Photo TR: Georgia on My Mind

Howdy all,

For my Spring Break, and Dad and I hopped on a quick flight down to Atlanta so I could pick up my SFOG credit. We spent Thursday lolligagging around Atlanta, as no close parks were open, checking out some local grub and tacky stuff. On Friday, we went to Six Flags, and on Saturday, we drove up north to Chatanooga to Lake Winnepesukah (actually in Georgia, for some reason) for a quick day trip before flying home late that night. This update will have our escapades from Thursday, with the other updates coming later.

The pics are crap, but hopefully this report will be semi-entertaining.

And so we begin Wednesday afternoon, soon after taking off from Rochester International Airport...

Poop.

I had noticed that my ears were really painfully popping, but I had disregarded it as just an abnormal plane flight. It was abnormal all right. These babies dropped down just shortly after taking off.

The best part was how no one did ANYTHING, everyone just stared at each other for about 20 seconds.

Finally we strapped them on, and the pilot said he was taking us to Pittsburgh for a new plane. Thy got us a new plane and we resumed our flight at about midnight.We did got on the news, though:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — A commercial flight was diverted to Pittsburgh International Airport on Wednesday evening.

There was reportedly a pressurization issue on a Delta flight from Rochester to Atlanta.

When the pilot realized there was a problem, he opted to divert the flight to Pittsburgh.

The plane landed without incident just after 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Delta says it’s trying to determine what caused the problem.

Source:http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2011/04/21/delta-flight-diverted-to-pittsburgh-international-airport/

Continuing on, we awoke from a brief slumber in a Buckhead Embassy Suites, in a booming part of Atlanta, after about 4 hours of sleep. The sun was shining and the air was hot and humid in a lovely way, so we set off for adventure.

Barbeque, in particular.

After getting lost in various sketchy parts of downtown, we finally stumbled on our destination.

Daddy Dz, what every other BBQ place tries to rip off.

Yummy piggy.

NIce pig shrine inside.

Pretty much a shack in downtown Atlanta.

I don't have any food pics (sorry), but I got the pulled pork with rice and beans and green beans. Very tasty but the atmosphere was the best part.

Hmmmmm....

Where could we be now?

World of Coke is pretty much a hyper-sensationalized Hershey's Chocolate World that you pay $20 to have the privilege to experience.

SPEAK ENGLISH DAMMIT

Probably the one classy thing they had there, this is a Norman Rockwell.

Want Western influence? Well by jove, you'll have it!

They even have product placement!

Ook Blak Boog

This is a little bit of cultural overkill, even for pop art.

What's this? A new Coke?

They did have a nice little tongue-in-cheek exhibit of the New Coke fiasco, so I give them props.

Now that's just crazy talk.

At the end of the tour, they had a Club Cool at Epcot on steroids, with 60 different Coca-Cola products from around the world and a machine to mix your own combinations, which included...

Yay!

Ending our day, we went to a very nice Mellow Mushroom, a FANTASTIC pizza chain. I highly recommend it to everyone alive to go to one of these wonderful places. The pizza dough has a delicious pretzel flavor, and my jerk chicken hoagie just may have been the most delicious sandwich I've ever eaten. They are all over the South and even go up to Maryland. FIND ONE.

UP NEXT: Six Flags Over Georgia and Lake Winnie! Thanks all!

I've eaten at the Mellow Mushroom in Asheville, North Carolina--pretty dang good. Congratulations on finding the funky BBQ joint and managing to get out alive.

That Barbecue place looks interesting. I love hole-in-the-wall places like that. I've eaten at the Mellow Mushroom by the Chattanooga Aquarium and it was really good. Looking forward to your park pictures!

I like Mellow Mushroom, as well. But please tell me that you went to the Georgia Aquarium!

Rock City...?

I've seen MezzoMix last time while beeing in the US available at a Kmart - so I guess its not a German thing only anymore....

Historically when CocaCola was forced to stop production in WWII - funnily not by the Nazis but by the US govt - the germans tried their own Cola and failed miserably. So they mixed their ill-fated cola with orange-juice and called it Spezi. After the war CocaCola hopped onto producing their own Spezi - quite succesful - and MezzoMix is now far widely known then theorignal....

I've eaten at the Mellow Mushroom in Asheville, North Carolina--pretty dang good. Congratulations on finding the funky BBQ joint and managing to get out alive.

That's probably the best Mellow Mushroom in the country - not only does it have the solid food, but their local beer selection is fantastic!

I've actually never been to Daddy Dz, surprising seeing as I live 5 minutes away. One of these days!

Sorry about the delay, AP's+Track=Not Happy Time.

Rock City...?

Unfortunately no...We saw crap tons of signs for it on the way up to Lake Winnie, but we didn't have any time, as our flight out was that day. It's too bad, I've read all sorts of stuff about their barn ads and whatnot.

IT'S COASTER TIME! YAAAAAYYY!

We headed out to Six Flags Over Georgia the next day, Friday morn. We were half an hour into our drive with about 10 minutes to go when we realized that we had forgotten the tickets that we got online (buy one get one free!). After many profanities we turned back and headed back into downtown, only to miss our exit again. By the time we finally made it to the park, we were half an hour behind schedule. Shouldn't be a problem, right?

WRONG. The parking was at the end of the inner drive, making a giant traffic jam. Looking at another half an hour out of our day, we made the best decision of the trip. Valet parking! For only $10 more ($25 versus $15), we got to plop our car down on the lawn right next to the entrance! I'd recommend it highly, it's a great time-saver.

SO- overview:

Goliath: Good, clean, B&M fun. Still like the old style more than the new trains. 8/10

Superman: Been there, done that, but still better landscaped than the other parking lot versions. 6/10

GASM: Classico. 6/10

Ninja: Ouchie. Cool layout, though. 3/10

Georgia Cyclone:Holy jesus. Exceeded painful expectations. 5/10 just because I could tell what it used to be.

BTR:Very intense. May have just been the seat I was in, but the best Batman I've been on. 7/10

Mind Bender: Pure euphoria with a single lapbar. Anton never fails. 10/10

Georgia Scorcher: Pretty fun for a standup, especially when you know how to ride one. 6/10.

Acrophobia: What the balls? Literally. This was weird. Not a great drop tower, but the interaction with the crowd in line every time a drop happened was absolutely priceless. 5/10

Monster Mansion: Neat-o, very pleasant and a great surprise. 8/10

Mine Train: Listen, I don't care about whatever historic importance you have. You are a painful mother. And your name is stupid. 2/10

Road Runner Kiddie Thingy: Fun and unique, definitely worth the awkward looks from the staff. 4/10

FIrst up, Goliath- after a 45 minute wait... The day was not looking productive, especially considering our fallback was the FlashPass, a bargain at anywhere from $52-147 for the two of us!

Luckily, Superman would save the day!

We managed to take out Superman, GASM, and Ninja in all of 30 minutes, greatly improving our chances of taking the entire park in a day.

Awesome layout, horrible transitions. If Ninja was a ninja, I would totally survive a stealth attack.

Yeah, that was a bad metaphor. Bummer.

GASM wasn't that bad, though. Nice pops of airtime, definitely a very solid classic woodie.

Classic amusement archy, too. Reminded me of SFOT and the Paramount Parks.

We missed this guy by about a month. No testing or anything, either, still doing structural work on the station and surroundings.

This looks freakin' ridiculous from this angle.

Hot stuff.

Next up was this guy.

The valet parking actually got us pretty close to the ride. I was able to get right up to the fence.

Pretty much describes the ride experience.

DEATH

I can definitely see where this used to be a phenomenal ride. It was excellently intense, had STEEP drops, and was tightly packed. The old age and trims were taking their toll, though.

Ads? What ads?

Yet another color scheme mutilated by the hands of corporate America. A moment of silence is necessary.

SFOG is a very beautiful, older-style park.

They have an old mine train. It kinda sucks. It's not too Dan-friendly either.

Speaking of mutilated color schemes...

So Mindbender is in my humble opinion the best ride at the park. Wonderful layout, intense loops, INSANE ejector airtime where you least expect it in the front seat, non-restrictive lap bars that let me nearly fall out, great visuals, including a waterfall, terrain changes, and a tunnel (*phew*).

Yeah, it's that good.

Definitely one of my top coasters. I <3 Schwarzies.

Time for my BTR story. Thanks to the wonders of poor ride operations, we waited an hour and a half. Which wouldn't have been that bad if we didn't have school girls on either side of us who seem to have thought that the fake sewer section was a great spot to see how loud they could get. It was a shame because this was the most intense BTR I've been on yet.

I just kinda like this building. Too bad Six Flags' idea of bbq is pulled pork slathered in sugar on a hamburger bun.

Kiddy coaster time! I'm not totally a cre-ho tho, because this was a damn cool coaster.

It starts on the rooftops...

Then dives off the hill into a tunnel!

Nice laterals, too.

Sigh...

Why a utilities company is investing in public ads at a theme park is beyond me.

This was mildly amusing.

Horrible pic, but this is the facade for the new Monster Mansion, which was fantastic! Great quality, felt at home at a Disney park...

This is a plaque explaining how they got ex-Disney Imagineers to help design the ride (ohhhh, that's why...). The gift shop had a nice little museum and unique gifts.

By far the best food at the park. By. Far.

A final look as Goliath settles into the distance.

Dinner time! Mary-Mac's is a fantastic place for great Southern cooking. Very attentive and friendly staff (our server knew all of the Bill's Superbowl failures!). Hearing it was our first time there, they gave us a free appetizer of pot lickers: turnip greens in a meat juice broth with cornbread to crumble in.

I ended up having the blackened catfish with okra and tomatoes (a personal fave) and collard greens. A note-check out the ridiculous sides selection. Georgia peach cobbler closed it off.

I laughed hard about what you said about Dahlonega (Mine train coaster)! And I agree with you on the weird ads and coaster train colors in the park. Great TR! It's also good to hear everyone survived that plane flight.

Completely agree with you re: Mind Bender. What an absolutely awesome ride - kind of has it all really. I remember Mary Mac's! Went there the last (and only time) I was in Georgia. Very nice Southern cuisine. I'd love to go back some day!

I had a bad experience at that park 2 years ago but it seems like they are doing a lot better with it!

Glad you enjoyed Mind Bender! Always a favorite. I remember when I was a kid and still afraid of coasters, my parents got me the Mine Train and I was shaking by the time I got off! It was horrible. I'm surprised it didn't scar me for life.

Final Update! Sorry for the wait, I've been combination lazy/busy/sleeping.

Lake Winnie in Chattanooga, Tennessee! Or maybe Roswell, Georgia. Or maybe not.

Just kidding, it's in Georgia. Really hard to tell by the directions, though. Drove us crazy. On the drive up from Atlanta, we passed tons of signs for Rock City, the tourist trap famous for its bizarre advertising campaign where they paid farmers to write "See Rock City" on their barns all across the region. Needless to say, we were a bit pressed for time with a flight leaving at 5 that day, so we decided against it.

The park:

Really sweet local park! I liked it just as much, maybe even better (*gasp*) than my local park, Seabreeze. Both are super old with a solid woodie, and both have some interesting unique touches. Lake Winnie's access to the water was really cool, even if there wasn't a waterpark or anywhere to cool off. The chairlift over the water gave fantastic views, but I was much too scared of dropping my camera to try and take pics.

Cannonball: Yay John Allen! Pure traditional woodie classicness, nice pacing and airtime. Overall just perfect for the park. 7/10

Wild Lightnin': One of those random traveling L&T Systems mini-wild mouses. Piece of crap, bruised me pretty good. You can kind of see it in the big overview pic below. 2/10

Wacky Worm: Just kidding, I'm not gonna review it .

Drop Tower: A lot shorter than it feels. Especially how long it takes to hit the brakes. 8/10

Rolo-Plane: Ow. Riding on my head is not fun. Supposedly there's an art to riding it, but I didn't want to try a second time to perfect mine. 3/10.

Boat Chute: I thought this was really cool, very historic and well preserved. Not too wet at all. 6/10

Welcome to downtown wherever the hell we are!

Wait for it...

Go!

Welcome to Lake Winnie!

This is the big attraction, Cannonball, a classic John Allen. Good ride, running smooth with a few nice pops of airtime.

Artsy.

Cool food pagoda thingy in the front of the park.

Other side of the water. The park also has the first ever flume ride! You go through a tunnel of love-ish part before coming out into the daylight and climbing up a rickety structure. A gentle slope splashes your torpedo shaped tin can into the lake water (ew....). Good thing you don't get too wet.

Spashy-splash! If Dan was a germaphobe, he would be crying right now.

The park's other claim to fame is this piece of donkey crap.

Originally made to train WWI pilots for the stresses of flight, you essentially hang upside down until you can summon the strength to turn the wheel in the cockpit and flip again.

There's a lot of hanging upside down in pain, cursing your balls off.

Yes, yes I did.

They have a bunch of picnic pavilions, too. This is quite similar to the Birthday pavilion at Kenoebels.

OHM NOM NOM

Drinking fountain.

This is their classic darkride, undergoing renovation.

Apparently lunchbox on the seat means no rides for me today.

Best ride in the park, beat the living bejeezus out of Acrophobia. Rode it like 10 times.

Yodelay-HE-HOOOOOO

They had a nice historical exhibit, too.

DOMODOMODOMODOMO

Lake Winnie is DEFINITELY TPR-approved.

This was one of the coolest touches I've seen in a traditional park. Really cool.

And that's it! Thanks for being patient, all!

That last picture is really neat, kind of got the boardwalk feel to it.

Wow, I had NO idea they were renovating their dark ride! I remember it from when I went in 2010 as one of the trippiest things ever. While it was pretty unique, I'm glad they're redoing it. I really like Lake Winnie, it's definitely one of the best smaller parks I've visited.

By the way, it started raining as soon as I approached the Fly-O-Plane. I was disappointed then. After reading this report and discovering that it may have taken away my manhood forever, I'm glad it closed

We went to Lake Winnie for the first time last year and loved it. And I was lucky enough to get to meet Big Mike there! And that's where we did the interview for the first video episode of the Road Show. He got pictures of me on my head in the fly-o-plane. Worst ride ever! I guess if you're strong enough to turn the thing upright it would be fun, but I was too scared to try!