Coaster Community

The wife and I had been craving night rides on Renegade ever since Coaster Craze 07. So we packed up Ron & Art and drove up for Coaster Craze 08. We took our time getting up there since we'd been to the park a couple of times already and have narrowed down our favorites. We knew that we could easily conquer the park in just a couple of hours and then make use of the Renegade ERT. After checking into the Bloomington Sheraton ($50/night on Priceline) we made our way over to the park and got there a little after 7pm.

Our first ride was on the Flying Trapeze, which is our favorite swing ride around. It's too bad that they don't build them like this any more. The wave swingers are good but aren't quite this good. There wasn't a wait.

We took a quick ride in the back row of Wild Thing. It was one of the best rides that I've had. I wonder what was different??? This was a two train wait but they were running two trains so it was only a couple of minutes.

The Xtreme Swing was next and we had to wait one cycle. Great ride.

Power Tower was right there and was also a one cycle wait for the drop side. These things will probably always freak me out. Watching the sunset over Renegade was pretty cool.

We made our way to the front of the park to catch a ride on Steel Venom. It was the longest wait of the evening and probably took 10 minutes. Ron and I are the only ones that took part and we rode in the 3^rd row. I thought for sure that we were going to hit the bumper at the top of the forward spike.

It was pretty much dark by now and we start lap number 2 around the park. We hit the Flying Trapeze again along with another Xtreme Swing session and then started making our way back towards Renegade. They were only running 1 train and it had what was probably a 15 to 20 minute wait since a lot of people had come back there for their last ride of the night. They closed it about 10 minutes before the park closed to clear out some of the general public. The ERT was a blast and well worth the 6.5 hour drive. We probably got 7 rides in total, 1 in the front row, a couple in the very back and then a few in between.

The next day we slept in a little and then headed over to Ikea. Janessa can't go to Minneapolis without going to Ikea and I can't image not eating Swedish meatballs when I go to Ikea so it works out for everyone. She bought a bunch of crap that we don't need and I ate a meal when I wasn't hungry.

The mall was next and again she spent a bunch of money while I updated the photo gallery. I didn't actually ride anything because the place was packed.

We then headed to Como Town for the afternoon. Free zoo + credit whoring = good times. I was totally surprised by this little park. Every zoo should throw one of these outside their main gate. We only rode a couple of things. The Sky Glider was something new to us. You have to pedal your ass off to get flying but once you're up you can let the wife take over (just pretend like you're trying). In between rides we took a crack at whack-a-mole. I may have broken a finger. Screamin' Dragon was right in front of us and we had adult wristbands so it would have been dumb not to ride it. Afterwards I wish that I wasn't such a whore. That is an awful kid ride. I may have dislocated my liver on the drop. I found solace in the foot long corn dog they were selling a couple of feet away.

Our reason for even driving over to St. Paul was the free zoo so we said good bye to Como Town and headed over to animal town (I just made that up). It's a great little zoo and since it's free it's even better. The conservatory was also top notch. It's certainly worth the drive if you're already up there.

We decided to try something new for dinner and Janessa caught wind of Market Bar-B-Que in downtown Minneapolis. This was a bad idea. We're a bunch of Bar-B-Que snobs so we're hard to please. Word on the street was that the ribs were excellent. The street was wrong. The ribs were tough and flavorless. The coleslaw and fries were pretty good and the sauce was decent but not good enough to get me to come back. We'll stick to Twin City Grill at the mall for future dinners.

After dinner and checking out downtown we returned to the hotel and enjoyed the indoor pool and hot tub. It's a hotel that I will consider staying in again. The bathroom was a little cramped but the rest of the place was great. Priceline is the only way to go when you're staying in Minneapolis.