Labor Day Coasters in New England

Over Labor Day weekend I (Paul) met up with my coaster buddy Kyle for a quick trip around New England. We traveled through 5 different states, visiting several parks and riding a few dozen coasters. The weather was perfect, we had some great food and beer, and rode a couple of the best steel coasters on earth. Of course, we also went to several kiddie parks. A credit is a credit. :)

We started on Friday evening at the Hartford airport, and made a quick stop at Six Flags New England before the long drive to northern New Hampshire.

First stop: Six Flags New England on a beautiful evening.

We took a quick spin on the new Wicked Cyclone - more on that later!

Had to take a ride on the amazing Bizarro/Superman, of course.

The view from the hotel the next morning. The mountains of New Hampshire!

Our first stop of the day, Santa's Village. It was a really good kiddie park. Lots of good theming and rides.

RUDY!

It's a nice family coaster.

Rudolph is on the front of the train.

The car ride was great. It even had this splashdown through a little pond. I've never seen that before.

There were these elf statues all over the park - one for each letter of the alphabet. Little kids carried cards around and got a stamp at each elf.

Of course there are reindeer at Santa's Village!

Lots of trees and nice buildings and rides all over the park. The park was packed on such a beautiful holiday weekend.

And a great log flume! The first of several we'd ride on this trip. I love it when the logs travel through concrete troughs in the ground.

Our next stop was a bit of a surprise. Formerly known as Six Gun City, this little park is now Fort Jefferson Fun Park. We knew it had a little coaster, but thought it wasn't operating any more. But as we drove past, we saw that it might be operating, so we pulled over.

And it was! Credit!

Wheee, kiddie coasters. This one was kinda big at least, and the only one remaining with this specific layout.

OK.

Kyle in the stocks. Overall this park was pretty run-down, and there were hardly any people there. I'd be surprised if it lasts much longer.

Nice scenery on the drive through the Presidential Mountains.

Heading up and over a pass.

Next stop: Story Land!

WHAT!?

Unfortunately Roar-o-Saurus, one of the highlights of the trip, was closed. We decided to skip the park all together.

Beer is a good substitute for closed coasters.

Our next stop was the alpine coaster at Attitash Mountain.

Alpine coaster selfie!

I love how most alpine coasters race down the mountain through the trees.

Next we took the chairlift up the mountain to ride the alpine slide. This is the first time I've seen two chairlifts cross over each other.

Awesome view from the chairlift.

You pass right over the top of the two alpine slide tracks.

Even though Kyle and I started at the same time, his side got all jammed up by a slow mover. One person braking too much creates a huge log jam. I was finished and off my cart long before this side made it down.

Our next stop was Mount Cranmore, another resort just down the road with another alpine coaster.

Alpine coaster selfie number 2!

After spending the night near Portland, our first park Sunday was Funtown Splashtown USA.

The big attraction is Excalibur. This woodie has a great first half, but loses a lot of energy and crawls through the second half. Still a fun ride.

Another fun log flume!

Funtown has quite a few rides.

Excalibur heads up the lift hill.

Palace Playland on the Atlantic Coast was our next park. The beach area was absolutely slammed, which made sense considering the lovely weather.

There's a kiddie coaster too.

Lots of people enjoying the beach on Labor Day weekend. We had a drink on the pier before moving along to our next park.

York's Wild Kingdom is mostly a zoo, but has a small ride section.

I assume this is official "An American Tale: Fievel Goes West" theming.

The park had a surprising number of walk-through attractions. None of them were very good, but the haunted house looked great from the outside.

Our final park on this busy day was Canobie Lake, a great little park not too far from Boston. Kyle had the heads-up idea to visit this park last so we could see it at night.

The star coaster attraction is the classic Yankee Cannonball.

They have two trains but only use one, so the line was a bit long. The park was pretty busy.

Untamed is their major steel coaster.

It looks good, but unfortunately is very rough to the point of not being enjoyable.

Canobie has some great theming on some of their rides. The whole area around Untamed was great.

Even the columns are painted to look like birch trees.

A nice area of Canobie.

Another log flume! I think this was my favorite of the trip. Two drops and a tunnel.

The old-school Canobie Corkscrew.

Yay for parks at night!

Our final stop of the trip, on labor day Monday, was Six Flags New England again. This is the crowd that greeted us at the entrance. We were quite worried.

Luckily, this was the hottest day of the trip, so most people went to the water park. We never waited longer that 30 minutes for anything, and we got to ride everything we wanted.

Wicked Cyclone and the giant New England Sky Screamer. Bonus guy pointing a finger.

This ride is awesome. A top ten steel coaster, and definitely my favorite coaster of the trip. It's loaded with airtime and interesting banking and twists. The first drop is amazing. It does slow down quite a bit in the final 1/3 of the ride, and the last few hills are noticeably slower. Otherwise, it would probably be a top five coaster. Still, if you love coasters, get to Six Flags and ride this thing now!

This element is so cool. In the back seat (the best seat on the ride) you get a hint of crazy tilted hang time before you're yanked out of the inversion and back down to the ground.

OK, Six Flags New England wasn't actually our final stop. We had an awesome dinner at Bear's Smokehouse near the airport. This place was legit!

I had a few surprises on this trip. Canobie Lake is a wonderful little park, Excalibur was better than I expected, Santa's Village was cute, and Wicked Cyclone lived up to high expectations. Overall a successful trip - I'll just have to return some day to ride Roar-O-Saurus!

Utah - Zion & Bryce

Back in late April, I (David) had a work trip in Las Vegas. I went a few days early to visit some family in town and then to head out to some national parks in Utah for the weekend. My friend's Jon and Elaine joined me in Las Vegas for the trip along with their toddler Gwyneth. I'm always incredibly excited to spend time with these folks, they're some of my favorite people. ^_^ As an added bonus, this was my first trip with a toddler and I learned a lot of useful tricks that will be helpful when my nephew Alex gets a bit older!

There are many national parks in Utah. This trip we visited Zion and Bryce Canyon. I love the west! The big empty spaces, variable weather, elevation and wildlife are all really interesting to me, as an east-coast person. Zion Canyon is one of the most amazing national parks I've visited, and I'd highly recommend anyone visiting Las Vegas take the few hour drive out to Utah to check these places out. They're way better than some casino.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a tons of pictures, but here's some of the highlights of the trip! Starting with Bryce Canyon and ending with Zion.

Sadly, this was the most snow I'd seen all year

Bryce Canyon is full of hoodoos and fins

Some snow at the top of the Canyon, around 9,000 feet

I think this is a bristlecone pine. They can live for up to 5,000 years! This tree was possibly alive before the pyramids were built.

Look over there, Gwyneth, it's daddy!

It was pretty cold, she wasn't thrilled about being in this thing until I started jumping up and down...which isn't super fun (for me anyway) at 9,000 feet.

At Bryce canyon, accommodations are limited. There's a town right near the entrance that's pretty small, but with a few chain hotels and restaurants. Unfortunately, there was really nothing good to eat. I'd recommend you camp, or plan to not stay in this area overnight. Accommodations near Zion are much nicer and you can plan to do both parks over a couple days (which is what we did).

Some of the trails were still closed for the season, due to snow. There was one medium-difficulty trail open that wasn't too long so we spent the morning hiking into the canyon. It's a really different view looking out, then it was looking down into the canyon.

I found this in our hotel nightstand. I assumed there'd be a Book of Mormon...but why is it in Italian?!

Woot! Go GT!

This area was called Wall Street, I guess it looked like skyscrapers to people in the early 20th century

Aww...too much excitement for one day! Man, I look in my 30s in this picture...

After spending a day in Bryce Canyon, we headed off towards Zion, which is on the way back towards Las Vegas. The main route follows a small verdant canyon, which is a nice change from the orange/brown Bryce Canyon. On the way there we stopped at the Wild Boar Bistro (which may have closed) in Glendale, Utah. They had great grilled cheese sandwiches and some local Utah beer on tap.

Utah brewers seem to enjoy taking jabs at the establishment!

The Wild Boar Cafe had some weird roadside mannequins!

After lunch, we drove the rest of the way to Zion. It was raining so we didn't get a chance to stop in Zion on the way in. The accommodations and food options in Springdale are much better than in Bryce, and we were able to find a good dinner and rest up for a full day of hiking the next day before our drive back to Vegas.

During the warm months, Zion doesn't allow people to drive into the canyon. Instead, they operate a really exceptional shuttle system that goes from Springdale all the way through the canyon, stopping frequently. It's a really excellent system that helps preserve the serenity of the park while ensuring that we don't have to pave over more of the land than is necessary for parking lots. As a city planner, I approved!

There must be an unspoken rule about beverages sticking it to the man in Utah!

Zion shuttle system

The canyon is pretty wide near the entrance near Springdale

End of the trail at the Virgin River. You can walk through the water into the Narrows if you're interested. Not a good idea in April, the water was pretty cold.

The rain the day before really greened up the park!

Here's the Virgin River again!

By afternoon, the sun shone brightly on the east canyon wall, which made for nice pictures.

Spring has sprung in Zion!

Common view in the canyon. Very beautiful scenery.

This puddle of water entertained her for a good 5 minutes

Too cute, but fully standing in a puddle...

This is from the north part of Zion called the Kolob Canyon

Panda on the loose!

Bounce! Bounce!