Coasters and Corps Part I

Each year, my best friend and fellow buzzer Byron and I take a week to ride new coasters. This year we combined our love of coasters with our equal passion for Drum and Bugle Corp. We flew out of BHM to Chicago on our trusty friend Southwest, picked up our rental car and headed to SFGA. As we got closer to the park, it started to rain. We quickly decided to reverse our trip plans and head on to Wisconsin Dells hoping the rain would pass us by. On our way to WI, the rain came down in sheets and the lightning was popping all around us. We found out later that a tornado had been in the area.

We arrived in the Dells aound 2:30 pm. It was still raining so we checked into our hotel room and then drove out to Mt Olympus too see Hades. The rain stopped by the time we got to the parking lot. There were less than 10 cars in the parking lot!! We got our front door parking space and headed to the ticket booth. We had picked up half price coupons at our hotel so we purchased our 2 day ticket for $25.00 and headed inside.

First stop Hades. Being huge Voyage fans, we could not wait to ride its older sister. As we climbed the huge stair case, we loved the look of the ride. Especially the big dip out of the station and the layout to the lift hill. We waited about 4 trains for the last car. Got in and we were off and up the lift hill . What a view. It was beautiful. Then all Hell broke loose. Hades is much rougher than the Voyage and the neat elements like the 90 degree banked turns were undetectable being hidden in the tunnel. Some of it was really fun and the other parts were so rough the we were left with the feeling of disbelief that the ride was really a GG ride. You have to love and appreciate Holiday World's maintenance crew!!!!!! Also, we were puzzled by the 1 train operation on a ride as long as Hades. So on to better not bigger coasters.

Our next stop was Cyclops. What a neat ride w/a surprise ending. It was relatively smooth and had a big drop at the end. The surprise ending caught Byron off guard of he reinjured his ribs that he had broken earlier in the summer. Needless to say, we were very careful the rest of the trip.

Next up was Zeus. Another neat coaster that was an out and back. I loved how it went under Hades and had some nice pops of air. Also love the drop out of the station. That is a neat element of most of the coasters at Mt Olympus.

Pegasus was a cool junior coaster. It had some great air time for such a small coaster. Also, very smooth.

Then we headed toward the indoor park to ride Opa. On the way, we passed the area where Triton use to be. We both wondered why it had been removed. Neither of us had heard anything about it. Opa was a fun spinning mouse that had very little spin. Thats ok w/ us since neither of us like to spin alot.

The crowds had started to trickle back in and we both wanted one more ride on Hades to give it a 2nd try. We waited about 45 minutes for our 2nd ride. We choose the middle of the train hoping it would be more tame. WRONG! The middle was much more rough than the back. We both really wanted to enjoy Hades, but just could not muster the enthusiasm.

We decided to go ahead and leave for the day and head over to Timber Falls to ride Avalanch. I was really excited about Avalanche and the ride did NOT disappointment me. We were the only 2 on the ride and opted for a front seat ride. The ride totally rocks. It is as fast as a bat out of Hell. We ended up riding it 10 times before we took a dinner break.

Getting hungry, we walked over to the pizza place in the parking lot of Timber Falls. The pizza was fabulous and really hit the spot. After dinner, we were ready for more rides on Avalanch. Ending the evening w/around 15 rides on it. I also want to mention the log flume there. You get WET!

Our day was complete having ridden some great coasters and having eaten some fab pizza. We were content knowing that we would have many more coasters to ride during the next 4 days. Stayed tuned for part II. *** Edited 8/17/2008 2:22:54 AM UTC by Steve Perry***