weekday knott's trip : Theme Park Trip Reports

howdy.... the best part of today was that it was my first day of real rollercoasters since i started working with no limits in june... after tons of virtual rides from you guys and building my own , the real thing is like a dream come true..... today i went back to my hometown of buena park to visit Knott's....
now, having grown up(1975-1989) in buena park i visited knott's ALLL the time, but it was never this good... (even if i do miss the old ghost town and the old management...)
this time i went along with my freind iain,he's pretty nuts about rollercoasters too, but he's working on this film project so we got some great shots.. we were stoked when we got there and found out that we got a 15 dollar discount!!!!
anyways we got there and ghost rider is like RIGHT THERE in the parking lot, and when we walked underneath we noticed only one train...but it's teusday, and the weather forecast didn't look to good, so we figured we'd book it to ghost rider and even though the line wasn't too long it took awhile on account of only one train running... to top it off just before we were going to board they added the extra train.. COOL.. the transfer track is just before the lift and we were in back so we couldn't see it or take pictures or anything. so finaly we get in the back seat of the (newly added)train.
now ghost rider isn't new to me, but here in southern california we have only this ride as a good example of a world class woody, so i certainly don't take it for granted.. besides all i ever got as a kid was montezooma's revenge and the corkscrew... iain on the other hand had never been to knott's and swears that the texas cyclone is the best woody he'd been on..... needless to say it looks like they've maintained this ride well , i saw some new trackwork and it looked pretty fresh, and he was totaly blown away. sometimes the first ride of the day is the best. oh and the seat bar checkers have a soft and gentle touch, at least they did today no "stapling",i got my
air...[:D]
There was practicaly no wait for silver bullet..like one train max, THAT RIDE IS AWESOME... i dont get into steel rollercoasters untill i'm riding them, and this is awesome, great inversions, and contrary to my expectations it wasn't "just another version of batman"

well... xcellerator had the typical"short line, long wait' theme happening again, but it's still great. Ian was blown away again, gotta love that drop!!!!!!

i don't know if it's just me or the log ride seems sped up, in any case it's a ritual trip back to my youth, and the robot wolves were cool....

now the calico mine ride i know for sure went by quicker than it ever had... they let it coast right through the "scary" part, kinda cool.. its actually a rollercoaster , you know.. well kinda..

no boomerang for us .. i'm 6'1 and it HURTS... iain's about 6'4....

montezooma's revenge... wait time 0 minutes.... i rode this when it was brand new.. my dad made me... as far as i know it's the only ride in california where you can go upside down without over the shoulder harnesses...

a couple of rides again on ghost rider, one back seat and one in the middle car, we went back to silver bullet. it started to "rain" (it was sprinkling...) but we got a ride in... you know, raindrops do kinda sting, but who cares...
we rushed back to ghost rider because it's like only 4 o clock or so and i wanna ride it again before they decide to shut it down too... but we were too late..[:(!] the ride op's telling people that they have to dry off the tracks first, and i'm laughing, and she tells me that the real reason is that the rain hurts peoples faces and they're sick of their whining.., so we went to supreme scream..... it's open when it rains....(?) the supreme scream is very thrilling, but i liked the parachutes better.... even though they wern't as intense.
well the last ride of the day can also be the best... we beat it back to ghost rider ... we got there just in time for a break in the rain.. meanwhile the had parked the train they had added that morning.......YYYYYAAAAAYYY... those tracks were slippery from the rain still.. and since they were only running one train it didn't seem to slow down at the back turn... in any case it was an incredible ride , and my freind swears that he thought something had gone wrong because it was so out of control.. i tried to ride again by myself, because he was kinda freaked out, but it started pouring down rain and i kinda didn't blame them when they shut it down ... my freind had to practicaly drag me out of there because it was only like 5 oclock,and i wanted to stay to see if the rain let up, but he kept pointing out that it wouldn't,

it was one heck of a drive home, but... today,(untill 4 or so) EVERYTHING was running, and there were no lines whatsoever, we got a full saturday's worth of knott's in 6 and a half hours on teusday...to top it off they only had nice people working today,i've heard that that might be unusual, and even though the weather sent us home early knott's on a teusday was defineately worth it... no lines, courteous staff(NO STAPLING)

...however ... we did eat lunch at the auntie pizza woman place by ghost rider...they used to have a buffett in there, like speghetti and pizza and stuff, but now they don't have it and we got a pizza that was kinda lousy, well. actually really lousy. it was like a red baron pizza or the generic equivelent... it was only 8 bucks, but it still sucked compared to the old pizza..... the chicken's WAY better...j......