spicy stew with tomatoes, pepper, and beans, topped with your choice of cheese, sour cream, and raw onion. This, my friends, is the best thing to eat at Cedar Point hands down and I'm so glad Drew recommended it.

Next up, we circled through the Gemini Midway for a ride on Trojan Magnum XXXL-200. We got in line and it broke, as was the theme for that day. We waited around for maybe ten minutes before cutting our loss and leaving. And in other news, when Trojan Magnum XXXL-200 breaks, Kiddie Kingdom always gets really busy for some reason...

We got our stuff out of the locker when I noticed that this thing was in it. I had no idea what it was, so naturally, I picked it up with my bare hands and examined it. It looked like a pen with NJOY printed on it, when I googled NJOY it said it was a vape thing. I attempted to turn it in to a path sweep, who said because it was a vape I should give it to security, so I did that and found an officer in the Dragster gift shop.

Passed Dragster, never knowing when it'll be the last picture you take of it...

Heading back around, we encountered the construction wall up around what used to be Wicked Twister, and it's massive. Like, not just a fence made of crudely nailed together planks of thin wood like Kings Island uses. This is a real, legit wall, not sure if they just want to keep it from looking ugly or some other engineering reason or if there's something big going on inside that they're trying to deter us from seeing. And for what it's worth, it also extends behind GateKeeper's plaza, blocking the view of the beach behind the sign.

Speaking of GateKeeper, that was our next ride. This coaster has kind of been an on/off favorite for me in its near decade lifespan (damn, I'm getting old), loved it when the renderings leaked, enjoyed it as a new enthusiast, and while I might now have triple digit credits and it's not enough to place near my top ten anymore, I love it on days it's not rattling your brains out on those cantilevers.

We had no issues getting on, short wait, Drew tried to get them to wish me a happy birthday but told them his name was mine (referencing the Verbolten station chanting my name to celebrate his 200th credit back in April)...and the ride ops still butchered the deliberately wrong name. My name was not Drew, it was not Jarrett, my name was Nick for some reason. And after we got off, the ride op stopped and asked me, "that was right, your name was Ryan, right?" We all three laughed it off and got about our day but that was funny as hell!

And she delivered! Having just been on Thunderbird last week, that's clearly got the edge, but this is also a lot of fun. They're very different, this one plays the height and inversion game better where Thunderbird is all about speed, force, and visuals. But flying on a wing over the lakeshore like that is always incredible as long as it's not bouncing you til your balls pop out your nostrils. Love this coaster!

We went to go find my brick next, and we didn't, but we found my good friend Ben's that his mother got him, commemorating his love both riding and operating coasters. Gatekeeper, Blue Streak, and Raptor are among the rides he operated when he lived here in the Buckeye State. And speaking of his time working Blue Streak...

Blue Streak had been down since we got there, but had just gone back up, so we decided to go do that. Just an innocent ride on the little blue coaster that could at the front of the park, right?

I love Blue Streak not only because it's a solid ride, but because it almost never has a wait. It sort of ensures that the Roller Coaster Capital of the World never has too bad a wait for a good roller coaster. Would be nice to see them redo the queue though, it's a bit blah and could be landscaped better. Shade structures, placards with historical information, something other than a concrete cattlepen and chain link fence, please.

Getting on the ride, the ride op laid into someone for vaping in the train (maybe he left his Tooty Fruity cartridge at Magnum, idk) and called him out over the mic. So that was an interesting start to the ride...

Blue Streak is Bae Streak, as usual. Great coaster that never fails to deliver a really fun ride, I was getting air over all of those hills, and it's the textbook definition of what a classic preserved coaster should be. Eats the crowd, everyone who can ride it could reasonably enjoy it, not too rough, and looks really nice off the ride. Love me some Blue Streak!

We went back to go look for my (newer) brick, with no guidance other than the website saying that the newer bricks were inside the circle. This led to Drew and I scanning bricks for a good twenty minutes, when I noticed some of them were newer than others and appeared shoehorned in. When I started looking closer at the newer, redder, shoehorned bricks, I found mine! When I'm asked what Cedar Point is, I always tell them, "it's this amusement park on a penninsula in Lake Erie full of awesome roller coasters, it's beautiful, it's my favorite place in the world." Couldn't think of a better way to tell the future what I think of America's Rockin' Roller Coast.

We went for a spin on Millennium next, or at least tried to. It had been by far the worst offender for breaking down constantly all day, usually stuck on the lift. But they were cycling so we waited outside, they let us in...and there's only the yellow train on the track, with blue and red transferred off. Okay, one train, we can deal I suppose. Well, they couldn't even load the one train because the simple act of moving it from unload to load broke it again. Like, they opened the ride and couldn't even load a train before it had issues again. I talked to a ride op, he saw my birthday button, and told me, "birthday advice, go ride something else."

We went to do Forbidden Frontier next, saw it wasn't ready yet (I thought it was good to go Memorial Day but shows what I know), so went around to do Snake River Expedition when we saw that Snake River Falls had boats being lifted on and off the flume, while Vengeance and Maverick were both down. So we continued around to Expedition, wait is an hour, but then Vengeance was cycling trains, so we decided to try for that. And the wait was two hours by the time we got there, but Maverick only had half its cattlepen full, so we went for that.

Maverick has a new rule this season that the bar of the restraint has to touch your thighs, and this might be the one time my thicc thighs came in handy fitting into a coaster. Wait was a little annoying, but we got the back so I could live with it. And man, she was kicking ass! This recently passed Millie for my second favorite in the park last year, and my appreciation for this coaster has skyrocketed lately. Tons of airtime, kept pace the whole ride, strong second half, my only complaint was that Drew and I's Cobra Kai-themed Funpix somehow didn't make it onto my account.

Frontiertown has the two best rides in the park, the best restaurant in the park, and the best theming in the park. This is where Cedar Point happens, folks. There's a reason I park in the Soak City lot and go straight here every time I come.

Speaking of the best restaurant, we used our second dining plan charges at Farmhouse before taking off, and I wanted to try the sausage, but the chili was already spicy and the chicken tenders looked good so I tried those and they were great! The breading is delicious on them and they were nice and juicy.

And no, it did not come from the chicken restaurant that hates gay people.

Sitting there on that porch with the sun shining through the barbecue smoke from the festival, I got up and took this picture because it just felt...right. Nice Sunday evening, everybody relaxing from the fun weekend they had ready to go back to work, sitting in swings and rocking chairs and the like with happy bluegrass music playing. It was nice, it was pleasant, and not a single roller coaster needed to be involved. This is why Cedar Point is so special, especially in recent years. The park is beautiful, there's no denying it, but when balancing coaster and non-coaster experiences in a park, this one fully delivers on both. And while Fiesta Texas might be my favorite park because of the beautiful location and amazing ride lineup that resides there, Cedar Point is my favorite place in the world because the way I like it sort of goes beyond just an amusement park. Simply being there makes me happy and I'm not sure why.

Drew and I packed up and headed home, dealing with a boring drive (there's literally nothing between here and Dayton except for the porno store near Bowling Green and the fetus barn in Botkins) but despite starting my day with the shaking discovery that my camera was stolen, I made the best of it and managed to have a great birthday. Thanks to Drew for tagging along and our friend Ben and my partner Beth who talked to us on the phone on the drive home, I had a wonderful birthday made possible by a wonderful place and amazing people.

Maybe I can deal with being thirty in two years if I'm gonna get days like this out of it.