First time in mid west Pt II: SFStL 6/26 & 6/27

(see Pt I)

So Emily and I drove up to our friend George's place in O'fallon Mon. night after WoF. We arrived and both just fell right asleep.

After WoF I had ridden 93 coasters. I really wanted RB to be my 100th, so I was going to get 5 in STL. That would leave 99 for the first thing Deja Vu and then I could set RB as my 100th (AC is my fav. coaster, so I figured I'd show a little respect to B&M by making RB my 100th.)

The next morning we were out the door around 9:30 and it was a 45 min drive to the park, so we got there around 10:15. I will preface the rest of this TR by saying the Emily and George are both really really competitive people. They get really worked up about losing. This becomes relevant later on. George had never been on Mr. Freeze in 4 trips to the park due to maintainance and being with sissy friends ;) and Emily had never been on a launch or on an invert, so i was looking forward to seeing how they liked Freeze and Batman.

So, George's luck still held and when we got to the gate we could see a crane holding some people up near the LIM'S on the tower. Sure enough, the only ride listed in the "Attractions closed today" was Mr. Freeze. Poo. I was really looking forward to this, and it was really one of the big reasons that I wanted to visit SFStL.

So we get into the park and we decide to hit Boss first, because George hasn't ever been on Boss either (somehow he's been to the park 3 or 4 times this year and never rode Boss or Freeze) and I've never been on a CCI. I have pretty high expectations because of the way that people talk about CCI around here, but this ride was terrible. We rode in the last row and the bottom of every drop and almost every turn were rib crackingly bad. So, since it was walk on, we decide to try again in the middle. Maybe it's just the last row whipping around a bit. Nope. Still brutal everywhere. This is my 94th coaster.

Okay, so having been disillusioned by CCI (more on this later in Pt 3) we decide to take a spin on the classic batman. Line is in the station so we wait for first row. George hasn't been on the first row of this either, so it's a new experience for the both of them. B:TR is running great and very intense. I get very surprised because of the mirror image and I'm leaning all the wrong directions. A fast, fun ride, but I just can't take too many of these things before my heart explodes. Emily says it was cool, but not too much different from B:DK. I dunno, I think floorless and inverted have very different visuals and forces. This is my 95th ride.

So since Ninja was right near by, we get on in the front. I've heard a good bit about the head choppers on this ride, and they're good, but not great. Most of the inversions were a bit rough though, so overall I didn't particularly like this ride. But it does get me my 96th.

We head over to Eagle and there's thunder in the distance. The ride is temporarily down, so we poke around in a food place and walk around the area looking for something to do. We decide to go get George's season pass processed (he bought one on his 4th trip of the season?) and while we're waiting in the line it starts raining. Like, really really raining. So we're in the bldg. and a little damp, but not too bad. Emily decides she wants to play in the rain, so we follow her outside. It's raining really hard now, so we quickly scramble under the karaoke place's awning for cover. This was a bad mistake. Emily calls us wusses and stands there in the rain. For the next 45 minutes, while we wait for the rain to go away, we listen to horribly butchered renditions of really bad music at incredibly high volumes. Offspring, Britney. Argh. My advice: never ever get stuck near/in a karaoke place.

Once the rain started to let up, we got some food at wok & roll and got on the screaming eagle. My 97th. Great air all over the place but it got a little rougher as the day went on. More on this later.

After taking a few more laps on Boss (ouch) and Batman, we started to get a little bored, so we decided to see what this Scooby Doo ghost blasters thing was all about. Along the way we found dippin dots (see Pt I) so I had to get my mint chocolate. We got in line for scooby not expecting much other than a stupid slow dark ride. Boy were we wrong. When we dispatched the first time, we didn't really understand what was going on (none of us really read any of the signs), so it took us a while to figure out what to shoot. Emily took 1st, me 2nd and George 3rd. We decided to do it again with a different seating configuration (we figured that people on the left had the advantage. Later we discovered that people riding by themselves really have the advantage) and Emily again took 1st, me 2nd, George 3rd. On the way out the second time, we heard Mr. Freeze test a few times, but the ride wasn't opening. :( I'm still looking for my 98th coaster, but it doesn't look like Mr. Freeze will be able to fill that spot. We wander around a little bit and head to eagle again. After a couple rerides they decide it's time to see who's tougher. They decide to ride last row, with a mostly empty train (basically, the roughest ride you can get) eyes closed, hands up all the way (including the final break). See who can last longer. Well, they both go, and go, and go, and go and both are saying ouch, ouch, ouch, but obviously neither one is going to let the other win. So I take my semi rough rides near the front and decide it's time to get going. We head over to Boss and wait for it in the hot sun. It's still rough. And bad. We head over to Scooby again, but this time I use one hand to hold the gun and the other to rapidly fire the trigger. This works wonders, and I come out with 52,000. My foes both have ~30,000 but Emily barely beats George. He's not happy so we do it again. Emily sits up front by herself and George and I take the back seat together. Not as a good a run for me ~37,000, but George and Emily TIE. with ~30,000 again. So now they have to go head to head. I get front alone and they sit together. I come out with another decent run and George barely beats Emily. So now George is saying that he can beat Emily head to head anytime. In fact, he gets so cocky that, for the last ride of the day, he says he can sit with me and beat Emily when she's alone in front. So we go in guns blazing and I am going nuts. I'm hitting targets all over and really racking up the reds. We emerge and George (of course) lost pretty handily to Emily and I got my record of 69,000.

Awesome. An awesome day, with slightly bad weather, but definitely awesome. Ghost blasters was a lot more fun than I would've thought it could be from reading the description.

So we head back to George's in O'Fallon. The next morning Em is headed back to Lawrence so she leaves early. We wake up to see her off (she gets a ticket on the way home :P) and we call SF to see if Freeze is running. We don't want to spend too much time in the park, because we have to drive to Madison, Wisconsin this afternoon, but we both want to ride Mr. Freeze. The recording says they're not open until 10:00 and call back at 10:00. This of course sucks, because we want to be there a 9:45 so we can get a few really quick laps. So we decide to take our chances and go to the park. It tested fine yesterday afternoon, so we figure that it's gotta be open today. (Of course with George's luck, it's probably fallen apart or something.)

So we head to the park, pay the parking fee and approach the gate. Hooray! We see the train rise up the tower and we start power walking (c'mon, you know you do it to for good rides) over. Long long long empty queue. Ride is a walk on, but they're only running on station. I end up on the right side of the train, which means I catch George's elbow in my head a few times. This ride is awesome. Smooth, fun, lapbars. Great visuals through the top hat and the vertical spike is just messed up (in a good way). We walk around and get a total of 4 rides, 1 in front. This is my 98th coaster and I'm all set for SFGAm. and RB.

I really really like this park. Great rides, scooby doo, and lots of water and cool spots. Too bad Em didn't get to ride Mr. Freeze.

(see pt III for the conclusion).

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A rollercoaster? What's that?

Nice TR! Sounds fun but where is part III?

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-Sean Newman
84 coasters in Track Record!! Hypersonic XLC # 100 in July. Waiting for the 305 foot drop tower in 2003. Thank you PKD.

Sorry. It's coming. I've only had a little bit of time to post...

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A rollercoaster? What's that?