Associated parks:
None
Day 1
After months of anticipation, Friday morning Steve and I jump in the truck for our 8 hours drive to Santa Claus, IN with camper in tow. We arrived at Lake Rudolph campground around 4 pm and find our campsite is right across the lake from Raven. What a beautiful sight. Our friend Joe was already there and waiting for us. We also find that it's a blazing hot 90 degrees outside and would remain that way for the next two days. Our next surpise turned out to be our neighbors, Wiredog (Vince) and Mrs. Wiredog (Tami). Couldn't have planned that if we tried.
We all headed over to the park, registered, met up with GregLeg and his bro Matt and got a couple quick rides on Raven and Legend. Wow!! This has got to be to best 1, 2 punch ever!! The air and speed on Raven is unbelievable and Legend is just pure unabated insaneness. Can these rides actually get any better? Yes!
We headed over to Holiday Theater and heard about all changes and additions for the year from Will Koch. Then Mrs. Koch said a few words followed by an auction with benefits going to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. After which we were released for evening ERT. We grabbed our dinner, pizza (which was very good), fudge and chips, and then headed for the main attractions. We decided to jump on Banshee (great airtime) and get some pics of Legend and I promptly walked off with my first souvenir of the trip (a bruise on my leg). It's not worth it if I don't walk away with some sort of bruise (still sporting one from Exterminator from Kennykon the week before).
We took a few spins on Legend which just got more and more insane with each ride. With two trains running the line was a short 10 - 15 minutes. Since this was our first trip, we didn't have the pleasure *cough, cough* of riding it with G-trains. After riding it in the nice soft padded PTC's, I can't imagine the bruises I would've walked away with had they been G-trains. The laterals are just brutal, but in a good way.
Now, most coasters slow down as they go through their course, but I still say that Raven picks up speed. For the size of it, this things hauls some major a$$ and the airtime is incredible. I had a really hard time deciding which one I liked better, but after riding Legend a few times in "insane" mode, the first ride on Raven after that made up my mind real quick. Who cares if it's shorter, the airtime and speed won my vote. We ended up staying on Raven to end the night. Went back to campground and sat around the fire for a little while till sleep finally won out.
Day 2
Our original plans were to head to SFKK in morning, hit the coasters and come back. The heat changed all that though. We woke up at 7 am to find that it was already 80 degrees and decided ZOOMbabwe sounded good. We walked over to the park for our 9 am ERT and with a sweat already worked up, the water was refreshing. ZOOMbabwe is a ton of fun with some pops of air if you have the right balance of people. The only down side was the walk up to the top. That'll give you're legs a work out. We ended up riding it 7 or 8 times and almost flipped the raft upside once. Steve, Vince and Joe would end up flipping it over later in the day.
We stayed and enjoyed the rest of the water park till about 1 pm. The water park is really nice with a lot of different things to do. The campground was having an open house with a free picnic lunch so we went back over there for lunch and decided to take an afternoon nap. It was too hot to do anything. Vince and I went over the park around 3:30 and got Robert Coker to sign our books and took a quick spin on Raven and then went back to the campground. Still just too hot to do anything. We haven't seen weather like this yet in western PA so it was draining.
We went back over to the park around 7 pm and took a spin on The Howler. Good little junior coaster. Had a really good picnic dinner with music entertainment even. They auctioned off a few pieces of wood from the coasters and we were released for another night of pure insaneness.
We had a really great time. The park is beautiful, the staff is energetic and the friendliest I have ever encountered, the food was gooooood and the coasters are what dreams are made of. We ran into friends old and new including 2Hostyl, Rideman, Arrow Guy, Raven-Phile, Jeff, Natalie, Sean F, Legendary, CoastermanMike and many more I'm forgetting (sorry). See you at Coastermania.
Good TR there Lori! Good to see you again. All I have to say is how many times in a row will I spill pop on me. I'm two for two. :)
Coasterman Mike
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Kennywood, Celebrating 75 Years of Racing Sperm ;)
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