TR: Winter Coaster Solace and Six Flags Marine World (long)

Well let's see and just go from here ...

Day 1:

- Left DFW around 11:15, we were supposed to leave at 10:35, but the plane's battery was dead coming from the hangar. Arrived at Orange County 10mins before our scheduled arrival time .. good tail winds I guess. Picked up my bags and rental car and headed for In-N-Out .. god I love that place. Met up with David at Orange County after he got in and headed back to In-N-Out since he was hungry. Checked into the Radisson and got our VIP passes, chatted with some friends from Texas and other places.

- We headed into Knott's around 5:50ish and went straight for Xcelerator. Great ride as always, love that back seat. My only beef was the one train operation, although there weren't many people there for ERT. After Xcelerator rides, we did Supreme Scream and successfully broke the tower. We lifted up for our ride and the brakes slipped and didn't engage so we had an uneventful freefall back. After re-checking the restraints they let us go again, only to have the brakes slip again. They closed that tower and opened another, but they had to go through sign-offs and safety checks first. So we headed to Monte and rode that. After that hit GhostRider, man was this thing great. Running much better than last August and I had some of my best rides on it since it opened.

- After GhostRider rides, headed for the VIP dinner under Silver Bullet. Heard from Jack, which is his last Solace before leaving for Sandusky at some point and the guy from S&S Power (forgot name). After dinner, which was nice btw, got rides on Silver Bullet. I was very impressed with this ride. Very nice ride, not the bext invert, but still smooth and alot of fun. Retired for the night after midnight.

Day 2:

- Woke up around 6:45am, headed into the park around 7:15ish and went for Jaguar!. I love this coaster, one of my favs in the world as well. Also hit Boomerang (mistake) and it kinda of strained my neck .. not good. After that we took some Xcelerator rides and a spin on Timberline Twister. Saw Robb and Elissa there, but was kind of pre-occupied on the phone. After Timberline, got a few more Xcelerator rides and then started heading into the park when it opened at 10am. Rode Calico Mine Ride, which was my first ride ever on it, I like the ride. Loked at Screamin' Swing, but it did not open until 11am. Did Mystery Lodge and Riptide (water was off thank goodness) and poked around more with photos and such.

- Did the group photo thing, then we left the park before lunch and hit Adventure City. I've driven past several times, but never got the chance to go to the park. With the discount, we got in for $6 and added two more credits to my count. Headed back to Knott's for lunch ... mmm bosenberry pie and chicken. After lunch headed back into the park for Screamin' Swing and ride on the Railroad. After that went back to the hotel for some R'n'R and headed back in around 9:45 for nighttime ERT. GhostRider again was running great and so was Silver Bullet. Left the park around midnight and went back to the hotel, met up with a few people and watched some rough cuts for their new video, great times and great footage.

Day 3:

- Left Buena Park at 2am for Sherman Oaks to pick up a friend, got stuck in traffic on the 101 and left the LA Area right around 3:15am. Made it to Vallejo at 8:30 and milled around a bit before parking. Marine World opened at 10am, and Zonga was closed (BASTARDS!) and headed for V2. This is very interesting ride, rode maybe 7th row back for the hangtime in the twist. After that rode Roar, which sucked .. I don't think they've done any track work to this since 1999. Oh and they were running 1 train, which became the norm for the day. Marine World was nice when I went in 2000, now it's worse than Frontier City or Astroworld of 2000 and 2001. The animals looked like they were poorly taken care of, Medusa looked like it was going to valley in every inversion, Kong is well an SLC which sucks. I called this park SeaGhetto World .. it was horrible. The flats didn't even look up to speed. Saw the Shouka show, boring and then left the parks around 1:30. Checked into the hotel and slept before leaving for the concert in Santa Cruz.

Day 4:

- Left Vallejo at 7am, got stuck in some traffic but made it back to Sherman Oaks around 1pm and dropped off my friend. Headed back to Orange County and made it there around 2:45 for my flight. Came home and slept .. Thanks to Knott's Berry Farm for a great event, already making plans for next year's event.