After a *fabulous* day at Kennywood, it was time for Christian and me to hit the road! In the middle of our 8 hour drive to Hartford, CT, we made two stops: Lakemont Park in Altoona, PA, and Del Grosso's (only 20 minutes away from Lakemont) in Tipton, PA. Both of the independently-owned little parks were well-kept & pleased to see ACErs!
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| This must be the place! Christian and I arrived right at opening & we had the place to ourselves. |
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| Lakemont has several amusement park mainstays. |
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| *gasp* WHAT is THIS!!!??? |
Turns out Lakemont has this rare vintage Twister ride! It rode like a variation on a Tilt-A-Whirl with wild mouse-like cars.
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| XTREME TWISTER POV! (with the ride operator's blessing, of course. Lakemont didn't seem to have a loose articles policy posted anywhere.) |
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| Here's an interesting variation on the Spider that I hadn't seen before either. |
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| YUSSSSS. This is why we are here. |
Lakemont's biggest draw is, of course, their 111-year-old roller coaster, Leap The Dips!
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| *certificate of legit-ness |
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| Here's the man in charge of Leap The Dips. He sells the tickets & manages the operations. Christian and I told him we were with ACE and he was delighted! He even gave us buy-one-get-one rides! |
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| Our chariot |
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| The ride was great! Very fun, with just the right amount of roughness. Lakemont has taken excellent care of this coaster. |
So credit #13 of the year really delivered! Credit #14, however, I feared would be a different story. I'm talking, of course, about the park's Chance Toboggan. After my experience at Little A-Merrick-A, I wasn't looking forward to this one.
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| Much to my surprise, Lakemont's Toboggan was not nearly as rough as I was expecting. It was actually enjoyable & rather charming. |
Sadly, my would-be credit #15 was denied due to my being an adult. *sigh*
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| DENIED. |
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| Let's try this one. |
On our way to Skyliner, we saw the go-kart employees hard at work.
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| As soon as I took this picture, the ride operator kicking back in the car hopped up & pretended to look busy. |
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| Skyliner, like Leap The Dips, has the nicest old rolling stock. Immaculate. |
Woohoo! Credit #15 is a success! Lakemont is two for two with their old woodies. Skyliner, while tame in general, is very fun and totally smooth. It's a coaster I never hear about, so I'm starting a dialogue about it RIGHT NOW.
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| Skyliner: Tremendously under-rated old woodie. Discuss. |
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| There should really be more people at this park riding this coaster. I shudder to think of how many more people have probably ridden Son Of Beast or some other awful woodie. |
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| Heading back to Leap The Dips, we saw that the number of people at the park had rocketed to about 50. |
Back over at Leap The Dips, I was really eager to get some shots of the ride in action, but Christian and I were the only ones that had ridden so far. I offered to pay some fellow park guests to ride so that I could take pictures, but the ride manager let them ride for free! Amazing.
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| Watching the ride run was great. It's just so cute! |
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| I was definitely one happy thrillographer taking this pictures. |
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| Weeeeee! :D |
So here's the kicker: I went back to thank the Leap The Dips manager for being so gracious. Quickly becoming wise to my photo-taking antics, he asked if I had taken any pictures during my Leap The Dips rides. I told him that sort of thing is pretty much against every amusement park policy in the country, which was news to him. His response was that I better ride again and take some on-ride photos for the blog. He insisted, and granted us yet another free ride! I was pretty awash with gratitude, not to mentioned stunned. Ahh, the beauty of a small-operation park!
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| I was basically trembling with excitement when I took this. |
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| "OMG! CHRISTIAN! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?? I'M TAKING PICTURES FROM LEAP THE DIPS!! OMG." |
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| The famous lift-top gazebo! |
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| WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| I'm probably not capable of expressing the excitement I was feeling at this point. I haven't had the luxury of on-coaster-photos since the ACE Scandinavian Sojourn! |
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| XTREME POV OF LEAP THE DIPS.....WELL.....LEAPING THE DIPS! |
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| BIG DROP!!! |
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| We were traveling at the break-neck speed of about 8 feet per second! |
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| HOME STRETCH! |
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| YEEHAW!!! That was great!!! Thanks, guys!! |
After my spectacular on-ride photo session with Leap The Dips, Christian and I said our goodbyes to the awesome Leap The Dips crew. The manager guy made sure that we were headed to Del Grosso's next. He was pleased to hear that we were; the parks are friends! Looks like the Central PA independent parks stick together!
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| Here we are! Del Grosso's greets you with their very Cedar-Point-like 80's slide towers. |
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| Though lacking a signature roller coaster, Del Grosso's has beautiful landscaping and a charming atmosphere. |
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| WOOOO! I am just racking up the XTREME POVs today! |
Credit #16, though a mere Wacky Worm, was made special by the park's similar-to-Lakemont loose article policy.
For all you bureaucrats out there, I'd like to clarify once more that I did indeed receive permission to use my camera on Twister, Leap The Dips, and Wacky Worm by the rides' respective park representatives. :}
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| ummm......yeah. |
Remember kids, if you DON'T obey an amusement park's written or expressed loose article policy, you might end up just like Buddy Bear: with two handfuls of broken fingers! ;}
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| My vintage-kiddie-ride-senses are tingling! It's a "Bulgy the Whale" ride!! |
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| Like Lakemont, Del Grosso's has a lovely collection of beautifully-maintained amusement park classics. |
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| *insert fart joke here* |
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| The park's spinning mouse has apparently never heard of trim breaks. Score! |
It's not Exterminator, but it's still a good time! Credit #17 is in the bag!
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| We only had about a 1/2 hour to spend at Del Grosso's (we were already running late to pick up some peeps at the airport in Hartford), but the park showed us a good time! The ladies at the gift shop were thrilled to see ACErs!! |
Pretty quick update, huh? It was a pretty short park day, after all. At 11AM we entered Lakemont, and by 2:30 we were leaving Del Grosso's! Six hours, two states, and one wrong airport later (turns out there's TWO airports in Hartford. pfft.), Jeff Voogt, Steve Perry, and Dan Uroff joined the car pool for the beginning of official ACE festivities! Next update: Join me, Jeff, Dan, Steve, John Swarens and Mat Wangrow as we take on the parks of Connecticut with ACE! This is when things start to get crazy, y'all. :}
Love!!!!!
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