Hi again, everyone! I'm at my next stop here in a little town
called Pigeon Forge, Tennessee for Dollywood!
After 7 hours of driving, I made it to the park at about 5PM local
time. I decided to just grab a season pass because it was cheaper
than paying for two days.
I noticed that the season pass holders are immediately subjected
to product advertising because they have a special entrance
that leads into their gift shop (the exit is through that too).
After taking a peek at a park map, I headed off to this place:
I spy with my little eye:
Thunderhead!
Seeing as how the parking lot was almost completely full,
I figured I would have a big wait... but I was wrong.
It was a station wait, and they were running both trains.
I got on 12-R after one (more like 1.5) trains through.
Thunderhead rocks! Very good speed all the way through,
lots of twists and turns, and some decent air. I was a little dissapointed that it didn't have more air, but at least it was
a long ride. I have to admit, I like Voyage better.
A few pics:
I did about 3 rides on Thunderhead before I moved on to my
other prime target:
The first thing you see as you approach this ride is the big finale:
When you go a little further, you meet this interesting fellow:
It's an animatronic vulture that tells stories... when it isn't
sleeping (complete with snoring!). Like about how his father
sung a song to his mother every night... "You're the reason
our kids are so ugly"... of course he is J/K, his father really
sang about roadkill. "Eatin' off the road again." I missed the
first part of this line, but I heard him finish saying, "...space, without you in it." I assume that the previous lines had
something to do with his girlfriend breaking up with him, which
is a line from Jeff Foxworthy...
I digress, on with more Mystery Mine!
I really love this ride! The wait was generally just outside of
the station, but seeing as how I am a single rider, I was able
to skip basically the entire wait in the station (granted I
couldn't pick my seat completely). I found that 1-RR is the
best spot. It gives good Gs and the best view of almost all of
the scenery.
You start off my taking a quick dip from the station to the
sound of evil laughter. You can see workboots hanging from
rafters on the upper left. You take a 90-ish degree turn
to the left... which has a reverse banking (like Voyage).
Then you turn to the right past a bunch of cackling crows
with glowing red eyes, and take a small plunge under a big
rock crusher. Then it turns back to the left past a small
fake track (makes it look like you are going to run into a
spiderweb) and wait at the bottom of the first lift.
After going up the lift, and getting onto the first big brakerun,
you get your first vertical drop, right before the halfpipe.
That drop gives some really nice ejector. After two helecies,
a small hill, and an S-bend curve, you come to a stop at
the bottom of the second lift. A light shines on a canary in a
cage, which then dies (I believe the canary was used to
detect toxic gas). Then you start up the lift, with the sounds
of shaking and thunder. A screen on the ceiling shows
lightning striking a tower, which collapses onto your
"escape route". As you crest the lift, you stop on a
holding brake, and watch fuses streak across the wall to stacks
of dynamite! Real flames shoot out at you, the holding brake
releases, and you take a huge, 97 degree drop out of the mine,
which is followed up directly be the heartline + dive loop finalle.
I found out the hard way that you should push up on your
restraints as you come over the little bunny hill >_<
That was uncomfortable...
I really think I liked MM better than TH. It is just fun with all
of the themeing (gotta get a front seat to really see it though).
I did 3 or 4 runs on MM, then did another 2 or 3 runs on TH.
I was about to ride in the front seat all by myself
(which is kind of nice), but a cute ride op asked if she could
sit with me. Of course I said yes 8P. I asked her if she was
on a break or something because from my experience ride ops
aren't allowed to ride while on the job. She said that they
had to ride it every 2 hours to make sure everything is fine.
I also asked her if she had to ride it "test ride" style, which,
of course, she did. Seeing as how I used to be a ride op myself,
I decided to do it test ride style too, so she wouldn't feel
so alone lol. As we came into the station, one of the ride ops
threw water on her, and she was not amused...
Anyway, after that I just marathoned MM until close.
I think I got a total of 6 rides on TH, and about 10-15 on MM.
Tomorrow I will get on more stuff and probably take a few more
pictures.
Oh yeah, check out the photos of my hotel in the next post:
Linear Mode
