Voyage

I'm saying because of the lightning and a lot of it seemed very close. There were no storm clouds directly ahead, but the storm was not 10 miles off. I have never seen a park operate a coaster with lightning that close and I was not alone in saying so at the event. However, that does not mean I think it was dangerous. Most storm policies are over protective and a privately owned park can make a common sense exception to their normal policy while a corporate park cannot. I know you can see far from Voyage, but lightning on the horizon looks different than the light show we got that night.

You don't know that though, and the park does. That was Dave's point, that they have the ability to know whether or not to run the ride. I'm sure it wasn't any different than any other operating day.

That storm during ERT was easily 10 miles away.

I hear where Strunk is coming from, but I also disagree at this point in my enthusiasm.

For a long time I was anti-wood and only interested in the biggest fastest most Xtreme(!) steel coasters. And for a long time I was happy. I could've gone years without riding a wood coaster and I would've been fine. I wonder if this is where Strunk is coming from.

However, having ridden most of the big steel in the country, I have found that wood coasters are a lot more unique and I'm much more excited about a new wood coaster than a new steel coaster. I can more or less imagine what every new steel coaster coming out will ride like (at least qualitatively if not quantitatively) but some of the newer wood coasters I can't even begin to imagine. Wood is not as exciting or as headline grabbing and I've don't usually go out of my way to ride a new wood coaster, but I've also never ridden one and thought "Gee, I travelled 2000 miles and it's pretty much the exact same thing that I ride at home every weekend."

^^ I agree Moosh, the lightning was a considerable distance from the park by the time they reopened Voyage. The entire park was bathed in moonlight with a fantastic light show off in the distance on my first ride of ERT, which was the second train out.