100 coasters

Lewis, you didn't tell me that SD2K was your 100th! How cool is that? That's a long way to get to 100:)
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Joe: Have fun overseas man! I'm glad to see that your East Coast trip went so well. Parks have all been dead this season....I don't know whats up?! Mem. Day Saturday at SFGAd, there were stay-on conditions for Nitro and Medusa! Wad up with that?? I think they're attracting a more "family" crowd now, since they didn't add a new ride this year. But did you SEE the line for the Dolphin Discovery show?!! It's been *HUGE!* Anyway, I think next year everyone will be FLYING over to the park for the new attraction! We didn't leave PKD, we headed over to Flight of Fear and caught a great ride there, met Bobcoaster (Bob Hooley) and left the park watching the cool fireworks. It was a great time! CC7 is gonna be crazy man! Boy, do I have some stories for you! Oh, and by the way, who said note pads are only for nerds? :)

SFgadvMAN: Relax bud, its coming tomorrow night!

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-Rob Vaccaro

*** This post was edited by RobCoasting on 7/11/2002. ***

I was fortunate to have parents who always enjoyed taking me to amusement parks when I was a child. We had a house down in Cape May when I was a kid too, so trips to Morey's, Seaside, Ocean City, and Atlantic City were a frequent occurance. In fact, I believe the old Jet Star (RIP) on Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, may have been my first coaster.

I'm thinking that before I was even a coaster enthusiast, I had ridden about forty coasters or so at SFGAd, Dorney, Hershey, Seaside, Wildwood, Ocean City, Atlantic City, Story Book Land, Dutch Wonderland, PKD, BGW and WDW.

I started riding as an enthusiast in the summer of '97 when we saw the Thrills, Chills, and Spills program on the Discovery Channel. Later that summer, we planned trips to and went to, Cedar Point, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, PKD, Hershey, Dorney, and of course, Great Adventure riding all the coasters in sight. I believe my count at the end of that year was nearly 80.

That winter, we joined ACE and that following summer, we did the ACE Preservation Con and we took two weeks to ride a bunch of coasters across PA, OH, KY, and IN...hitting my 100th coaster, Magnum XL-200 on that trip as well, since I didn't ride it back in '97.

In 1999, we hit a personal best of 53 parks 79 times and I believe I broke the 175 coaster mark that winter at Islands of Adventure.

In 2000, we spent alot of our summer revisiting some of our favorite parks, but I still managed to break 200.

In 2001, we hit some new parks along with many of our favorites...besting our previous park record of '99, hitting 61 or so parks countless times.

This year, I hit 300 at Indiana Beach I think, and we'd be well on our way to beating 2001's park record, but I'm forced to get a job since I got accepted at WVU and my father thinks I'm too much of a party kid so he wants me to throw down some dough on my college education - at least paying for my room and board, blah! (He doesn't know it's one of the top ten party schools in the nation, and, from Playboy Magazine: "Some have wondered why we didn't include WVU in this edition of our top ten party schools. Well, the answer is simple. We only rank amateurs, not professionals." )

So, it took me about two years of coastering to hit that magical 100 coaster mark, 1997-1998, four years to hit the 200 coaster mark, 1997-2000 and six years to hit the 300 mark, 1997-2002. I'm thinking I'll hit the 400 coaster mark in Texas next spring, 2004....

-Rob "who me? long winded?!" Vaccaro

*** This post was edited by RobCoasting on 7/11/2002. ***

My wife and I just hit the 100 mark. We did it this past weekend with coasters in Vegas, SFMM, and KBF. Her #100 was Goliath and mine was Ghostrider. It took some planning but we wanted to make our #100s something special and I do believe we managed that.

We just started serious coastering about 3 years ago. This is the second marriage for both of us and our ex-spouses were non-enthusiasts; so, until we met, neither one of us visited an amusment park much at all. We're now making up for lost time.

Just as an FYI, she's now at 103 and I'm at 100.

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
Favorite Wood: Viper(SFGAm), Legend (HW)
Favorite Steel: MF (CP), Mamba (WoF)