It's about 5:30AM. I make sure I pack the almighty Dramamine, and I'm off with my dad to start our 1000 mile drive to Sandusky, OH.
We officially start driving at 5:40AM.
This is what my dad and I look like at 5:40AM.
Driving while the sun's coming up is pretty awesome (and tiring). But we've got plenty of music to keep us up. Unfortunately, my Streetlight Manifesto CD just kinda quit working, so we started listening to Foreigner.
"I wanna know what love is..."
"...I want you to show me"
A few hours go by and we're in Georgia. But it's time for some gas.
I have still yet to figure out why it says "Enter Joe" on the door to the gas station.
Waiting...
Suddenly we find a plane
Shortly before arriving in South Carolina, we pop in the Tally Hall CD.
"The sky is deep and dark and eternally high"
This is the legendary bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper that just would not open. We both tried opening it with all our might.
Finally, my dad resorts to slamming it in the car door. It works.
"I'm not gonna risk drinking plastic shards"
So he gets another one
And it opens!
Then we arrive in North Carolina...
...where we seize the opportunity to try Jack in the Box. They kept us waiting like, fifteen minutes. And it wasn't even that good.
Then we're like "Whoa, mountains"
Crikey
Then it's Virginia, the coolest state of the trip. To drive through, that is.
More mountains. You drive right through them. It's pretty awesome.
The exact moment my dad realizes we've been driving 45 miles in the wrong direction.
It's hard to tell in this picture, but that tunnel goes under one of the mountains. Pretty cool.
I missed the "Welcome to West Virginia" sign, so here's the artist we were listening to. Gotta love ink Floyd.
Then we wound up in Texas
I just wanna roll off that thing
Here I am very happy because I just had candy cigarettes for the first time in ten years.
"Well it's 9 o'clock, and it's getting dark, and the sun is falling from the sky..."
This sign probably says something about Ohio. We finally got there after zig-zagging through about a billion mountains.
The official stop time. We drove around for about a half hour looking for a hotel, because we're too cool for reservations.
We finally find one. The beds were uncomfortable, the sink and tub both wouldn't stop dripping, and the door wouldn't even shut all the way. I guess that's what you get for $60 at 1am.
We take one last look...
And we're off at about 7am.
Could it be...
Is it really...
IT IS!! We blasted Matisyahu's "Jerusalem" while driving
I took this picture while stopped at the gate that only season pass holders and people staying at resort's can get through.
Of course we run to Dragster.
I wanted to buy this picture, but they handed my $12 back because the printer was broken or something. I wasn't gonna let the on-ride photo of my very first TTD ride get away from me that easy. (If it makes you feel better, I wound up buying a real one the next day)
In case you forgot what TTD looks like.
[The mods probably wouldn't like me posting this one]
Next up was Magnum. Frickin' incredible ride. Massive amounts of air.
Then I headed over to Millennium force and forgot to take a single picture. Whooops. It was about an hour wait, and definitely worth ever second of it. I felt like I'd already been on it a thousand times before due to my adventures in NoLimits, but it was still awesome.
I figured we'd head on over to Vertical V-- I mean, Wicked Twister. I always laugh when I see the acronym "CP". If you go to 4chan, you would too.
Me riding with no one
The famous afro fountain. It doesn't seem to have quite the same effect when you already have an afro.
CP shop. *snickers* Well, it's about 4:30pm. We're both tired as hell and have only gotten on four coasters, so we leave the park to get some well deserved rest.
But we get a nice surprise next to Breakers Express
OH LAWD, is that some Intamin?
The idea was to go to the hotel, get a couple hours of sleep, and return to the park at about 8pm or so. I woke up at 7am for a total of 14 hours of sleep. Whoops.
We got to the park right when it opened again, and headed for Magnum, an ACE landmark! Magnum was even better the second time. Whoo.
I could've sworn I got a photo of it, but I got a ride on Corkscrew. I'm too tall for that ride. The restraints were pressing down on my shoulders like hell. But wahey, first inversion of the trip!
I took my dad on Gemini, the steel woodie. The red side was closed, as you can see. The ride was surprisingly fun, especially since the ride op was from Poland and was constantly shouting over the mic with her Polish accent.
Mean Streak time.
Several people waiting for the train that never came. Very few of them realized that it was because Mean Streak wasn't open, and no one had any business crossing the tracks if it wasn't.
She sat there taunting us. The ride opened, and I was on the first train of the day. What an incredible ride. It's definitely earned a spot in my top five coasters.
Time for the Cedar Creek Mine Ride. It was briefly charming.
We headed over to TTD for a second ride.
Here it is again in case you forgot what it looks like
Unfortunately, I didn't see a single rollback the entire trip
TTD was, once again, awesome.
Demon Drop had a very short line, so I figured I'd ride it.
I liked it.
CP is readily available *snickers*
Then it was time for Blue Streak. This ride was surprisingly fun. It had plenty of air that would've almost made it a reride had the line not been forty minutes.
There's fish in line for Iron Dragon.
Iron Dragon was another ride that was much more than I expected. Speaking of awesome rides, it's time to get on Millennium Force again.
My lips are blue from making sweet love to the track.
Here is my MF pic.
We headed over to Disaster Transport, only for the ride to shut down after about a half hour of waiting. They said it wouldn't be rideable for at least two hours, so we headed over to Mantis, another ride I forgot to get a pic of.
Mantis ranks about the same as Iron Wolf on my scale, which is pretty high. It gets extra points for that first drop though. Whoo. Then it's time to go a-Raptoring.
This was the longest we waited for anything. Longer than TTD, longer than MF. It was worth the wait though. I'm glad I got on it.
It was about 7:15pm, and my dad had to get to work at least part of the next evening, so we had to leave. I got some D-Dots before I left, and we started the 1000 mile trek back to Florida.
This picture was taken at 4am at a North Carolina rest stop. We wound up going to sleep there rather than a hotel. It was pretty cool.
We found a cat when we woke up
Long story short, we arrived back at Sanford, FL at around 6:30pm after getting delayed about 5 hours in South Carolina.
I guess this is where I total up my ride count.
TTD x2
Magnum x2
MF x2
WT
Gemini Blue
Mean Streak
Blue Streak
CCMR
Corkscrew
Mantis
Raptor
Iron Dragon
Demon Drop
Total: 15 in two days.
