Raleighwood Weekend

A couple of years ago, our friends Lindsay and Casey moved to Raleigh from Texas. We haven't seen them in a while (the last time we saw Lindsay was our visit to Congaree National Park in South Carolina) so we planned a trip to North Carolina for President's Day Weekend. We explored the local cuisine, toured the state capitol building and the universities, and also spent some time with our friend Matt and his adorable new puppy.

The research triangle is an area that has a reputation for Universities, basketball, and a quickly growing population, but you don't really hear much else about the cities. Charlotte steals the thunder as North Carolina's main city. David had only spent a short amount of time in downtown Raleigh for a conference, and Paul had never been to the area, so we were excited to explore a new area that we didn't know much about.

Our first meal in Raleigh on Friday night - Yummy Peruvian chicken. Forgot to get a picture of the food because we ate it so fast!

On Saturday morning we set out bright and early for a day of sightseeing around Raleigh. We visited the State Farmer's Market for breakfast and some shopping. The farmer's market was neat - it was a bit quiet on a cold winter morning, but you could see it would be bustling during good weather.

The view from Lindsay's and Casey's house in Cary.

Breakfast at the North Carolina State Farmer's Market Restaurant. This logo was everywhere around the city.

They had yummy biscuits. And more biscuits as an appetizer!

They're huge!

Just hanging out with a little cowboy.

NC State Farmer's Market. Not too busy in sub-freezing February weather.

Our next stop was downtown Raleigh to tour the old state capitol and the museum of natural sciences. There was a huge "Moral Monday" rally (not sure why they had it on a Saturday), so we couldn't walk much around the main street, but we did get to see most of downtown. The capitol building was nice. It was a bit small, but had some nice old rooms and furniture. Also, our tour guide was a hilarious senior citizen who owns several yorkies, believes in ghosts, and had a crush on Casey.

The NC Capitol dome.

Copy of a statue of George Washington by an Italian sculptor who had never seen him. The original was destroyed in a fire. It was the strangest depiction of Washington we've ever seen.

Original woodwork.

Lindsay has been promoted from Chemist I to Head Geologist!

The capitol grounds.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences is a large free museum that explores various aspects of science and nature. It's great to see the state government support this. Fernbank in Atlanta is nice, but it's private and expensive. We've seen other state-supported science and history museums in nearby states, including South Carolina. Get with the program, Georgia! The museum was hosting Darwin Day, so it was full of special exhibits and a ton of children.

Big exhibit about the various ecosystems in North Carolina.

There was in interactive climate change exhibit that included health impacts.

After visiting the museum, we went to the Raleigh Depot/Warehouse district. It's a neat area with a lot of local restaurant. We had chocolate and beer and then played some video games. No complaints!

Videri chocolate factory in the old train depot.

Yum! Hot chocolate! It was a really cold day.

Boxcar is a big bar with a ton of video games, including this pinball section.

Even the bathroom at Boxcar is Mario themed.

We stopped by Matt's to visit with him and his new puppy, Banks.

He was a little blur of energy!

We took Banks to a dog-friendly bar and bottle shop named after the open ocean.

When in North Carolina, you gotta have some BBQ! Not as good as what we've had in Texas or Georgia, but still good.

This is Gus. He enjoys laser pointers and attempting to enter the garage. He's single, but has a complicated relationship with his live-in female friend, Chloe.

North Carolina State University makes its own ice cream! I assume student athletes make this in "ice cream 101" class.

The next day we visited Lindsay's office with the State Department of Agriculture, where she manages a lab that runs samples for farmers to learn about what nutrients their soil needs, or if their lagoon water meets certain standards. They perform a great service for agriculture in the state of North Carolina. Then we drove around the different universities in the Research Triangle area. We started at NC State (seeing Casey's office), moved on to Duke, and finished up at UNC. 

We toured Lindsay's lab. Don't ask what's in those bottles!

We stopped by NC State's stadium. Somebody forgot to turn the fountain off when temperatures went below freezing!

Frosty the wolf.

The new student center at NC State.

Yummy lunch in downtown Durham at Pizzeria Toro.

Duke University's main quad.

The famous "old well" at UNC.

UNC's campus. It was cold!

Everything here is made of chocolate!

Paul with his chocolate cup.

Yum! Pretentious little cupcakes!

We were originally planning to stay Sunday night, but an incoming winter storm convinced us to leave so we wouldn't get stuck. Even though it was a short trip, we got a little taste of what the area has to offer, and still have a list of things to check out the next time we visit. It was great catching up with Lindsay and Casey, and we look forward to them visiting us in Atlanta! And we'll have to come back and see Matt and what we assume will be a 100 lbs full-grown Banks.

Greensboro was on the way home, so we popped by for a minute to check it out. Bigger than we thought, but pretty empty because it was a freezing Sunday evening.

Charlotte was also on the way home. We stopped in Uptown for dinner on Valentines Day.

This was the traffic map as we arrived back in Atlanta. Can you see the snow/ice we were avoiding?

West Coast Bash

Last weekend I flew out to Southern California for West Coast Bash with Theme Park Review. It's a coaster event at Six Flags Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm where we get exclusive ride time and behind the scenes tours. I've been on a couple of other bashes (Deep South Bash, New Texas Giant Bash), and a tour (Europe 2012) with TPR. I saw a cheap(ish) flight to LA and jumped on the chance to meet up with old friends and ride some coasters. I hadn't been to Magic Mountain since 2001 and Knott's Berry Farm since 2011, so I picked up several credits along the way. In fact, I surpassed my target for the year, which was to reach 550 coasters. I'm up to 551! Maybe next year's target will be 600...

Matt and I stopped by Pacific Park in Santa Monica on Friday night to get the credit. It's a fun little park with a zippy Morgan family coaster. After the 40 minute drive up to Valencia, we grabbed dinner and drinks at BJ's (seriously... BJ's brewpub) and caught some shut-eye for the busy weekend ahead.

Saturday started with some ERT at Magic Mountain. We went straight to Full Throttle, the new coaster. It's a very fun ride. The best part is the giant loop - there is some serious upside down hang-time. It's probably one of the best coasters at Magic Mountain, but could use a little more length and re-configuring of the brakes so they don't stop you in the middle of the ride's biggest drop. Another new ride for me was Tatsu. This is my favorite B&M flying coaster. It's really neat how it swoops over the mountain top, and the pretzel loop is insane. The new-ish wood coaster, Apocalypse (formerly Terminator), was a mixed bag. When I rode near the front of the train in the morning, it was just an OK ride, a bit rough with not much airtime. When I rode at night in the back of the train, it was a really fun out of control experience.

Magic Mountain is a decent park, but they could use some serious customer service training, and need to work on ride reliability. X2 was down, Scream and Apocalypse were only running one train, my friends got stuck on a malfunctioning Superman coaster, and both Tatsu and Apocalypse broke down during ERT. The loading on Tatsu and Green Lantern seemed to take ages. But since the park wasn't very crowded and we had plenty of ERT, we still rode everything and got multiple rides on our favorites.

In contrast to Magic Mountain, Knott's really rolled out the red carpet for us. The staff was amazing. We got a behind the scenes tour of the log ride and a special tour of the Calico mine ride narrated by a hilarious Knott's historian. The day started with morning ERT, which included the entire Boardwalk section plus Xcelerator. I think Xcelerator may be my favorite coaster in Southern California. I love the intense launch and top hat, comfortable trains, and smooth ride. Silver Bullet was running much better than when I rode it last. It was glass smooth and actually had some decent forces in the final helix. At lunch we got a full buffet with Mrs. Knott's fried chicken (huge improvement on the previous day's lunch!), complete with old west bandit actors who "robbed" our table. Unfortunately I had to leave after lunch to catch my flight. I wish I could have stayed longer to enjoy this excellent park!

On to the pictures:

Great weather and atmosphere at Pacific Park.

Full Throttle's launch and loop.

Full Throttle's dive loop - forwards and backwards!

Kiddie credit!

Tatsu's first drop swoops over the path

ANOTHER kiddie credit? No shame.

Full Throttle goes through the loop...

...and over the loop!

Some creepy dolls outside Knott's Berry Farm.

The inside drop on the log flume (sans water).

We got to walk in the actual flume trough!

The TPR group on the log flume tour.

Just saying hi to Bert the donkey.

Creepy animatronic characters.

Boat storage area.

Outside flume drop without water.

The Calico Mine Ride may be getting a major update soon!

I love special coaster events like these, and I'm hoping to be able to do a TPR tour or at least a bash event next year. I'm really looking forward to a trip to Missouri in October with the Metro Atlanta Coaster Club.We'll be going on Outlaw Run, which I've heard is one of the best coasters on earth.