WE NEED YOUR HELP! A Helluva Northwest Trip!
We’re embarking on one hell of a coaster/sightseeing tour coming up in a couple of weeks (appropriate I post now, since we all just told of our most grueling coaster tours in a couple threads below). Neither of us have EVER been in this part of the country, and we’ll need your help with a few things!
First, if there are any tips – coupons, what to ride, what to avoid, neat/unique things to do, while at any of these (soon to be mentioned) parks, please tell us! Secondly, if there are any of you that live en route to a park where we could stay, we would be extremely grateful for the gesture! This trip is going to cost a helluvalot, so anything we can do to save some extra dough is appreciated. Now, onto the itinerary!
I will be leaving Atlanta, GA on Wed, July 30 and arriving in Milwaukee, WI where Keith will pick me up and we’ll be on our way to Valleyfair! in Minnesota. We’ll be at the park from about 2pm - 5pm or so, until we hit all the coasters and flats we want to ride. We have season passes so cost isn’t an issue here. I’ll sum up the parks like this from now on:
Valleyfair! - Wed, July 30; 2pm-5pm
From here we drive toward Yellowstone Nat’l Park. It will be about a 16hr drive so we’re going to drive as much as we can and then sleep for the night at or around Glendive, MT.
The next days is Yellowstone. We definitely need a lot of help from those of you who have been there on things like what would be the best to see, how easy it is to get around, how much it costs to drive there, park your car, and then walk around taking it all in for a few hours (we’ll only be there for about 7 hours). I have checked the website but it was confusing when it came to pricing (we just want one day and all) so if anyone has real world experience with this, we’d love to hear from you!
Yellowstone Nat’l Park - Thurs, July 31; 2pm -9pm
Sleep at or around Butte, MT (do any coaster people even LIVE over in this part of the country? LOL)...
Silverwood - Fri, Aug 1; 11am - 9pm
Playland - Sat, Aug 2; 11am - 9pm (My 22nd birthday woohoo! Come out and celebrate with us as we hit downtown Vancouver...any cool places to party at here?)
Fun Forest/Enchanted Village - Sun, Aug 3; 1pm - 8pm (Nasai, you gonna be home, man? We want to party in Seattle! Show us a good time, would ya? J) (We have passes to SFEV)
Oak’s Park/Thrill-ville/Enchanted Forest - Mon, Aug 4; 12pm - 6pm (We’ll most likely drive until we hit Boise, ID en route to Salt Lake City, UT...anyone along this looooooong stretch of drive?)
Lagoon - Tues, Aug 5; 11am - 10pm (we might also be stopping by at the S&S plant to see some stuff, this is still up in the air as of now however)
[Wed, Aug 6] The drive between SLC and Denver is roughly 9hrs and we’re going to be traveling on I-80 through Montana...this is going to be our "relax day" so if there’s anything to see off I-80 between SLC and Denver, please let us know. We’ll be sightseeing downtown in Denver this night, so again, tell us of any cool places to check out! We’ll be sleeping this night in Denver.
Six Flags Elitch Gardens/Lakeside, Thurs, Aug 7; 10am - 6pm (SFEG) & 6pm - 10pm (Lakeside) (We have passes to SFEG)
Worlds of Fun/ Six Flags St. Louis, Fri, Aug 8; 12pm - 3pm (WoF) & 7pm - 9pm (SFStL) (We have both been to SFStL before and just want a few rides on Boss, Freeze and Batman so we’ll have enough time. Keith hasn’t been to WoF before but with just a few coasters and noteworthy flat rides, 3hrs will be plenty. We have passes to both WoF and SFStL).
This basically ends the driving part of the tour, as after SFStL, we’re going back to Keith’s house in IL and relaxing on Saturday, then hitting SFGAm on Sunday before my plane leaves from Milwaukee.
Sorry for the extremely long post and all, but hopefully there are some of you guys out there that can help us along the way as we embark on this massive road trip! Total miles driving is about 5.,755 so this is far and away the most driving we’ve ever done on a trip. Wish us luck!
Email us at NitroJoeC@charter.net (Joe) or badnitrus@coasterbuzz.com (Keith) or just post to this thread if you have anything to contribute. Thanks a lot guys in advance!
Joe "I can’t even drive stick!" Campanella
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Top Thrill Dragster -- The most intense, unbelievable, and spectacular fifteen seconds on any coaster, anywhere, ever.
*** This post was edited by Legendary 7/13/2003 6:15:00 PM ***
A Six Flags season pass is proably a good thing to get.
If you have anyone in your car over 55 years old you can get into national parks for free (ask for the golden eagle pass its free)
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Summer 03-CP, HP, SFDL, SFNE, SFWOA, and SFGAm.
My only suggestions are as follows:
Friends of mine on a road trip were turned away for 2 days from Yellowstone in June (never got in...). Road access was limited and it is a VERY popular destination. Many of our National Parks highly limit the number of cars in. I'd definitely call them first and get the scoop on a guaranteed entrance.
Secondly, from Silverwood/Coeur D'Alene area you might do better to go to Seattle next on I-90. There's no "easy" way to Vancouver directly, it's all slow going (plus over 500 miles!). Then you can spike up to Vancouver easily from Seattle and back down. I used to do shows in Coeuer D'alene every summer and the Interstates are definitely a plus when available. (Beautiful area, though!) Plus it makes 2 shorter trips, albeit a bit of backtracking but through a great area.
Hope this helps!
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"You have to scale a lot of lift hills to coast easily..."
Jason
Your trip sounds awesome! Have a great time!
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Sue Barry
CoasterSue@aol.com
I live in Portland,so if you want to look me up,feel free to do so. I would love to show you my copy of the PNE Coaster plans for your coaster recreations.
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Meet me at the PNE in 2003. Happy 45th birthday,Coaster!
As mentioned in my post, we both have SF and Cedar Fair season passes already.
Jason,
Thanks for the heads up about Yellowstone! I never knew they would limit the amount of cars going in there. I will definitely call ahead to make sure we can get in, as I *really* would love to see this place. I haven't ever been to a National Park before.
Sue,
Thank you so much for telling me Oaks was closed...I would have been pissed arriving there and not knowing it was closed! Now we can get more sleep and maybe check out the Pacific Ocean (are there any natural parks worthy of a look over that way?). Ah well, two (forgettable) coasters I don't get to ride!
Ronald, yeah we'll most likely skip Oaks. I wanted to go because that is two coasters I haven't been on, and I am at 470 coasters right now, and this trip should put me over the top at 500! I'm just not sure which one it will be, but it will definitely be towards the end of the trip. Maybe SUF at SFGAm? That would be fitting. :)
I'll tell Keith about the plans, maybe we can meet up at Thrill-Ville or something.
Keep those suggestions coming, folks! Thanks to those who already helped out.
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Top Thrill Dragster -- The most intense, unbelievable, and spectacular fifteen seconds on any coaster, anywhere, ever.
That being said if I had to suggest one thing to see it would be the large geyser basin that includes Old Faithful and many other geysers, plus the historic Yellowstone Lodge.
mOOSH
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A random Mooshter's Dawntionary listing: Flabbergasted [adj.] Appalled over how much weight you've gained.
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Sue Barry
CoasterSue@aol.com
Mamoosh said:
I had to suggest one thing to see it would be the large geyser basin that includes Old Faithful and many other geezers, plus the hysterical Jellystone Lodge.Having never been to Jellystone myself....if you DO see Yogi, tell him to stay away from the pic-a-nic baskets, or he'll become *flabbergasted*...
Onto a (slightly) more serious note....is it worth it to spend the extra day to try and hit the Portland area? Oaks/Thrill-Ville certainly look intriguing to me...
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"SOME people have NO class!" - Mom from the Whizzer queue
Rob :)
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Join MY coaster club! - It's absolutely FREE!
In terms of advice, all I can suggest is that you've probably underestimated how long these drives can take. Make sure you're being careful around the major cities in terms of when you're trying to drive through them. I know Seattle can have bad traffic and I'm sure Denver and Kansas City have issues as well.
Good luck guys. Stock up on No-Doz and Red Bull at your first truck stop!
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Mike Miller - Amazed they aren't squeezing in the West Edmonton Mindbender and the California parks as well!
You've planned a trip with a rest day? Not on any I've gone on ;)
mOOSH
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A random Mooshter's Dawntionary listing: Flabbergasted [adj.] Appalled over how much weight you've gained.
Mamoosh said:
You've planned a trip with a rest day? Not on any I've gone on ;)
mOOSH
LOL, you got me there! The good news is, our 2004 trip has a rest day planned in...but we have to drive from Florida to Texas on that day too!
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Mike Miller - Con-Quest 2003 pictures now available at http://photos.yahoo.com/bassistist
mOOSH
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A random Mooshter's Dawntionary listing: Flabbergasted [adj.] Appalled over how much weight you've gained.
Day 1: Dania Beach/Miracle Strip
Day 2: Drive to Texas
Day 3: All the Texas parks
Day 4: Denver/Lagoon
Day 5: Silverwood/Seattle/Vancouver
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Mike Miller - It's do-able...if you have a transporter from Star Trek.
mOOSH
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A random Mooshter's Dawntionary listing: Flabbergasted [adj.] Appalled over how much weight you've gained.
Mamoosh said:
Considering you were able to get 2 hours of ERT from 10:30pm-midnight last Solace I don't doubt you could pull off your CAC04 trip ;-)mOOSH
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A random Mooshter's Dawntionary listing: Flabbergasted [adj.] Appalled over how much weight you've gained.
D@mmit I already explained myself on that one! They started ERT on Ghostrider at 10:05 and I finished up on Xcelerator at midnight! Not 2 hours of ERT but 1 hour, 55 minutes! ARGH!
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Mike Miller - Oh, and I can also bend the space-time continuum, which comes in handy at times.
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