Left Chicago around noon and struggled through traffic through the OL/IN border to pick up a friend over around Hobart, then headed off to the park though relatively heavy rain and made it there around 3:30, paid the $2 admission and this time figured it woulnt be that bad to pay the $3 to park inside the park, no spots under Hurricane due to construction so I took the nearest spot I could find, parked, headed in and got my ACE discounted Wristband without problem for $9 then myself and the person I was there with spoke to Tom Spackman (owner/GM of the park) for maybe a half hour about various things inlcuing possible future events, what's happening this year, all kinds of fun stuff. By this time the rain had stopped for the most part stayed away for the rest of the day exept for some light mist now and then and some late fog that I'll get into later
As for rides, I wont list them in order, but will do an overall view(I dont use a point system amymore as milage will vary).
Tigrr-Schwarzkopf Jet Star I- walkon-one ride- Running good as usual, rode in the back seat and got the standard nice pop of air going down the drop, especially nice wiht no restraints at all of any type.
YoYo-Chance Rides-wait time, walkon-one ride- got one ride on this, easily the best yoyo I've ever ridden, possibly the best swing ride I've ridden period due to the location. Anyone who's been knows what I'm talking about.
Music Express-Mack Music Express-Wait time-one ride- walkon- One of the better Mack Music Expresses I've ridden, was running just a hair under top speed both forwards and backwards, was giving mild airtime on the hills and good laterals, and IB does take nice care of it, most of the lights were working.
At this point we admired Lost Coaster for a while and watched them test and construct (more later).
At this point we
Falling Star-Chance Falling Star-wait time-one ride- , Walk on- Good ride, one of the better Falling Star's I've ridden, used to be the best but it doesnt seem as powerful this year.
Century Wheel-Chance Century Wheel-walkon-one ride- Very Ferris Wheelish, I dont care for Chance Ferris Wheels (though my favorite type of ride overall is Ferris Wheels), with no line we got a rather long cycle though with no stop at the top.
Hoosier Hurricane-CCI Out and Back-walkon- around 4 rides- Hoosier got a few mods this year along with some trackwork and was running great, has 2 really good moments of airtime which is very unlike Hoosier Hurricane, also smooth and fast the whole way around, very fun also one of these rides were at night and solo(just me, friend was over at Cornball).
Cornball Express-CCI Freeform Twister- approx 50 rides (lost count after like 5, spent around 3.5-4 hours on it for reference), walked up those long long steps twice, first ridding session of around 90 minutes we rode nonstop in the front row maybe 10 times in a row til someone finally made it up to the station and the train actually had to have it's lapbars unlocked, however they went for another row and we did a few more laps up front, before finally someone else showed up and claimed the front for a few laps, when they left we went back up there (see a pattern here?), got maybe 30 rides without leaving the station/train, at this point it was 7:30 and time for some food.
Went over to Burger Shake near the Arcade, Pronto Pup stand and those giant head fountains, and had a roughly 1/4 lb CheeseBurger, fries and a 16 oz drink for $4.77 with tax and it was all good and of course at that stand you order and they cook the food to order, which can result in a 5 or so minute wait for the food, but it's more than well worth it and there is nice atsmosphere in that shop (I'm a sucker for Coca Cola Collectables and those light fixtures most definately count).
What's good after a meal? Why a Double Shot of course-3 rides without leaving our seats-walkon- It was running in it's old form with downright painful ejector air on both shots, made myself and friend see stars. Was quite good, but I'd think it's almost to powerful for some people, left a bruise on my shoulder which I'll deal with
After that we walked down to the Bumper Cars and got around 4 rides (2 were just me and friend and 2 more were with 5 or so people total), was very fun and with so few cars running all cars had alot of available power and made for great bumping action and violent collisions. (got another bruise from the shoulder straps, but again I'll live)
Now I played some faciniation and I'm addicted to it, so I wont go on much about it exept when I play if I dont become the guest played I'll play for well over 2-3 hours and drop $20 and sometimes more, and I collected a nice (huge) Coca Cola Jukebox Cookie Jar for 48 tickets (I had 94 saved up), headed to the car to put that away and realized my car keys(with remote) were nowhere to be found, which pissed me off quite a bit as I really needed those, but I have a spare mounted under my car which I used for the rest of the day(I quickly got in a better mood raalizing I have another remote at home, first damage to a brand new car is much better with a remote most likely at the bottom of the lake then say a huge scratch or collision on/with the car itself, and most importantly I'm at Indiana Beach
After that (took that one nighttime Hoosier Ride) and headed back to Cornball Express for the rest of the night (a bit more then 2 hours this time), stayed up front most of the time, was unseated probably once or twice for a few cycles, but again never left the train for the rest of the night til we were kicked off the ride at closing. I really like Cornball Express, top 10 coaster, it's so much fun and has such a great mix of ejector air, laterals and speed throughout the ride, and to add to this, during this riding session (all at night) the fog rolled in and all the lights in the kiddie area under the ride were turned off (along with Tigrr lights), so basically I got around 2-2.5 hours of well greased Cornball Night rides in complete darkness, with fog/mist while riding solo (just myself and my friend in the front seat). Yeah, I can deal with that
As for all our front seat rides, Cornball tends to be a better front seat ride under these conditions such as an empty train, Cornball becomes a back seat ride when the train fills up and gets a good yank down some of those drops. Neither of us counted, we both agree when you worry about how many rides you are getting on some ride chances are you rant enjoying the ride to the fullest extent, but we estimate we got at least 50 rides during the day with around 75-80% of those in the front seat, and the rest in rows 2, 3 and 12.
Park closed at 10 and we were asked to leave, at which point we discovered we had legs and they were quite beaten up from the very intense ride Cornball gives, however we managed to use them to get us over to the Sky Room where we met up with IB Dave(guy who works there who we know) and talked with him about various stuff til about 11-11:30 and we left, stopping for gas and a 67 cent 44 oz bladder buster before heading back home, dropped my friend back in Hobart around 12:30 at which point I really needed to use the bathroom, but I met him at his closed place of work (Indiana U which will clue those who know him to who it was
) so I went to a local gas station who's restroom was out of order, so I crossed 80/94 on brodway and suddenly found myself in the crackwhore capital of the universe, so after stopping at a gas staton and them not having a public restroom and having a very nice black man (seemed to be an amature pimp but I may be mistaken) offer to look out for me while he offered a private place on the side of the gas station where I could "take a piss", I declined his generous offer and gave him $1 for a collection he was taking up from people who were visiting the gas station so he "could get his fix", must not be a very good pimp, but I was amused enough to give him his requested dollar, he earned it 
At this point I really didnt have to go anymore for whatever reason and got back on the tollway and made it into IL and around the First toll in the state my urge to go came back badly, so at the first toll booth I used their rest area, nuked me a meatball sub and got back on my way (for those who dont know, every mainline toll booth has a rest area on the far right hand side, just pay the toll and like right after the toll(within like 50-100 feet, so get a far right lane) there is an enterance to the parking lot and there are bathrooms and vending inside along wiht a microwave for the stuff in the refrigated vending machine (sandwiches of various types usually but now and then you can get soup and one time I even saw a fairly nasty looking small steak, though on the most part food isnt bad), figured this woudl be a useful bit of info now that pretty much all the Oasises are out of service for a while.
Made it home around 1:45, showered and slept for a long long time, and was very late to work today much to the displeasure of management.
Few side notes here about the park, since it is fairly early in teh season and staffing wasnt the greatest, Sea Dragon, Galaxi and a few other things were closed, but nothing to bad.
Lost Coaster is currently closed as they are working on the mountain, they are enclosing the entire first turn/drop, it did test a few times today (probably checking clearances or whatnot before they put more mountain pieces on), it looked like it was running really really slow and looked/sounded smooth, however the trains were empty. Mr. Spackman says give it another week or so before they are finished.
Air Crow did not open as expected (though it wanst really expected for the past few weeks or so), weather and permit problems have delayed construction, the park first went to the state for permission to build over the lake and got approved then they went for all the standard building permits and the departments issuing the permits all had to verify the permit to build over the water which took a really, really long time. Also the Gravity group's people have been working very slowly which hasnt helped. 3 more "slices of the pie" have to be done, but they expect to finish that up this week then all they have to do is hang the cars which will only take a few hours, the state is scheduled to come out and certify the ride Friday morning, and it should open up Sat barring any delays(maybe fri afternoon, but dont count on it depends on when the inspector shows up)
That's about it, I know this was of novel length but hopefully someone gets something out of it at the very least a decent pimp story
