Cleveland / Geauga Lake - 5/28 and 5/29

I know this is a bit late posting this, but I've finally gotten the time to post my Cleveland photo update here. It's not too many pictures of people having fun, but I think some of the pictures are fairly cool.

Just a note: all pictures have been sized down, but if you see one you like I can get it for you in high-res.

Also, please excuse my poor sense of humor. I'm new to this whole "photo update with humor" thing.

We finally get to the hit of day one, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. Sure, no 500' wooden rocket coaster, but at least it's not a bunch of paintings that have no meaning.

Now, I'm not a sports fan but I can say that this is one of the coolest football stadiums I've ever seen.

Go ahead, call me a tourist all you want, but this, once again, is a hell of a lot better than anything you'll find in Michigan!

Yep. More.... buildings. There's absolutely nothing funny about them.

There's like a giant finger there pointing to the right. Yeah.

More aimless pictures of.... buildings.

Such a pretty skyline. Something you don't see in Michigan.

Now, this is something you don't see every day. A Michigan.org banner in Cleveland, Ohio. Not only that, but it's advertising something a state should really be proud of: gambling. Go Michigan...

I really loved how scenic the whole area was, despite the lack of coasters.

Now imagine a custom B&M flying floorless wooden coaster right there. Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about.

The area around the art museum is really nice... for a non-amusement park area that is.

Thank god we didn't spend long at the art museum.

Best ride at the art museum: the "bouncy chairs" in the lobby. One of the security guards finally came over and told us to stop or they'd kick us out.

Unfortunately our first stop was at the art museum, where they don't let you take any pictures other than this. It's a "griffin". Rawr.

Our first view of Cleveland, which is much better than any city in Michigan, I might add.

More photos. Enjoy.

I'm trying out my new camera to get cool pictures, but it's just not working too good. This one is ok, though.

This part of the building was cool enough to deserve its own picture.

Art Museum < Science Center < RnRHoF < Llamas

Hey look, we're at Epcot!

But look at how much more there is! I highly recommend stopping here if you get the chance, it's well worth it.

And these guitars.

And this hot dog.

One of the only things you can take a picture of in the RnHoF are these cars.

I have no caption for this photo. Sorry.

This is the result of drugs. Don't do drugs kids, they make you high.

And yes, that does mean I took a lot of pictures when we took the right turn and ended up driving past a good view of the city.

I'm an architecture freak, so of course I had to take tons of pictures of the building.

Yeah, so even though we made a wrong turn we still got to see Lake Erie, which is SO much better than the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.

The Science Center next door looked cool, but not nearly as cool as a bunch of llamas.

Pictures 31-45 (expect a delay as I need to eat breakfast)

I have yet to find out the meaning of "T-Mobile". When I know you will be informed.

And here's a flock of Cleveland people headed to the stadium.

I was supposed to get pictures of people. Here's some groupies.

After dinner we headed to the baseball stadium for my first professional sport game ever.

Now, to end the humor for just a second: where is the original Hard Rock Cafe at?

Hard Rock Cafe. That's what it says.

It's a mall. "Oh. My. God. I want to go SHOPPING!"

My jazz band "groupies" and the evil band director/parent.

Being the band geek I am, I had to take a picture of these cymbal lights.

Dinner for the night was at the "d Rock Cafe". It's so ghetto it probably originated in Michigan.

There, it's out of my system. Go eat a Hot Pocket.

Alright, these are (hopefully) the last two random pictures of downtown.

Who names their team the "Browns"? Honestly, folks, you can be more creative than that.

One last picture of the Hall. It's telling you "Visit me! I don't like to eat small rodents!"

Whoever said Lake Erie is ugly... you're ugly. :oP

46-61 (yes, my tummy is now full, and yes, I did skip #58)

Villan is still my #3 wooden roller coaster, only overshadowed by my Timbers and the Big Dippa'.

And finally, the next day we get to an amusement park. Six Flags Geauga Worlds of Ohio or something like that.

Quinton tried to get some digits, but Zack and Tyler got jealous and carried him away.

More groupies.

Eric : What happened to the RnRHoF?

Jordon : Can we leave so I can get some sleep?

Zack : Hey, I'm stoned!

Emily : Stop with the pictures...

Brad : I have a giant mouth.

Jenn : I'm being raped by the big-mouthed man.

I was hoping, however, that he'd fall out of the damned car.

The team mascot came around in a car between innings.

The clean up crew is so much better than the team. They're even better than Bill Clinton.

Whoooo! Lights on the giant scoreboard!

More shots of the game.

Once again, all of this became full after a while.

This is about as much zoom as my camera gets, but I love the quality shots it can take.

By the third inning, all of the seats in the stadium were filled.

Giant scoreboard = really cool

We got tickets in the nosebleed seats, so you can only see little black dots running around the field.

This was the whole reason we took the trip: the musical influence.

62-76 (yum)

Rough B&M coasters aren't a common thing, are they?

Dominator is a great ride, but could have been much better.

Hey look, some more people!

...the sign now looks ugly and color clashing. This will probably be changed soon too.

And while it looks really cool with the new paint job...

Thunderhawk was running nice and smooth, but then again I've never ridden any other SLCs before.

The front of the park still looks as it did in the Six Flags days, but now with Snoopy all over the place.

Now, I know I said X-Flight was the only rough coaster of the day, but then Dominator's second half ended up being rough. A B&M of this age, rough?!?

I liked this picture. I think it's pretty. Pretty like a pony.

I missed the whole train by about a half a second, but that's because I'm not used to this camera just yet.

Geauga Lake isn't as heavily populated with trash cans yet. I can imagine that's something that will change as attendance grows.

Now, none of you know me so you don't know about my Intamin impulse fetish, but yeah, I love impulses. Steel Venom is my favorite just because it was the first in the US, and because it's so much fun.

The crowd pictured was about the entire crowd for the day. Seriously.

Even Villan seemed smooth in the front seat (the only place to ride).

X-Flight was the only rough coaster of the day for me.

Hey Reality15

Great Photo TR, I enjoyed all the pictures & I liked allot the pictures of Cleveland City.

77-91 (yep, there's even more after this)

Thunderhawk was smoother than Dominator, isn't that funny? Not as funny as this fat kid riding Head Spin. That was funny.

Here's the water ski stadium and Splash Landing. Splash Landing was about 75% done when I was there.

Once again, I went a little camera crazy on my way over to Wildwater Kingdom. There's nothing to ride on the way, so I might as well take pictures.

Wildwater Kingdom was coming along well when I was there, considering this was supposed to be opening weekend.

Notice the complete lack of any movement in this picture. No, it was not planned that way, that's just how Geauga Lake is. Dead. Like the people at Haunt.

Thunderhawk really stands out nowadays, which is either a good thing or a bad thing.

All of that waterpark stuff could have been moved to Soak City at Cedar Point. God knows they need some new slides.

It looks funny without Hurricane Mountain over there. Hopefully there will be something new and big over there in future years.

Most of the "Wild Rides" skyline.

And now a basket gets in my way! How many inanimate objects are going to be in my pictures?

Darn tree got in my picture. Oh well. Maybe it's the home to a family of squirrels.

That first drop is insane if you sit in the back left seat, but the rest of the ride is just too rough for a B&M.

I thought this was a cool photo. Maybe you will too.

More Dominator photos. There are lots of these.

Raging Wolf Bobs needs a lot more help before it will EVER be a good ride.

92-106

I have no clue why I took so many pictures, but here's another one.

Alright, back to the Dominator/Thunderhawk/llama photos.

One of the only remaining Sea World buildings, the aquarium. I wonder what it will be used for?

Supposidly Michigan's Adventure's Sea Dragon has been painted blue this year. We'll see on Friday.

Geauga Lake has gotten more this year than Michigan's Adventure has gotten in the past 6 years... not fair.

It fits in if you stand in Wildwater Kingdom, but not if you stand in Happy Harbor.

At least they're honest that they're not ready to open yet. We'll save that for the next trip.

Ignore that giant funnel back there and check out the construction trucks! Man, aren't they so much cooler than X-Flight?

It looks just like it did back in the old Sea World Ohio days.

One of very few things left from the old Mission : Bermuda Triangle is this "submarine".

I can live with Dino Island II, but the movie is really poorly done.

Thunder Falls in Happy Harbor is like a walrus in the Shamu show. Wait, there is no Shamu show because they tore down the stadium. Evil Cedar Fair...

OMFG!!!1!1!!!1 C0NS+rUc+10N!!!!1!!!11!

Thunder Falls looks REALLY out of place in Happy Harbor.

Alright, last photo of Dominator/Thunderhawk for a while, so be happy.

The rest of the photos will be up tomorrow or Saturday (not Friday because of TimbersFest). Enjoy!

Nice TR!

You sure took nice pics of my city! Every time i take a pic of Cleveland, it always looks seedy. lol

yeah, GL is never crowded any more.

Nice TR!

You sure took nice pics of my city! Every time i take a pic of Cleveland, it always looks seedy. lol

yeah, GL is never crowded any more.

Great pics and captions! Being from Cleveland, I loved the pics of downtown and the Art Museum area. Now that I live in Orlando, I miss all of the cultural thing I took for granted back home.

And Geauga Lake looks great. I may have to swing by there next month when I am north visiting the family.

Again, thanks for the pics!!

DUDE!!!!! You got a picture of the hot dog at the Rock Hall. Phish rode across a mass crowd of people on to stage with that hot dog. That's one awesome weiner!

Being born and raised in Cleveland, I'm glad some one enjoyed the city... because I don't miss that God forsaken place one bit.

Nice TR! Crap load of cool pictures.

WOW,

a nice TR, with a lot of great pictures!

Thanks for posting this large quantity of pictures!

--Sören

Clevelands a cool city.. I loved it when I was there.. I saw the Rock Hall and Science Center... and the zoo is also nice..

When I was going to Cedar Point we stopped in cleveland for a few minutes just to take pics.. Lake Erie is nice around that area... however its not the cleanest water around ..

I never made it to GL but it looks similar to CP in the photos.. because It looks like Demon Drop, Wicked Twister and the Space Observitory in some of the pics..

Clevelands a cool city.. I loved it when I was there.. I saw the Rock Hall and Science Center... and the zoo is also nice..

When I was going to Cedar Point we stopped in cleveland for a few minutes just to take pics.. Lake Erie is nice around that area... however its not the cleanest water around ..

I never made it to GL but it looks similar to CP in the photos.. because It looks like Demon Drop, Wicked Twister and the Space Observitory in some of the pics..

Thanks for all the comments guys! Let's continue with the photos then!

107 - 121

This shot is a second late, and if it wasn't it would be really cool.

If you have a better caption, please let me know.

Here's a building. Yep, a building.

This picture actually makes Dominator look pretty. But appearances can be decieving.

Don't floorless trains usually have 9 cars?

Look at how much of an attention whore Dominator is, it got into my RWB shot!

This is going to be a giant series of pictures of Dominatrix now. Don't say you haven't been warned.

One final picture of the Bobs, just because it can be great if they do some work on it.

This is the old Gerstlauer train - the one from Legend isn't on the track yet.

...they removed the wolf, which gives Geauga Lake bad karma.

Although the setting is very nice...

RWB is shouting "Please finish retracking me!"

Here's the same shot from earlier, just now with a train in it.

And this is Dominator. There's nothing cool about Dominator, because it's a rough B&M.

This is Raging Wolf Bobs - still one of the worts remakes ever.

122 - 136

And this batch is almost all Dominator

Alright, before I move on here's a story about Texas Twister. I'd never ridden a top spin of any kind before, so thought I'd give it a try. Not only did it smash my sunglasses but it also smashed my other digital camera. Let's just say empty your pockets

You can all breath, this is the LAST DOMINATOR PHOTO OF THE UPDATE. It's also a kind of cool picture.

There's only one more picture of Dominator after this.

The Dominator photos are almost over.

One of my friends didn't understand the floorless concept, so this was a picture to describe it to her.

This train hated Paul Ruben so much it ran away from him.

"If you haven't ridden the Dominator, you should get out to Geauga Lake and ride it!"

"It also features many moments full of great sensations."

"It has one of the best loops on any modern steel coaster."

In Paul Ruben style... "The Dominator is truly a top-10 coaster."

Yep, this is just another random picture of Dominator. Excuse the boring pictures of the boring coaster in this reply.

This picture, on the other hand, is pretty. Really pretty.

And so does this one. Hey, I'm an amateur, what can I say?

No, I am not proud of this picture. It sucks.

Here's Gotham City.... err, Power City.

137 - 151

Halfway through the inversion.

And here is my current desktop background. I love this picture so much.

And here's a cool picture as it enters the first set of inversions.

Alright, here's a warm-up photo from the lift.

But first, a photo of Americana.

This picture didn't turn out as good as the following pictures.

This is the only "rough" part of the ride, and even Dominator is rougher than this.

I don't get why people hate SLCs, maybe this is the best of the bunch, but I love it.

Alright, now starts the Thunderhawk photos, which are a LOT better than the Dominator photos.

Double Loop is hard to photograph because it's surrounded by trees and rides.

This is the "old west" section of the park. Yep.

Double Loop, on the other hand, would benefit from some Premier looping trains (the ones with only lap bars).

Villan is really a great ride and would benefit from some PTC trains.

The Villan's sign got painted this year.

Geauga Lake's Carousel isn't too spectacular, but at least it's not a Chance one.

152 - 166

Here's one last launch picture.

This is as the train brakes going into the station. Once again, not very humorous.

Steel Venom is such a great ride, especially in the front seat.

I would have ridden last year, but it was closed when I was there.

Once again, this must be a good boomerang, because most enthusiasts hate them.

Head Spin was actually a fun ride, and I'll ride it again when I'm back next week.

Geauga Lake's sky tower, the Skyscraper. I have no humrous caption for it.

The Starfish is a ride that wasn't available last year due to its location. I didn't have the chance to ride it because I was on Steel Venom all afternoon.

I caught a picture of the train on a launch, which made me happy for a few seconds.

The sign's colors make me believe it will be painted soon.

But, the real star of the trip for me is Steel Venom, one of my favorite steel coasters ever.

It's actually quite the photogenic coaster as well.

Head Spin is the park's boomerang, and my first regular boomerang (I've been on Face/Off at PKI).

Intamin 1st and 2nd gen drops are so much fun, just because they're quick and old.

This ended up being a cool picture.

167 - 181

I had a good caption for this, but it wasn't PG-13 rated, so I'll save it for myself.

This is where Hurricane Mountain / Thunder Falls used to stand.

I was going to try to Photoshop this and make a 50-car-long train, but I'm too lazy to do it.

More photos of Steel Venom, because I love it so much.

R.I.P. Hurricane Hannah

El Dorado is intense, but not as intense as Falling Star at Michigan's Adventure.

Some people find the Big Dipper rough too, but I found it to be quite enjoyable for the second year in a row.

Here's looking at the old midway. Looks like it was built yesterday, if you ask me.

The Big Dippa' is a great ride as well, my #2 wooden roller coaster.

And I will still say that these slides can be moved somewhere and put to good use rather than bulldozed.

Here's some of Hurricane Hannah's. It's too bad this will all be gone in 2006.

This is taken during the hold, the best part of the ride, I might add.

Alright, last picture of Head Spin for now.

Head Spin really is a great looking ride, but has a bad station (hence why there's no pictures of it).

Impulse coasters are so great, but the hold on the back tower makes the front seat so insane that "it's a top-10 coaster" for me.

Great trip report - was in in Cleveland 2 year ago, went to R&RHoF too. Also ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. To answer your question, the original Hard Rock Cafe opened in London, England. The first one in North America was the one here in Toronto (corner of Yonge and Dundas). Toronto also has another one at the dome stadium where the Blue Jays play.

182 - 196

There's only two more replies after this full of pictures, then I'm done.

The Big Dipper was probably the #1 coaster when it debuted. Ask Paul Ruben, he would know.

"Go on and holler: I love the water! I love the coasters in the sun..."

The new picnic pavillions were to be completed the next day.

There was only one person on the ride at the time. Guess his weight.

Six Flags has much better theming than Cedar Fair has ever had, and unfortunately I think all of this will be lost over the next few years.

"Gotcha Games"... in a kiddie area? What kind of "family park" is this?

For some reason the song "Rock Lobster" played through my head when I saw this picture.

Time Warp is rough, but still a fun and unusual ride.

Americana was in a half-rehab/half-operation state that day.

The Big Dipper doesn't look too old, but when you ride it you'll know exactly how old it really is.

Mr. Hyde had no line all day long, so I got in a few rides.

A Head Spin photo, that really serves no purpose.

I hope the monorail gets re-done with the removal of Hannah's, it takes way too long to go around the last few curves.

Hey, look! PEOPLE!

Big Dippa' has some great trains, with knee pads (hint hint Zach's Zoomer).

197 - 211

The former Hurricane Mountain's grave.

Just some more random pictures. I was trying to use up my entire memory card.

Another Head Spinning picture.

I love Steel Venom. I love it.

Taking pictures on the monorail is really hard, as the trains are so weird.

I can garuntee you'll never see this kind of theming at Michigan's Adventure. EVER.

This is the one boring section on the ride.

Big Dipper has great airtime in the front and back. Too bad they added seatbelts this year.

Let's play "count the lawn chairs". You can go first.

I tried to get as many pictures of Hannah's as possible, it won't be around much longer.

Truck it over to Sandusky, paint it up, and you've got a free new-for-06 attraction that's well needed.

Look at how much cooler Big Dipper is than Dominator.

The only remaining slide tower.

All of this will be demolished soon.

Big Dipper will be the star of the old midway once Hannah's is gone.

212 - 228 (skips a few)

This is the final set of pictures. I hope you enjoyed this update!

My next update will be from TimbersFest (but will only be available on my website). After that I'm off to Niagara Falls and then down to Dorney, Hershey, Knoebel's, and more Geauga Lake! See you all near the end of the month!

Here's all of the group. (L-R by head position) Larz, Tyler, Corey, Zack, Jenn, Tony, Alan, Matt, Ben, Quinton, Emily, John, Brad, Jordon, Dane, Eric, then finally me in the yellow t-shirt holding my new sweatshirt blanket.

Last roller coaster picture of this update.

2 more. And this is a cool picture.

Only three more photos after this.

X-Flight really is a good ride, and I hope it gets better under Cedar Fair operation.

And another.

Another photo of Steel Venom.

About 6 jazz band groupies were on the ride at the time. They were all manually released within a half an hour.

Steel Venom would like to interrupt this story with a picture.

What happened is that the restraint unlock failed, and they couldn't figure out why.

... it breaks down! This ride is about as reliable as Top Thrill Dragster it seems.

Just as I get in line for X-Flight...

Supposedly Mr. Hyde had a nasty fall. I hope he's a'ight.

The final Head Spin photos, and one of the best.

Bye bye Hurricane Hannah's! It's been fun!