travels
2009 summer road trip: Cassadaga, NY
Although the amusement parks were undoubtedly the best part of our trip, we also stopped at some other places along the way including a Cassadaga in Lily Dale, NY a small spiritualist town. We experienced a kind of awkward time in the free assembly, and we also got lost in the fairy trails.
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2009 summer road trip: roadside america
On the first day of our trip not even to our hotel yet we stopped at Roadside America a vintage miniature train exhibit in Shartlesville, PA.We absolutely loved it and like the sign says, we did see more than we expect. Please visit it if you have the opportunity to so we can keep this roadside attraction open for a long time!
2009 summer road trip: kennywood
We were really looking forward to this bigger and more well-known amusement park. I also kept in mind that Adventureland the movie based on the Long Island amusement park was mostly shot here and looked for places where they shot scenes of the movie. From the hotel we were staying at to West Mifflin, PA took hours driving along farmland, windy highways through mountains that scared me to hilly, city roads. When we finally arrived and parked, it was a hot sunny day and we were ready to have fun.
Garfield’s Nightmare (formerly The Old Mill) – This is the first ride we went on at Kennywood and was about the same quality of Six Flags job over in Jungleland in Great Escape. They took a fantastic looking historic dark-ride, took out all the charm and sets and put up enlarged, neon colored, comic-book pictures of Garfield that I could have printed at Kinko’s and slapped on some wood backing. That’s the ride. Oh and there’s I think one room where they actually constructed a Garfield structure and a lasagna or something…we were sure to look EXTRA bored during the photo-op on the ride in-case anyone scans through the photos for quality control.
2009 summer road trip: experience kennywood yourself
Once again, thanks again to some lovely Youtubers for posting point-of-view videos of rides at Kennywood.
2009 summer road trip: experience knoebels yourself!
Phoenix Rollercoaster
Once again, thanks to some lovely people over on Youtube for posting point-of-view videos of rides I too rode at Knoebels.
2009 summer road trip: knoebels
Our favorite park overall was Knoebels. It was a bit of a hike to get there but once we did we were impressed with its low-key amusement park surroundings and the friendly people. Its not the most glamorous park with designed walkways and landscaping but where this park lacked in glamor, it was packed with heart. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the rides at this park but I will go over some of my favorites with pictures from Knoebels website and Google.
Phoenix Roller coaster - The Phoenix is a roller-coaster that looks handmade by someone that woke up one Saturday morning and said “Imma gonna build a rollercoaster.” Now this obviously isn’t true but the mechanics of this ride are almost medieval and incite danger through your mind as you are riding. 90% of the ride I was airborne, my butt was not on that seat and I was fearful for the child in-front of me who obviously weighs less and could easily fall out. Needless to say, I loved it.
i wanna rock, ROCK!
Tuesday night my mother treated me to seeing Rock of Ages at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in NYC(discount tickets oh yeah!). It was my first Broadway show and it was an appropriate choice for us with all the scantily clad girls, Constantine Maroulis, booze, the 80s LA scene and rock and roll…okay maybe only the second one. My mom and I were big fans of Constantine on American Idol and let me say his voice surely impressed in person!! He was absolutely fantastic and believable in his role.
2009 summer road trip: experience waldameer yourself!
Thanks to some lovely darkride/funhouse fans they have made it possible for everyone to ride on The Whacky Shack and Pirates Cove from the comforts of your own computer.
2009 summer road trip: waldameer
Waldameer was a very clean park, easy to get to and low priced! However the restrooms were difficult to find(walk inside an auditorium, follow a hallway to the bathrooms what?) and the food wasn’t satisfying. But that aside, there were two FANTASTIC vintage rides!
2009 summer road trip
In the summer of 2009, my boyfriend and I embarked on a little road trip to amusement parks with vintage dark rides and roller-coasters in PA with a few other stops along the way. The memories from the trip are what keep a smile on my face through this cold, dark and snowy winter.
I did A TON of research before our trip including pricing, mapping out thrift store locations(which we didn’t even have time for), routes, finding amusement parks with active dark rides and wooden roller-coasters, mapping out roadside attractions and finding hotels(we only stayed at one and then with family). I used a feature on Google Maps to map out our road trip and it was very helpful to visualize where to get a hotel and where we were going and when.
Amusement parks we stopped at include Waldameer in Erie PA, Knoebels in Elysburg, PA and Kennywood in West Mifflin, PA. Something that’s great about these parks is that you pay-per-ride except for Kennywood which I used a coupon code online for and got in for only $20-$25.
Each day this week I will be posting blogs about the different parks we went to and places we visited, I hope you will enjoy!
hearts, meg
