We drove the length of the park and stopped at various overlooks with views of the river and various waterfalls but the majority of the sites were located south, including the three large waterfalls (creatively named Upper, Middle, and Lower falls), museum, and visitors center. Since all three waterfalls are relatively close together, a short easy walk along the trail allowed us to view all three while Opie enjoyed the sniffing/peeing opportunities.

While crowds tend to flock to the big three waterfalls, I enjoyed the Wolf Creek cascading waterfalls, located further north. The Genesse River falls 225 feet through this area over wide ravines in 4 different sections. We could only see parts of the cascades on the Gorge trail and the Wolf Creek overlook but I loved the look of the cascades as it flowed over the rocks. It reminded me of a giant open waterslide, except for the imminent death waiting at the bottom of the falls. We enjoyed Letchworth State Park but we covered all the interesting areas within 2 days of driving and hiking; six days is overkill.

After all this nature, it was time to assuage our adrenaline addiction with a trip back to the rollercoaster mecca, Cedar Point Park in Sandusky OH. Boasting 17 roller coasters, Cedar Point has six coasters higher than 200 ft, and is the only amusement park with a coaster in each height category: kiddie, hyper (200ft), giga (300ft), and strata (400ft). Since we love coasters, we try to visit Cedar Point every 3-4 years. This year, we spent two full days at the park (three nights at the campground). That allowed us to try all the coasters we wanted and to repeat favorites. Since we find the experience often differs in the front and back seats, we tried almost all rides twice to see which experience was better. More importantly, staying at Cedar Point’s campground got us into the park an hour early each day so we could ride the newest coaster with only a half-hour wait instead of the 3-4 hour wait it turned into when the main gates opened.

*Warning, the rest of this blog is geared towards coaster-fiends. If this isn’t your thing, you may find it boring.

In the last 7-8 years, a new type of coaster has been making the rounds. Called a steel/wood hybrid coaster, the ride often marries an old wooden coaster track with a new type of steel track (ibox). This allows a super-smooth steel ride but still has a wooden coaster identity due to the structure. Since it is a steel coaster, all kinds of great inversions, corkscrews, and barrel rolls can be done which feels freaky on a wooden coaster frame. We’ve ridden several hybrid coasters in the last couple years and they have become our new favorite coaster.

For 2018, Cedar Point opened a new steel hybrid called Steel Vengeance. Built on the old Mean Streak wooden coaster frame, Steel Vengeance broke 10 world records when it opened, including tallest (205ft), fastest (74mph), steepest (90 degrees), and longest drop (200ft) hybrid coaster. At 2min and 30sec (5740ft), it’s also the longest hybrid coaster and it really did feel like it went on for a long time! We enjoyed the front seat since it gives great views of the tracks, twists, and turns but the back seats are the best on this one with the super-fast speed and it never stops moving. Steel Vengeance was truly an awesome ride.

We had to also hit Millenium Force, a traditional favorite and the world’s first gigacoaster (300ft). On this ride, the back is ok but feels surprisingly tame after all these years. The front seats are the best for this ride. We feel faster in the front and both of us also experienced narrowing of vision during the first banked turn, apparently common due to the sustained g forces at the beginning of the ride (but that just made the whole experience even cooler!). Mike even did a new trick of catching a gnat in his teeth on this ride!

We were disappointed with Rougarou, the floorless coaster. We rode it when it first came out a few years ago but it’s become bumpy and with the restraints close to the head, we ended up with headaches from banging our heads during the turns and twists. Even though it’s only a few years old, it feels like an old coaster. We were also really sad that Magnum has become a “no go” for us moving forward. Magnum, build in ’89, was the first hypercoaster (200 ft) and we’ve enjoyed it every time we visit. Due to its age, Magnum is now WAY too rough and herky-jerky. In the front car, we often felt like the back was pushing us around and the car felt very jumpy on the track. We both ended up with headaches and the ride only has lap bars!

Top Thrill Dragster, built in 2003, was the tallest coaster at the time and is currently only one of two strata coasters (400 ft). The train is hydraulically launched and moves from 0-120 in 3.8 seconds to climb straight up to 420ft. It’s a great thrill coaster and we think the beginning is the best part of the ride. Both the back and front are great seats for this ride but after 15 years, the track is more bumpy and rough than the last time we rode it.

Maverick is steel coaster that uses linear induction to send the train over the top and halfway through the track. It makes for a smooth quick ride. We did both the front and back seats. The back seats feel faster but we enjoyed the front seats more due to the visibility of the twists and turns.

Valravn is currently the tallest, fastest, longest dive coaster in the world. Dive coasters contain only three rows of seats but 10 seats per row. It also stops the train at the bend of the first 90 degree hill which allows the passengers to look straight down before the train releases for the rest of the ride. Valravn pauses for 4 seconds at the bend of the first hill and then descends 214 ft. The front row gives a perfect view of staring straight down while paused but we found the back a lot more fun since the first drop feels weightless. Overall a really good ride with greed speed and turns.

Now the best for last, Gatekeeper. Gatekeeper, built in 2013, is a wing coaster where pairs of passengers sit on either side of the track with nothing above or below the passenger. Because there is nothing below or above, it feels almost like free-flying. Like suspended coasters, the only seats worth doing are the front seats. Every other seat is obscured by the seat in front but the front gives complete visibility and the sense of nothing around. I love coasters, I love the thrill and stomach-drops, I love the height, inversions, corkscrews, banked turns, bunny hills and completely immerse myself in the experience. Gatekeeper was the only coaster at Cedar Point where I loved the ride but also felt actual fear. I rode in the seat furthest away from the track and therefore felt like there was nothing around me at all. During the loops, spins, and dives, the seat swings away from the track and I feel like I was going to get flung out into space. Mike started laughing during the ride since my usual screams of glee had turned into screams of fear during some of the twists and turns. After the ride finished, Mike couldn’t stop laughing at how hard I screamed during the ride. With the exception of Tatsu in Magic Mountain, this is the only coaster that gave me fear-sweats. I’m so ready to do it again!

And that is how we ended our East Coast tour for 2018. After Cedar Point, we went south to Red Bay to finish off any last warranty work before heading back to the DC area to visit family and friends for Thanksgiving.

With such a long visit with East Coast family near the end of the year, we originally thought of either spending the winter in FL or meandering across the south and skipping the Quartzsite AZ gathering in January since that would require a lot of driving in a short amount of time.

We didn’t want to spend winter in FL for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a huge snowbird destination which makes it difficult to find reasonably priced RV parks in the winter. Second, there are a lot of things to do (in our opinion) on the west coast and we didn’t want to wait until March/April before heading west. Surprisingly much of the South does get cold during the winter, so meandering through the southern states wouldn’t mesh well with our distaste for colder weather.

Mike practicing his drone piloting skills.

After talking about it, we decided to just push hard to get over to AZ in two weeks. Usually we drive no more than 250 miles, then stay in one place for a week or longer. For our drive to AZ, we threw all that completely out the window. We decided to break the trip into two parts: 3 days of driving from southern FL to Dallas TX (1,200 miles), take a week off, then 3 days of driving from Dallas to Tucson AZ (1,000 miles). Since we hadn’t done this kind of extreme driving in Rover before, we did a practice run from GA to FL to make sure we could handle it. At 420 miles and 7.5 hours of driving, we knew if we couldn’t manage it, we would have to go to Plan B (after we made up a plan B) to get to AZ. Our practice drive went quite smoothly and we discovered a few helpful tips. Swapping drivers every two hours is perfect for us. It’s long enough to get pretty far but not overload on driving while the passenger has time to relax (or nap in my case). While driving the interstate is boring, it’s easy and not as stressful or tiring as driving US highways. Lastly, Opie really needs Dramamine to help him relax/sleep through the drives without getting motion sick.

Our first overnight stay at a Walmart.

We did have our first ever overnight Walmart camping during the first leg of our journey. We checked-in with the store manager, found the right area to park in, confirmed we could open our bedroom slide, did our grocery shopping, and headed out the next morning. It’s definitely not like staying at a campground, but it’s only one night, close to the interstate, and free. If we needed a place to park for one night, we’d do it again. OvernightRVparking.com is a great resource to help find free overnight parking spots. It is a paid site, but worth it if you need to find free places to park. Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Cabela, and Camping World are some of the places that may let you dry camp for free in their parking lots but not all will allow it so calling in advance or using the site to double-check is always a good idea.

Last year at this time, we were further south in TX (Austin, Big Bend and Fort Davis) and were pleasantly surprised by the TX drivers on the roads… safe and courteous. When we made it to Dallas, we expected the same type of drivers, but we were sadly sadly mistaken. Many will cut you off, randomly break traffic rules: blow through a VERY red light to get in front of the cars, follow ambulances on the emergency lanes/shoulders, and forget they have turn signals. I think we both decided to keep our driving in Dallas to a minimum to keep our sanity (and our car dent-free).

Six Flags Over Texas, our last roller coasters for a while.

While in Dallas, we hit our last Six Flags for the year. That makes a total of eight different Six Flags parks on one season Pass! A great way to check out roller coasters but I think we’re definitely coaster’d out now. If we happen to be near an awesome coaster during our travels in 2016, we might try it, but otherwise 2016 will be coaster-free.

One of the many flooded campsites at Loyd Park.

Most of our Dallas stay was walking through our (mostly) flooded campground, playing with Mike’s new drone, and girding our loins for the next leg of our journey west. Due to heavy rains this fall, much of the county park campground was underwater so the trails and lake beach were inaccessible. We did make it out to see the new Star Wars movie, having remained spoiler-free since it opened the week before.

above: one of our first drone videos, checking out our flooded campground

Thank goodness Mike plans obsessively. Watching the weather, he noticed that Winter Storm Goliath was going to hit Odessa, TX on Sunday, at the same time we were driving there for our next overnight stop. If we instead hunkered down in Dallas for a couple extra days, we would get a LOT of rain (in a flooded campground, that could be bad news) from the storm. If we left Dallas a day early, we could try to drive past Odessa and wait out the storm further west (with less snow) but we might hit a lot of rain and wind during the drive. We chose the latter option, left Dallas a day early and drove 510 miles (our longest drive ever in Rover) to Van Horn, TX.

Glad we weren’t driving today!

By the time we arrived the temperature had dropped from 70 to 35 degrees. Freezing rain and snow started, wind increased, and the campground power went out. We pulled in our big slide to conserve heat, turned off all extraneous circuits, turned on the propane heat and hunkered in the covers for the 20-degree night. Since the next day’s forecast called for snow, we stayed at the campground to wait it out. The campground did recover electricity that morning, and since the wind died down we were able to open the living room slide and nest comfortably watching it snow lightly for most of the day. We checked the news and saw that a tornado had touched down in Dallas about 12 miles away from the campground we were at, and another one completely destroyed a campground on the north side of Dallas. Living in an RV, we really really don’t like tornadoes! Odessa had gotten a lot of snow, so given the options, we made the best choice to weather the storm.

The next morning after the storm had passed we headed out of Van Horn TX, and drove an easy 230 miles to Deming NM, through some beautiful snowy mountain scenery. Finally, the next day we drove our final 230 miles and made it to one of our favorite campgrounds, Catalina State Park in Tucson AZ, where I am now sitting outside in a t-shirt soaking up the sun and thankful that the past few days are now simply memories.

Our awesome view for the next 9 days at Catalina State Park

Leaving DC was both easy and hard: easy since we were both excited to be back on the road and hard to leave family behind again. Hopefully they will come visit us out west next year as we travel around.

Florida (by way of a few stops) was our next big destination. We wanted to visit Mike’s Mom before heading out west. Since we were driving through North Carolina anyway, we took a couple of side trips to visit some old college friends (one of Mike’s and one of mine). I probably sound a bit like a broken record, but it’s really nice hooking up with old friends again. It’s great to remember why you were friends in the first place, especially when you haven’t seen them in so long.

Waiting for Six Flags Over Georgia to open.

From NC, we took a slight side trip over to Atlanta GA to hit (yet) another Six Flags. This one was only open during the weekend which made for a slightly crowded park. We tend to scope out what rides we are interested in before heading to the park, so we already knew where to go. Since we’re coaster freaks, we only hit the those rides and then we were done within a few hours.

Since we had a fun day out, it was only fair to give Opie a fun day out at a nearby dog park.

From GA, we headed to Campground Mom in FL for nine days. As much as our friends and family enjoy our visits, I really feel like college kids every time we see someone. We get lots of great food, do our laundry in their HUGE machines (compared to ours), eat up all their bandwidth, and in the case of Campground Mom, we just kind of took over her whole house. When we’re on the road, deliveries are sometimes hard to time correctly so we’ll often send packages to a friend/family’s home in advance. By the time we get there, they’ll often have a corner of their house cordoned off with all our packages. So poor Mom not only had to deal with a humongous RV in her driveway, but lots of packages to keep track of before we even got there!

Yummy birthday cake… thanks Mom!

We really did get very spoiled there. Lots of fantastic meals (our pants got even tighter by the end of our stay), a warm pool, and so much space to spread out. Since it was Mike’s birthday, Mom of course had a big chocolate cake waiting for us. Yum! Mike also received his early Christmas present we had shipped to Mom’s house: a new DJI Phantom drone, and he had lots of room to play with it here.

Now how does this drone thingy work…?

I got to use the dining area to do some serious sewing, and Opie jumped in the pool every chance he got! I think the only one who didn’t enjoy the time was Mom’s cat since Opie chased him anytime Opie saw him. The poor cat spent most of the time in Mom’s bedroom.

Opie went for a swim every chance he got.

With all our family visits completed, it was time to start our race across the South.

But first, we discovered a problem with Rover at our last campground: two broken nylon glides that support our main living room slide. We did some research and figured out that while a DIY repair would be possible, we didn’t really have the right equipment to do it (we’d need a way to jack the entire slide up an inch so we could remove the broken glides and replace them). We found a Tiffin repair shop about 90 minutes from our Massachusetts campground who could squeeze us into their schedule, so we headed there first, camped overnight in their parking lot, got our repairs and our 15,000 mile oil change taken care of, and headed to our campground.

Parking overnight for some minor repairs.

Our timing worked out so that we were in the area for the last few days of The Big E, also known as the Eastern States Exhibition. It’s the fifth largest fair in the nation, and includes representation from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. We met up with our friends Gray and Cindy who live in Rhode Island, and spent the day literally eating our way across the fair! Besides the main outdoor part of the fair, with games, rides, and food, each state has its own big building with displays, vendors, and food from that state. The maple cotton candy was Kathie’s favorite treat of the day, but there were so many good foods and snacks. Since it was a pretty chilly day, I sipped on some hot spiced cider as we walked around and explored.

Arrival at The Big E.

Since the fair has a heavy agricultural focus, we also saw (and smelled) plenty of farm animals throughout the day. We watched an expert sheep shearing demonstration which was pretty fascinating, and included a lot of history about sheep and wool. One of the more odd displays we saw was a 600-pound sculpture made of butter. It included informative facts like “Butter contains a lot of healthy saturated fats” and the all-important “Butter is delicious!”

Piggie pile!

Over the weekend we went to Six Flags New England and had a great time as usual! The park wasn’t too crowded so we made it onto all the rides we’d hoped to, and were happy to check off another Six Flags from our list. Since we’re mainly interested in the coasters, not the shows or kiddie rides, we usually make it in and out of the parks in half a day, unless there are big crowds and long lines.

Bizarro at Six Flags New England.

Believe it or not, our next stop was… wait for it… yet another Six Flags! Driving south on I-95, Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey was just a half hour off the interstate, so of course we had to fit it into our plans. We visited it last year shortly after hitting the road in Rover and really enjoyed it, so with our new season passes another visit (for free this time) was a no-brainer. We camped for the weekend at Turkey Swamp Park, a great, heavily wooded county park not too far from Six Flags.

Rover tucked into a heavily wooded site at Turkey Swamp Park.

Since it was Columbus Day weekend, the campground was full with local campers out for the weekend, and Six Flags was much more crowded as well. On Saturday we met up with our friend Mark and his family and had a great day riding rides, eating, and catching up. Since the lines were pretty long, we opted to come back Sunday as well (have I mentioned how great season passes are?) to catch the rides we didn’t make it onto the first day.

El Toro, Kingda Ka, and Zumanjaro.

While we were in the area we also took a day to drive into Philadelphia to wander around and do some more sight-seeing. We visited the Liberty Bell and learned all about the symbolic nature of its history. For lunch we had to go back to the Reading Terminal Market, an amazing indoor market with every kind of food you can think of.

The Liberty Bell.

So many choices at Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market.

We also found a huge fenced dog park about half an hour from our campground. Since we haven’t been hiking recently, Opie hasn’t been getting much exercise, or much interaction with other dogs. We took him to the dog park twice and he loved every minute of it. It’s great to see him running, playing, and swimming until he’s about to drop.

Opie says “can we stay here all day?”

Next stop: an extended stay in Northern Virginia, to visit and catch up with family and friends who we haven’t seen in over a year. We can’t wait!

Chicago, from the top of Willis Tower.

To start out our adrenaline packed trip, we met our friend at Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) to check out the Skydeck, located on the 103rd floor of the building. The Skydeck also has the Skyledge, a glass box that extends 4.3 feet out from the side of the building, 1,353 feet off the ground! The view was a bit hazy but still breathtaking. We took turns stepping into “the box” and enjoying the views, both around and below.

Kathie in the Skybox

It’s a loooong way down!

Since we were still in busy season for amusement parks, the lines at Six Flags were longer than we prefer but we were still able to ride some pretty amazing coasters. I think the three of us agreed Goliath by far surpassed the other coasters at the park. Goliath, built in 2014, currently holds 3 world records for wooden roller coasters: longest drop (180 feet), steepest drop (85 degrees), and fastest (72 MPH). This is the first wooden coaster we’ve ridden that has inversions and overbanked turns making for amazing thrills. I’m pretty sure my eyes were the size of saucers, and my grin extended from ear to ear after leaving the ride.

Goliath, probably the most impressive wooden coaster we’ve ridden.

I was also very impressed by X-Flight, a steel wing coaster, where the seats are located next to the track. This was our first wing coaster experience, and it is a bit different. Dive drops and rolls feel faster, and the lack of a track below or above you adds to the freaky sensation of being imminently flung off.

The X-Flight wing coaster was a little scarier than most.

We also hit Batman, a suspended coaster (always wait for the front seat for suspended coasters, it’s the only way to do it right), Raging Bull, a nice steel coaster, and Giant Drop a 227ft drop tower.

Less than two weeks later we arrived at Cedar Point (known as the roller coaster capital) in Sandusky Ohio, right on the shore of Lake Erie. This has been one of the anchors of our trip planning… when we turned east from Seattle, this was always our ultimate destination. We planned it far enough in advance that our friend Gray was able to drive out from Rhode Island to join us. If you are a roller coaster enthusiast, CP should definitely go on your list.

Cedar Point Park, on Lake Erie

The best part is that CP has a pretty nice campground on-site. Although it was pricey, it meant we could walk from the rides back to Rover during the day to take Opie out for a walk, so we wouldn’t feel rushed like we do at other amusement parks. It also meant we got one hour early entry to the park, which turned out to be a huge benefit!

It’s a short walk from the campground to the rear entrance to Cedar Point.

With early entry to the park, we were able to ride the most popular rides (which usually have the longest lines) with almost no wait at all. In just that first hour before “the masses” entered, we got five rides in! That’s more than we got our entire first day at Magic Mountain in California. Our first was Top Thrill Dragster, a hydraulically launched coaster that goes from zero to 120 MPH in 3.8 seconds. When you sit in the front, you can literally feel your cheeks flapping. After getting up to speed, your momentum carries you up the 420 foot hill and back down the other side. It’s over quickly but the experience is pretty amazing.

Mike and Gray ready for another go at Top Thrill Dragster

Here a short video to get a feel for the launch speed of Top Thrill Dragster:

Other highlights of the day were Millennium Force, Magnum XL-200, Maverick, Raptor, and Rougarou. Millennium Force has been our favorite coaster since it opened in 2000. It’s also been voted best coaster in the world almost every year since it opened (including winning again in 2015), an impressive feat for a now 14-year old coaster! The 310 foot first hill can be seen at the left side of the photo below.

Looking over the park from the aerial tram.

We try to hit Cedar Point Park every 3-5 years due to all the awesomeness, but this was one of the few times we hit the park at low season. Not only did we get to enter an hour earlier than the general public, but the lines in general were short enough that we could ride everything we wanted multiple times and finish by 6pm. It was a gooooood day.

The Napa Expo RV Park. A bit basic, but a nice improvement over San Francisco.

Our first stop was Six Flags Discovery Kingdom for our roller coaster fix. This is a much smaller park then the ones we’ve been to and only had a handful of coasters. Since we were there on a Friday in the “off” season, the park was very quiet. There were students here on a school field trip but even they didn’t add much to the crowds. We would wait maybe 5-10 minutes and that was for the front seat of the coasters.

They only had five open coasters at the park, we opted out of Boomerang but rode the other four. Roar is the classic wooden coaster and to our delight, we really enjoyed riding it. We’re never sure what to expect with wooden coasters, but this one had the classic bumps, shakes, drops, and turns without rattling all the teeth in our heads. Kong, their suspended coaster was quite a disappointment. It’s old and doesn’t have the thrill of most suspended coasters. The turns and inversions are way too tight, it’s bumpy, and you spend a lot of effort trying to keep your head from banging around. Superman was a lot of fun and has an interesting start where the ride needs to build momentum, so it launches you forward, backward, then forward again. Medusa is their floorless hypercoaster which we always enjoy.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

The park used to be Marine World before it was bought by Six Flags, so it still has a very strong animal theme. We saw dolphins, sea lions, giraffes, elephants, a tiger show, and other animals. Unlike the San Diego Safari Park though, the small quarters for the animals here make us a bit sad.

Due to the small crowds, we were finished in just three hours and headed home pleased with our visit and our season passes. We won’t be hitting another Six Flags until Chicago so this will have to hold us until then.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

We thought about checking out some Napa wineries because hey, Napa! However we found that most wineries now charge around $20 for tastings which are not included in most tours. While Mike and I enjoy drinking wine, our palates are not refined enough to justify expensive wines and we didn’t want to spend a lot on wine tastings if we’re just as happy with our cheaper box wines. Instead we took Max and Opie to Alston Dog Park which contains a nice dog park and some good hiking trails for Opie to explore. We also took Opie to Westwood Hills Park, a small city park with some great views of Napa and meandered through the trails there.

The top of the trail at Westwood Hills Park

My college friend’s children really wanted to see our RV, so they drove up to visit us while we were in Napa. We met them at the Oxbow market where the farmers market had just opened for the season. We bought some fruits and our first RV plant, Thai basil. It has a little while to grow before we can harvest the leaves but it’s nice to have a plant in Rover. If it works out, I may end up getting even more herbs to grow. Oxbow Market is fun to walk through but it has a lot of (what I label) frou-frou foods: all flavors of bitters, italian pastries, chocolate wine sauces, expensive cupcakes and coffees, etc. I did really like the prawn taco for lunch but $9 for one small taco (no sides) is a bit pricey. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Oxbow Market, but it’s no Reading Terminal Market.

Rover’s newest crew member: Thai basil.

After Oxbow, we hung out by Rover while the kids had a blast with the dogs. Max got a nice brushing while Opie got to play ball and chase a very energetic boy around. A fun time was had by all AND we had a tired Opie by the end of the day which is a bonus.

Max just chillin’.

Long Beach, CA

We split our Los Angeles stay into two parts: first, we stayed near the southern end of L.A. to visit an old friend of mine in Long Beach. We still think one of the best parts of full-time RVing is getting to visit friends and family who have scattered to the four corners of the U.S! We spent two great days together, touring the Long Beach area and its beaches, eating some good food, and reminiscing over a fun game of Ticket To Ride.

And the winner is… Kathie, by one point!

The weather was perfect (maybe even a little too hot), and we were able to take both Max and Opie to a huge fenced-in dog park along the beach so they could stretch their legs and get wet. Since RV Park prices in L.A. are quite high, we only stayed a few days and then moved an hour north for our visit to Six Flags Magic Mountain. Driving Rover through L.A. was one of the more stressful drives we’ve made, with major traffic on I-5 even though it was 11am on a Tuesday. Add in the terrible condition of the road for an extremely bumpy ride, and we were quite happy when we reached Valencia!

We had a fantastic time at Magic Mountain!

Before we hit Six Flags (it’s only open on weekends during the winter) we headed to Newbury Park to visit another old friend, this time one of Kathie’s. After spending the day catching up, we invited her to Six Flags with us to continue the catch-up, this time with some screams mixed in! Back in Texas in November we purchased Six Flags Season Passes which get us into all Six Flags parks for free, including parking, all year long. We’ve actually modeled much of our 2015 travel plan to pass near as many of those parks as possible (it looks like we’ll only miss two parks).

The Green Lantern, an unusual coaster with rotating seats.

Since admission and parking is free for us, and the park is only open on weekends right now, we planned to go both Saturday and Sunday. It’s a good thing we did! The park was jam packed and the lines for rides were much longer than we’re used to. Even after attending both days there were still a couple rides we missed out on… maybe next year! Even with the crowds we had a great time, and rode some amazing rides. My favorites were Apocalypse, Full Throttle, and Goliath. Kathie’s partial to X2 instead of Apocalypse. Tatsu, a “flying coaster” where you’re suspended face down so that it feels like you’re flying like Superman, was an insane experience, and we both agree it’s by far the most terrifying ride we’ve ever been on!

Castaic Lake State Recreation Area

To round out our stay in Valencia, we took Opie to the nearby Castaic Lake State Recreation Area to do some hiking. The area is pretty, but with California’s drought in its fourth year, the lake was very low on water. The hiking trail turned out to be a bulldozed dirt path through some green fields. It was a steep path which was tiring in the hot sun, but felt very artificial and short. The beach along the lake was closed with a big fence and lots of “beach closed—no trespassing” signs, so Opie couldn’t get his feet wet either. We consider this one a bust, but we’ve had so many great hiking experiences so far, it’s bound to happen occasionally.

With our third Six Flags park checked off the list (we visited Great Adventure in New Jersey a few months before buying our season passes), it’s time to continue north to San Luis Obispo!

We were surprised to find that Thanksgiving week is a big camping week, at least here in Texas. Our Houston stay was cut down to just a day due to unavailability of RV park sites after Monday, and none of the RV parks in Austin had availability. Fortunately, for our day in Houston we got to visit with an old friend from Virginia who had moved to Houston a couple years back. As for Austin, we found a campground about 30 minutes south in San Marcos that had one campsite left, so we booked it for the week, figuring we’d move closer to Austin after the holiday.

During our day in Houston, our elder dog Max took unexpectedly ill. He was very lethargic and wouldn’t get up, and more worrying, he refused to eat or drink for probably the first time in his 12+ years of life. Max has always been an extraordinarily healthy dog. After an after-hours trip to the emergency vet in Houston, exams, blood tests, and the following day a trip to an animal hospital in Austin (since we had to leave the full RV Park in Houston), his x-ray and ultrasound showed a lot of fluid both in and around his lungs: Max had pneumonia.

Max the dog, on the road to recovery!

Due to his deteriorating state and his not eating or drinking, we had to leave him overnight and the next day to spend the night on an I.V. along with some antibiotics. We were able to take him home the next evening, but back the following day for more treatments. Fortunately, the antibiotics did their job and within about 10 days Max was 90% back to his old self (and still improving), and a follow-up x-ray came back clean. As an aside, we can’t say enough good things about South Park Animal Hospital in Austin—they were fantastic!

During all this, Thanksgiving came and went. Thanksgiving (and Christmas) have always been Kathie’s day to cook for the whole extended family (with lots of help, of course), so this year was quite a change for us, being away from family, and having a tiny kitchen. Instead, we found a nice restaurant in San Marcos (Palmer’s) that offered a complete Thanksgiving buffet dinner all afternoon. So, we had our turkey, ham, stuffing, mashed potatoes, bread, cranberry sauce, and more, but without all the work, and no clean-up! Of course it wasn’t quite as good as home-cooked, but we weren’t complaining!

It may not be home made Thanksgiving dinner, but it was tasty, and nothing to clean up!

Once Max started improving, we looked into campgrounds closer to Austin, but we found that we rather liked where we were in San Marcos at Pecan Park Riverside RV. It was quiet, spacious, very inexpensive… and we were already there. There’s something to be said for inertia! Instead of packing up and driving someplace new, we decided to stay put for a while. We were in a brand new section of the RV Park, so once the Thanksgiving campers cleared out, we had the place almost to ourselves.

The view out our living room window… at an almost empty RV park.

Since we’re traveling all over the country and want to ride as many roller coasters as is feasible, last month we bought 2015 Six Flags Gold Season Passes when they were on sale. For less than the price of two admission tickets, a gold season pass gets us into all Six Flags parks for free for the remainder of 2014 and all of 2015, and gets us free parking at all parks. Parking alone costs about $20 at each parks, this is a deal where we’ll save a lot of money and have a lot of fun!

About an hour south of San Marcos is San Antonio, home to Fiesta Texas, one of the 12 Six Flags amusement parks in the U.S. Since it’s winter now, the park is only open on weekends, from 4pm to 9pm, so we took a drive there one Saturday after we were comfortable leaving Max alone for a few hours. We arrived when the park opened, and it was pretty deserted! By the time we left at 7pm though, it was more crowded and full of activity. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality and fun-factor of the coasters we rode. The three that stuck with us, and which we look forward to riding again some day are Iron Rattler, Goliath, and Boomerang. By late winter we should be in southern California, and we’ll be sure to visit Magic Mountain (especially since it’s free free free with our passes!).

Fiesta Texas… we didn’t have the highest expectations, but came away pleasantly surprised.

Also once Thanksgiving was over, we decided that even though we no longer live in a big house, we should still have a Christmas tree. Since the weather here has been in the 60s and 70s, I think the tree is even more important as a reminder us that it’s actually winter! We went shopping and chose the second-smallest artificial tree we found (another first for us—all our trees before have been real ones that need water and smell like pine), one string of lights, and one pack of miniature ornaments. The tree fits perfectly on Rover’s dashboard and is like a little reminder of home.

It may not be big, but it does the job!

We used the rest of our time in San Marcos to catch up on our hobbies (sewing and baking for Kathie, programming for Mike), see a couple movies (Interstellar and Big Hero 6), get some minor work done on Rover, get Red waxed, replenish our supplies at Costco and the supermarket, give Max a bath, and generally relax. We never actually made it into Austin (except to the animal hospital), instead opting to take it easy. We’ll keep Austin on our list for next year!

First Kathie made coffee cake, then cinnamon rolls!

Since our drive would take us through Jacksonville, we decided to stop there for a couple of days to take Opie and Max back to their favorite dog park. Just like before, they had a great time. Opie played fetch for three hours straight, with just a couple of forced breaks by us to go for walks through the woods. Max doesn’t have energy to play any more, but he still loves being in the water, so he waded into the lake quite a few times to stay cool and drink the water. We’ll definitely come back to visit any time we’re in the Jacksonville area.

Opie and Max enjoying the lake at Dog Wood Park.

In Orlando, we stayed at another beautiful park. This one, Bill Frederick Park at Turkey Lake, was run by the City of Orlando. Huge campsites, a very short walk to the lake (where Opie and Max dipped in the water of course), and plenty of places to walk the dogs made this another great place for us. We really like the state/county/city park campgrounds that we’ve stayed at!

Lots of shade trees at Bill Frederick Park in Orlando.

Since we’re Florida residents now, we were able to take advantage of the resident discount for Universal, and got a good deal on our two-park two-day tickets. We spent the first day at Islands of Adventure, riding some old favorites like the Dueling Dragons (now integrated into the Harry Potter world) and Hulk, as well as checking out all the new things at the Harry Potter section. The artistry and attention to detail Universal put into the Harry Potter attractions is very impressive and immersive. Well done indeed! Best of all, the park wasn’t crowded at all, so even the newest attractions had only a 10-minute wait. The weather looked gloomy all day, but fortunately the heavy rain held off until we headed inside for lunch—great timing! Perhaps it’s a sign of getting older, but the “motion simulator” rides seem to affect us more and more. Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey in particular made us a little queasy and knocked Kathie out of the running for any more dizzying rides that day.

Welcome to Hogsmeade.

For our second day we spent most of our time at Universal Studios, again checking out old favorites and the new Harry Potter attractions. Both Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios have new Harry Potter sections, so you need to visit both parks to see it all (very clever of them!). In fact, the Hogwarts Express train will take you from the Harry Potter section in one park to the Harry Potter section in the other park, so to really see it all you need a “park to park” pass that lets you travel between parks on the same day. They really know how to get you to upgrade your ticket! We took the train to Islands Of Adventure for a short time to revisit a couple of rides that Kathie missed out on the previous day.

Both days were lots of fun, and a nice change from our usual destinations. Plus, any amusement park visit where the lines are only 10 minutes long makes the visit so much more enjoyable! We can now check this off our list and not return for a few more years. We have so many other theme parks to visit though!

We have been to Great Adventure, but it’s been at least 7 or 8 years since we last visited so it was nice to check it out again. Being the beginning of July, I expected a lot more people at the park but it was relatively uncrowded which made for pretty fast lines (except at the newest and best attractions). Unfortunately it was about 95 degrees without a cloud in the sky, making for a brutal walk around the park.

Kingda Ka (tallest coast in the world, fastest in North America) is one of those hydraulically-launched  coasters that starts with a long straightaway then shoots you up up up and over a tight turn and back down. We visited Cedar Point for the first one built (Top Thrill Dragster) in 2003 but this one felt faster on the straightaway. Kingda Ka reaches 128mph in 3.5 seconds WHICH IS AWESOME! If you enjoy coasters, this is definitely one to visit.

Great Adventure’s newest thrill ride is Zumanjaro, a drop ride mounted on Kingda Ka. Since it was just released this summer, it doesn’t open to the general public until noon (season pass holders can ride it as soon as the park opens). Since we were in that section of the park early in the day we decided to skip it and check out the other rides.

Kingda Ka and Zumanjaro

Superman, ultimate flight is a steel coaster that has you riding on your stomach looking down. The first uphill is extremely disconcerting as you are looking straight down with only harnesses holding you in place (as opposed to a steel car or seats). The rest of the ride is fantastic and the change in position makes the G-forces during the loops and turns very unexpected. Front seats are best for a good view, otherwise you see a lot of shoes/feet during the ride.

Nitro, a steel coaster is one very similar to Apollo’s Chariot (in Busch Gardens Williamsburg). It’s a mega steel coaster with only a lap harness and some great hills and turns. It’s smooth and a good length for a steel coaster. These mega coasters with the lap harnesses are fast becoming our favorite type of coaster because it’s smooth, fast, and doesn’t shake your head everywhere. Bizarro, a floorless steel coaster, has some great turns, rolls, and inversion. We also rode on Green Lantern, the stand-up coaster, and Batman, their suspended coaster (always ride the front seat on suspended coasters). All the coasters were a lot of fun and definitely worth riding, especially since most of the lines were no longer than 5–10 minutes. Unfortunately El Toro, their wooden coaster was closed for the day so we couldn’t ride that one.

Six Flags Great Adventure is a huge park with a lot of great rides. The major issue I have with that park is the layout. Most parks have a layout that leads you from one area to another. Not only is it difficult to find specific areas at Great Adventure, their map is almost useless. At one point Mike and I were looking at the map and a park employee came up to us to ask what we were looking for. The employee admitted the map is pretty awful and it’s just easier to ask someone how to get to a specific area.

As with all amusement parks, you cannot bring any items onto the rides. In the past, you simply put your stuff in a bin by the trains and picked it up on your way out. Six Flags doesn’t do that anymore, you have to place your belongings into a locker by the entrance of the ride. A one-time use locker costs $1 for two hours, a full-day locker costs $13. I think other parks may be doing this too now but it was a bit of a shock that we had to pay for a locker every time we wanted to ride.

These were really the only two issues we ran into at the park. The rides were great, the lines were short, and we had a good time screaming ourselves hoarse.

Mike’s perspective: Great Adventure was the closest large amusement park to Long Island where I grew up, so it was where I had been most often until leaving Lond Island at age 25. I expected to feel nostalgic upon returning, but the park has changed so much in the last 20 years that it may as well have been a brand new park—I didn’t recognize anything. It was a fantastic day and I had a blast, even with the somewhat painful weather. Nitro gets my vote for favorite ride at the park, although there were many excellent and enjoyable rides throughout the day.Mike

Six Flags Great Adventure, Jackson NJ