TR: KBF 9/19/2004

It was a very nice day. Clouds early in the morning but they cleared up quick and it was pretty warm and sunny all day.

Got into the park a bit before noon. The park didn't look too packed and, other than Camp Snoopy, it wasn't. Camp Snoopy was pretty swarmed, though.

Got to see Silver Bullet up close. Looks nice. I'll definitely have to come back out when that guy opens.

-Motezuma's Revenge: this is always a great ride. Today was no exception. The launch is still great even with faster launches out there. This was a first for my cousin, Stefanie. She loved it.

Couldn't get my cousin's son, Andy, to do Monty. Oh well, no big deal, right? This would be the story through most of the day. I should note that he managed to ride most of the coasters at SFMM 2 years earlier (9 years old at the time) and had no problems. He rode Viper and was scared of Monty? Okay, sure.

-Supreme Scream: another Stef first. My wife and I went on with Andy's dad the first time. She went on with Andy's dad the 2nd time. Never got him to go on. This one I could at least understand. Drop rides aren't always for everyone.

-Jaguar: this ended up being the only coaster Andy would go on. Everything else was too scary for some reason or another. Oh well, his loss. Other than that, this was the typical family coaster ride that's fun to experience once and be done with it.

-Xcelerator: my first time on this ride. Couldn't get time for the ACE trip, haven't bothered with a Solace since '02 and really haven't been real big on hitting the local parks, either. What a fun ride. The launch was fun, though not quite Dodonpa. The first element was great. I was floating all the way down. Such a waste that it's over so quickly. Got a 2nd ride in while my cousin rode (and even liked) Boomerang.

While we hit Xcelerator, my cousin had gone with her son to hit the log ride. We got off about the same time and met up. Great timing! From there things were pretty quiet. The rest of the group met up with us and went out to the car to eat lunch.

Went back in and hit some more small rides and discovered that a ton of rides seem to have 48" height requirements. Lizzie, my cousin's daughter, was at 45 inches. Seemed odd that the height requirements were so high on everything. It was sad seeing a little girl crying because she couldn't ride just about any of the adult rides at Knott's. What's worse was me knowing that had we gone elsewhere, she could have ridden more. Oh well, lesson learned.

Walked around a bit more heading towards the main event, Ghostrider. It wasn't a good sight seeing a little girl looking at the big wooden structure that is Ghostrider, looking at the height sign, then looking at me with a small sob as she, again, was just a bit too short. I tried to comfort her and told her that we'd come back again when she was big enough so that she could ride.

-Ghostrider: copper train. 3rd-to-last row, right seat. We were only going to get one ride on as it was just about 7pm. The first portion of the ride is typically the fun-yet-not-overly-impressive part. It actually felt pretty good. Then came the part I was looking forward to most. The Drop. It seemed to be missing something. The rest of the ride wasn't, however, as it picked up quick and was tearing through the rest of the track. All in all a good ride and a good way to end the day.

After that we made out way out along with everyone else and hopped over to Mrs. Knott's for dinner.

In the end, everyone had a good day at the park. I think we're all looking forward to SFMM next, though ;)