Eric and Candace's East Coast Trip Photo TR

Final update!

Day 11: Knoebles

Our final day of the East Coast trip would see us visiting Elysburg, Pennsylvania, home to Knoebels amusement park. All I can say is what a way to finish a great trip! Knoebels is just flat out fun. Everything in the park is fun. The carousel is fun. The tiny little train ride is fun. The bumper cars are completely dangerous! The flyers are insane. Just a great, great park all around!

Morning ERT would be on the newest of the park’s two (operating) wooden coasters, Twister. No one in my group seemed to like this one, but I found it to actually to be pretty good. Afterwards, as we were standing around waiting for the park to open, Robb tells a group of us to head over to Phoenix. Accompanied by Rich Knoebel, we were escorted through the exit of Phoenix and allowed to ride right before they opened the ride to the general public. There was actually a decent line of general public already backing out of the entrance to the line waiting for it to open! So, we ride it once, come back to the station cheering, while the general public jeers up at us. We paused in the station for a moment before they let us go through again! So, we go through the ride again, once again cheering as we entered the brake run, once again the general public jeering up at us, when they sent us right through the station without stopping and back through the ride again! To top it all off, they let us ride again after some people switched seats. It was definitely one of the top highlights of the trip. Phoenix is an amazing ride. There is insane airtime on every hill. I don’t think I ever laughed so much on a ride because it was so good. It is just flat out what a wooden roller coaster should be.

After lunch, we headed to the GCI factory where they told us all their deep dark secrets. It was really nice of those guys to take some time to show us around the office. Funny little story: Going in, Candace had no clue what a GCI was, but she got a little excited when I told her it was the guys that built Thunderhead at Dollywood.

The final ERT session of the trip would be on Phoenix and what a way to end the trip! Because they were running two trains for us, there was 40 seconds from the time the train would stop in the station before it needed to be dispatched. As a result, after every ride, we would rush out of our seats, go out the exit, back into the entrance, and wait for the next train. This was a LOT different from the other ERT sessions because usually we would stay in the station or never get off the ride. It really made it a perfect way to end the trip, because it turned into a endurance race to see who could make it the full hour of racing on and off the ride. I made it 45 minutes in when I finally had to call it quits. I did go back for one last ride when Robb yelled for everyone to come back.

Here is first set of photos.

[rollin_n_coastinDon't put that donkey on the floor!]

Hey Eric, great TR...brings back some amazing memories. What an fun and unique place. I wish I made it to ride Phoenix in the morning but my camera flew out of my pocket on Twister so spent too much time trying to find that, which I did thank goodness.

Mr. Knoebel bragged about the food there and rightfully so, nothing like that pay by water weight pasta at the Italian eatery we were at off the highway lol

On a more important note, congratulations to you and Candace on the arrival of li'l Dylan "Roller Coaster" W.! Just incredible.

Looking forward to seeing the rest.

Cheers,
Jason

PS: That night at the Dorney bar was awesome! I remember most...but sadly not all. I do remember walking in with Olivier and there being no one there. I remember you, Jason and a bunch of other people coming in and we were all cemented to that table talking and drinking. Were we that occupied that we didnt' notice it fill in with clubbers until we turned around for a "huh?" moment? Ah, Allentown!

Hey Eric, great TR...brings back some amazing memories. What an fun and unique place. I wish I made it to ride Phoenix in the morning but my camera flew out of my pocket on Twister so spent too much time trying to find that, which I did thank goodness.

Mr. Knoebel bragged about the food there and rightfully so, nothing like that pay by water weight pasta at the Italian eatery we were at off the highway lol

On a more important note, congratulations to you and Candace on the arrival of li'l Dylan "Roller Coaster" W.! Just incredible.

Thanks for the congrats! And thanks for bringing back up memories of that lovely Delaware toll plaza.

Here is the last of the photo updates for the trip!

This is the last one!

[downunderWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Nice work Eric, that slide was so old school and so much fun. Knoebels is just so awesome, I reckon it would be fun to camp there (which I believe you can do), though they probably would frown on me putting up my tent in the Phoenix loading bay.

That reminds me I should do one more east coast report, I even have a POV of Flying Turns.

[kenshinmacRandom Ranter]

Curses to that piece of wood!!! I had no idea...

Love the updates... So much fun in so little time.

[philthephorceI roomed with Tony and lived to tell about it!]

Thanks for finally finishing the TR. I'm sort of glad that it's taking some folks so long to do updates to their trip reports, because every time the memories begin to fade WHAM! another update from that awesome trip appears out of nowhere. Add to that the fact that I'm really not sure when I'll be able to go on another TPR trip and maybe you'll begin to understand how grateful I am for these staggered updates.

Thanks again!

[MovieguyJar-Jar Binks smells like Donkey]

Knoebels is such a great little park. Phoenix is an airtime gold mine, and just the thought of ERT on that coaster makes me salivate.

But when, oh WHEN are they gonna finally open Flying Turns?

That reminds me I should do one more east coast report, I even have a POV of Flying Turns.

Definitely, you should post it!

Thanks for finally finishing the TR. I'm sort of glad that it's taking some folks so long to do updates to their trip reports, because every time the memories begin to fade WHAM! another update from that awesome trip appears out of nowhere. Add to that the fact that I'm really not sure when I'll be able to go on another TPR trip and maybe you'll begin to understand how grateful I am for these staggered updates.

No problem! I will be going through trip withdraw come August myself.

Curses to that piece of wood!!! I had no idea...

It seems like they could just use the claw end of a hammer right?



I will be doing a final summary of the trip later today to officially close out this report.

Also, I finally got around to adding a Park Index. Check it out on Page 1 for easier navigation.

[stingrock23"Excuse me, miss, may I pound my large rooster into your donkey?"]

It was awesome getting to meet and hang out with you guys for most of the trip. I gotta say, it's been a great experience for me on these TPR trips. On the Midwest trip, I knew nobody going into it, and somehow manged to get into a good group starting on day one. When that trip was over, there was definitely an emptiness after having 10 or 11 days with the same group. Then for the East Coast trip, I had a few friends from the first trip, but managed to meet even more on this trip, and that just made it so much better. I didn't think I'd be able to top the first trip, and this one was just as good, if not better.

So for any of you out there in TPR land who are considering doing a trip, . . . doit. It's definitely worth it, no matter how many questions/issues you may have. It will be one of the best weeks or two of your life.