A friend and I are planning on driving from chicago to LA to go on X. We are going to try and do all the driving in one day to get there, as we have limited time off of work. However, I refuse to go until X is 100% up and running. When volcano opened at PKD I drove there, pretty much for the purpose of riding it (and going to BGW), and found it to be closed. Then last year, I drove to PKI to ride son of beast, which was operational the previous day, only to find it closed for the whole day. The next day though, it did open for about 4 hours and I got be the first one to ride it that day, so it wasn't all bad. Lets just say my faith in paramount parks has greatly diminished, but to answer the q, there is no distance, if i had the available time and money, which i would not travel to ride a coaster. One day i am hoping to make it to Japan and Britain to hit the rides there, though that'll probabaly be a ways off.