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 I started my day off wandering the park seeing any and all new changes. I had to wait to ride any rides because maintenance was getting the rides ready to hand over for training. I was walking along Forum road and noticed landscaping crews were already busy removing leaves off the Taxis hill. About that time ELI was on its way past Boomerang. As cold as it was at that time the steam coming from the stack was a little kids dream. I continued to make my way around towards Americana and just enjoying my peaceful walk, Security guards were out doing situational training so they were running around all day acting out different situations.
I made my way over to Patriot to get some snapshots of the trains flying through the Immelman, the heart line, and through the flying turn. After a few runs I went up to the station platform to join the crew as they did their track walk. They seem to be eager and excited about working at this ride. After they returned they started doing their training and started cycling, so I hopped on with a few of the other ambassadors. I went straight to the back left side for my first ride of the season. Man it was great to fly again on this incredibly smooth B&M. It was running fast! I rode again a few times up front and again in the back before departing.
 I continued to walk around the park and got a few pictures of Spinning Dragon’s cycling their cars. After that I went out to The front of the park, They still have to put the Festhause Tent up, they also still need to put the Fjord Fairlane’s cars and arms back together, Looking at the main ride it could use a major coat of paint. Viking Voyager wasn’t ready yet so I passed on taking any pictures. I stopped at Octopus next, it is ready to go, and maintenance was putting some finishing touches on it.
I also snapped a couple of pictures of Prowler from the Octopus fence, the crew was busy working all over the ride. Two guys I noticed were at the top doing something up there, I also noticed they had put a pole at the very top maybe for a camera for the panel operator. I continued over to Boomerang and up towards Mamba and Nile. Nile still has a lot of work yet to do, the lift up to the station from the tunnel is complete but the side where the rafts drop back down is still waiting for boards. The vertical board conveyor still needs to be pieced back together. The Mamba had two trains on the track one had water dummies in it. Maintenance ended up cycling it a couple of times before she was quiet the rest of the day.
I headed back towards detonator and snapped a couple shots of them cycling the ride, then headed to ride ELI so I could see Prowler. This ride wraps all around where the train goes and will be awesome to see when the trains roar by! It is amazing to see the elevation changes on Prowler from ELI’s perspective.
 After that it was lunch time I came back and of course went to ride Patriot again! This time Timberwolf was up and running. This thing is awesome now! It’s the smoothest it’s has been since I started riding coasters! I rode in a lot of different seats and none of them seemed rough. They did a great job retracking this thing.
The crews for the day seem excited to be there and seem to have some enthusiasm about the season. It was good to also hear that there is a rivalry among Patriot, Mamba, and Prowler crews already to see who the best is and who can put the guests through the fastest!
On Sunday was a little bit chilly and to be honest I only stayed at Mamba. The crews for Sunday included:
Mamba, Monsoon, Camp Snoopy, Timberwolf, Ripcord, Octopus / Zulu, and Boomerang.
 Mamba is amazing as usual, and yeah it is awesome to ride when it snows! During the off season they put new fencing and gravel at the bottom of the second drop which makes look cleaner, they also seemed to have replaced some sections of rail coming out of the helix where the trains cross back under in the head choppers. Even though the temperatures were dropping fast, the train was going at a steady pace. There was one point near the end of the day where at the top of the third hill a gust of wind picked up and it slowed the train down to what seemed like a crawl, Mattthemotorman and I looked at each other in disbelief, we made it! After that we got one more ride in before we closed it down for the day. Overall, the crews seem ready to go and the park is on its way to finish up landscaping and such.
Click here to see all of the photos from the weekend
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