Monday, August 17th

[violakat03]

I knew my friend Josh from West Virginia was going to be at Kings Island from ERT to close. Josh and I have an interesting friendship - we met online years ago through our mutual love of Kings Island and have been trying to meet up at the park since at least 2005. Earlier this year, we FINALLY made it to the park on the same day together and met face to face for the first time! So this would be our second time getting together this year, out of his 8 or something trips so far. Pretty bad track record, isn't it?

Anyhow, I set my alarm early enough to get to ERT and repeatedly hit snooze. I think I finally rolled out of bed around noon, texted Josh to say I'd be there in a few hours, and set about rousing myself, showering, and getting ready to head out. I finally got to the park a smidge after 3 p.m. and Josh and I met at the front gate. I was craving Diamondback, so off we went. During our short 15 minute wait in the covered 'upper' queues only, we saw three different line jumpers busted by a very vigilant female security guard who was watching the line like a hawk. As she escorted one of the guests out through the single rider line, she got close enough that I could give her a high five. She seemed highly entertained by it. I give her major kudos for doing what so many have been asking for so long.

At Diamondback, we requested and were given row 16. Josh got his arm soaked, I elected to stay dry. After Diamondback I asked Josh what he wanted to do, since I'm at the park all the time. He said he'd been wanting a Drop Tower ride, so off we went. After a 2 cycle wait, we watched the parking lot most of our ride, pointing out our cars in the gold pass lot. The guy behind us balanced a penny on his knee as we dropped and caught it in his hand. I still do not understand how he managed this. I won't say why I believe this is next to impossible, but I think he did something other than just let it rest there and then catch it. But, he didn't lose it!

After Drop Tower, since we were back in that area, we decided to ride Flight Deck. Because, why not? After our first ride in front seat of the last car (best seat, IMO), there was no one waiting for our seat, so we stayed on for another cycle. We probably could have pulled off another one but decided to call it a day on Flight Deck. At this point, I knew dare-to-fly should be in or near the park. We'd made the arrangement the day before that if his phone died or he left it in the car, we'd meet at Diamondback. So Josh and I headed to Diamondback and made a quick scan of the area. No dare-to-fly. So, of course we jumped in line for another ride.

While we were in Rivertown, we opted for a 6-2 ride on Beast, and then another scan of the Diamondback area. At this point I started having a ridiculously strong craving for ice cream. Josh wanted to buy a Diamondback shirt so we headed into the gift shop and browsed for quite a while. I eyed a few items I wouldn't mind having, peeked at the $20 bill in my pocket and decided to hold off. While wandering the gift shop, got a call from dare-to-fly that he'd be at the park in about 5 minutes, so Josh wrapped up his purchases (literally .. he bought a shot glass in addition to a shirt), and we headed to the front gate. As I milled about waiting, Josh meandered off to another gift shop. I gave up after 10 minutes and broke my cardinal rule in Cedar Fair parks. I do not buy food or drink in the parks. Well, call me a hypocrite now, because I HAD to have ice cream. $3.59 later, I had a cone (well, bowl actually) of soft serve chocolate-vanilla twist ice cream that I was happily licking as I met back up with Josh, and then finally the lost Flyer, at the front gate.

I polished off my guilty pleasure ice cream as we headed for another ride on Drop Tower, where we waited one cycle and this time faced Son of Beast most of the ride. From there, we were going to wander about Coney as Racer had been mentioned (which perked a certain wood coaster fan's ears), but Josh looked at his watch to realize we only had 40 minutes left before the park closed! Hate those 8 pm closes after being used to 10 pm or later! After a quick debate (Diamondback? Beast? Racer?), Josh and I caved and went for a walk-on ride on red Racer, where we were all being fairly goofy. It made for a highly entertaining ride, more so than usual. We then headed for Rivertown, hoping for a last ride on Diamondback and Beast both.

While walking through Nick U, I heard someone say my name, and Kat is not a very common name, so I spun around to find ... Beast Man! Our happy congretation grew one more as we walked to Diamondback. There, we faced a connundrum. With 20 minutes left, we knew there was only time for one more ride. Josh and I were both craving Diamondback, the other two were craving Beast. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted another Beast ride. So I sadly abandoned Josh (with the promise of meeting up at our splitting point) and the three of us headed out to Beast. We didn't get the last train of the night, but got fairly close to it. After our not-quite-night ride (pout), we met back up with Josh and wandered out of the park for the end of quite a nice, albeit short, day. We didn't wait in line longer than 15 minutes for anything, which was a nice change from the packed park of the past few weeks.

In less than 5 hours, my ride count:

Diamondback: 2

Drop Tower: 2

Flight Deck: 2

Beast: 2

Red Racer: 1

Plus plenty of 'hang out' time!

[Hoeter]

Think I may have seen you in line for Diamondback. Did you have a black Saturn ball cap on? I was in the SRL about 5:30 or so....

[violakat03]

Think I may have seen you in line for Diamondback. Did you have a black Saturn ball cap on? I was in the SRL about 5:30 or so....

It was a tan Saturn hat, actually. But yeah, I was in line for Diamondback around that time. I was wearing a tie-dye Legend shirt from Holiday World. Josh had on a red Kings Island shirt.

[Hoeter]

I must be color blind, but I did see you. I should have said something.