Beech Bend-June 29th 2008

Anyhow, I took a trip down to Kentucky and Indiana to go check out Beech Bend, Kentucky Kingdom, and Holiday World. First park was beech bend.

My main reason for visiting Beech Bend was the Kentucky Rumbler. I arrived around 4 in the afternoon to take advantage of discount tickets. Well, that didn't work out too well. Apparently the southern part of Kentucky is under central time while we were under the assumption it was eastern time. Oh well, no biggie.

As I walked into the park it reminded me a lot of a carnival. Most of the flats seemed portable. I also noticed a rather crazy inverted contraption that reminded me of an inverted Chaos. I'm not one for spinny rides so I passed on that. First ride on the agenda was The Kentucky Rumbler.

I was under the impression this was sort of a smaller coaster but it still packed a lot of punch. Looking at the Rumbler made me a bit disappointed as the ride didn't look like it packed a lot of thrill. Boy, was I wrong.

First ride I waited for the front to just get familiar with the layout. We rolled out of the station and ascended up the lift. You get a cool view of the rolling hills and racetrack area from the lift. We crested the top, went around the turn, and began to rumble. This ride never, ever, let up. The pops of air between the transitions was incredible. The laterals were even better. I was loving it the whole ride. There were a few head and hand choppers that really added to the thrill throughout the ride. I took a couple of more ride and came to the conclusion the ride is a bit better in the back as it whips you around a bit more. Overall, It's in my top five wooden coasters.

I exited the rubmler and started to laugh a little as Beech Bend apparently learned a thing from Disney and made you exit through a gift shop. I then ventured my way towards the pinfari death machine.

I got over to the pinfari death machine to see it was closed. I was rather disapointed as I've heard many stories of the (in)famous ride. Oh well, maybe I'll ride it another day.

I headed over to the ARM tower. I just recently rode the medium sized version at Waldameer so I knew what to expect. I just love the amount of air you get on these, it's incredible for such a small tower.

Headed on over to get my first spinning Zamperla mouse credit. Can't say too much about this ride. My friend and I spun a ton which I kinda hated as it made me a bit more dizzy than I enjoy. It was an alright ride.

After the mouse we walked around the park. We rumbled a bit more and did the log flume. The flume looked like it had a bit too much dye in the water but it still delivered a good ride.

I also did their "haunted house" dark ride. I was really disappointed. It looked like it's seen better days as the effects were horribly timed. The only thing that made me jump was a loud BUZZ.

It started to cloud up after all our re-rides so we decided to head on out and up to our hotel in Louisville where we would stay so we could embark on Kentucky Kingdom the next day.

A few random notes though.
-The ride staff was really nice and friendly.
-I got my first sonic drive in credit. There's always ads for them in Northeast Ohio but I've never seen one in the area.

I took some pics that are provided in the link in my signature.