This was originally posted on rec.roller-coaster and focuses only on the amusement parks. We rode every single permanent roller coaster in the region, which is worth exactly zero to most but something to us. If you have other questions, please email me at godsonsafari at gmail.com or comment and I’ll be happy to get at you.
7/23/16:
Atlantic Playland – Not a lot to say about this park. There was a haunted house which I skipped. People were only let in roughly every 30 minutes, and I missed a “tour” due to trying to find a ticket counter closer to the rides. There’s a couple kiddie rides racked and apparently just not to be used. There’s a water slide, some batting cages, bumper cars (possibly Duces?) and one of the weirder looking go kart tracks I’ve ever seen. Rockin’ Roller Coaster (A#767/M#469) was in the back. It’s a Schiff kiddie coaster that ran in Ontario somewhere long ago. We went around a few times and it was plenty.
I don’t have the time any more to do extensive trip reports because of work and play, so this will be pretty abbreviated (by my standards).
-Non-park stuff: Flew from Toronto because it was cheap: Air Canada Rouge did us fine. Drove in Italy after Venice. If you do any prep, you know they like traffic circles and speeding. Both are true. I put on my big boy pants and did it. Some people can’t because their minds aren’t wired that way and it sucks to be them. In spite of my thoughts that Italy would be a sinch for finding food for my wife, vegetarian food is often limited to the first plate, so you end up negotiating to get it served second. Whaddya gonna do? I guess you could eat McDonalds all the time, but nah. Continue reading →
This is the place holder page for links to each part of the trip report as I write it. There isn’t a hard and fast date as to when I’ll update them, just that I’m writing as fast as my fingers will let me hit the keys. I don’t even know how many parts there will be, so, uh there. Anyways:
Since there’s gonna be a lot of trip reports coming on this, I’ll create a special placeholder from whence I’ll link individual reports. I promise, it’ll make things easier.
I don’t generally do year in review stuff because it turns into bragging about doing things. I don’t do this about bragging. I’m not saying I’m not proud to have as much fun as I do, but this isn’t about me telling you that I’m better than you or anything like that. I do this for me, but I’ll share with you any and all knowledge I gain because maybe one day dear reader, you can make use of it. That’s all.
So here’s some stats before the links:
-This year we set foot in 19 US states and two territories.
-Including the usual time in the province of Ontario, we visited 5 foreign countries. 3 of those were countries we’d never been to before.
-We didn’t do that much flying – just 9 airports total and 3 airlines.
-We visited 28 theme and amusement parks. There’s a huge list of standalone amusements, mini golf, and so on to go with that.
-We visited 6 US National Park sites, 3 UNESCO Heritage Sites, and 4 national parks within other nations.
-We made stops in 8 zoos and 5 aquariums.
-I spent 59 nights in 38 different hotels this year, and my wife was along for all but two of those evenings. 32 of those hotels were new to me. 3 of hotels we stayed in have a Wikipedia page. This doesn’t include the 7 nights on the Jewel of the Seas we spent either. Throw in our time at the cottage, and we slept somewhere other than home for about 2 1/2 months of this year.
Rather than post links to every trip report I wrote this year (there were 49 of them!), here’s my favorite items from this year, in no particular order.
-While all-inclusive resorts aren’t our thing, there were a lot of activities in Quintana Roo, Mexico that we did enjoy. I did a special part of the trip report dedicated to those – Akumal, Coba, and Tulum.
–Houston! It is a huge and growing metropolis that I previously disliked vehemently because it was a huge spread out city demanding driving and time in traffic. Years later, I’m older and wiser and know that not every city is New York or Boston nor should they necessarily try to be that, and you know what? Taking Houston and the surrounding area on its own merits makes it into a really cool place to visit.
-San Antonio’s theme parks (Sea World and Six Flags) are plenty OK in their own right, but the truth is what really made our trip there was the stuff we did involved less queuing. Downtown and the Mission trail were definitely the highlight for me.
-Seeing my mom this May out in Western New York was great. It’s always awesome to see her. But getting her on a hot air balloon and making one of her dream life experiences come true, AND to do it somewhere as spectacular as Letchworth State Park AND during a hot air balloon festival? I kinda outdid myself there.
Want to know how crazy this year was? Here’s a video of my wife and I riding the Mongoose Monster Truck 15 minutes or so from us in Lansing, by the airport. We did this two months ago and I never got around to writing anything about it because, well, there were other things to do.
The 9 part trip report series for our visit to Utah and Southern California is all done. Click on the link below to reach the section you specifically want to read about.
Battle Creek is, by pretty much any definition, not a major city. Located on the I-94 corridor east of Kalamazoo, Battle Creek is defined by an industry; breakfast cereal. It isn’t a dead industry or one that has vacated town either. The factories are still out there pumping, and people still live around and in Battle Creek. But aside from that, what does Battle Creek have? Calling it a “minor league city” is being exceedingly kind, as there are no minor league teams present here now that the the independent basketball team, the Knights, have seemingly gone under. Cereal City USA, the theme park of cereal, went under years ago. So as one might anticipate under these conditions, association with the city of Battle Creek is not necessarily a mark of greatness.
I’ve been making it a point this year to do zoos. I’m sure I’ve previously mentioned that in the past, but there’s a lot of logical reasons to do so:
-There’s several within 4 hours of us
-We haven’t been to at least half of them
-They’re cheap compared to amusement parks or carnivals
This past weekend was all about zoos. It actually ended up being a collision of two entirely separate trips: One was a weekend in Columbus, the other a day trip to Fort Wayne. For a bunch of reasons that really don’t matter, we ended up making the decision about a week out to compress our time and do both simultaneously. In addition, we’d throw in some extra Columbus-y stuff to do and try to get some sleep in a comfy business hotel. And we succeeded wildly at all of that.
This is the place holder page for links to each part of the trip report as I write it. There isn’t a hard and fast date as to when I’ll update them, just that I’m writing as fast as my fingers will let me hit the keys. I don’t even know how many parts there will be, so, uh there. Anyways:
Here, on our last day in Rome, I had planned the night before a magical walk to an area we’d yet to explore of the city. I figured we could go to a cafe, get coffee, and enjoy life. In practice, I woke up 30 minutes before my wife, hustled her out of our comfortable, lovely bed in our luxurious hotel and into the shower, and our the door and straight into perhaps the most uninteresting section of Rome: the streets immediately north of Termini. The map I had did say they were pedestrian friendly. Our coffee and pastry was had at U. Giuliani Caffe, home to a 2 circle rating on Tripadvisor that is basically deserved.
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