Lake Winnie 7/15/2009
Our morning started off with Lake Winnie, a traditional amusement park in Chattanooga, Tennessee (atlhough the park is technically in Goergia). The park visit started with 30 mins ERT on the main attraction, the Cannonball roller coaster. The line may look long, but it was just enough people to fill on of the classic trains. However the entire day was bascially an ERT session because the park wasn't busy. It was a Wednesday, but the operators told me sometimes the line reaches all the way around the other side of the coaster on weekends. I am usually a back seat rides but I found the front seat to have much more airtime than the back, and therefore was more enjoyable.
A look up the lifthill of the Cannonball
After ERT (during which I got around 5 rides) we headed over to the parks wild mouse, Wild Lightnin'. This one actually was pretty wild as it wasn't braked much at all during the course. It, like most of the rides at the park, was located right on Lake Winnie itself:
With one more credit to achieve we headed to the Wacky Worm next. Nothing special to say about it, it is just your typical custom model (no turntable). Right next door was the dark ride Castle, which was pretty ghetto...but I enjoy ghetto rides like it. The last notable thing there was in the park was a classic boat chute ride. This was our longest wait of the day, but was only about 10-15 mins. As soon as you board the boat you enter a dark and danky tunnel:
Basically the boat just wonders through this dark tunnel for about 7 hours, so im sure plenty of nasty goes down inside there :P. Just kidding, but about 5-10 minutes later we came to the end of the tunnel which leads into an old creaky lift hill. The drop on the other side was nothing special, but the old school atmosphere of the ride made it enjoyable.
Luckily the drop doesn't get you that wet if you are a pussy and afraid of water. After the drop the ride made a 180* and it was basically over. Here is a shot of the splash from the sky ride:
Next the park gave us a catered lunch, which was very yummy. They also gave us ice cream to help cope with the hot temperature. They also informed us that they had coaster parts from Cannonball on sale for us so I picked up an upstop wheel. After doing some shopping we went back over to Cannonball for some more rides...it kept on getting better and better for me. It's just so smooth and so much fun.
The first drop
Getting floater air time on the return run!
The only other ride we did during the day was the park's kickass ARM drop tower, OhZone! It was only a 70' model, but every single ARM drop tower on the planet is amazing. They have extreme negative g's and they don't stop at the top...or brake until the very last oppurutunity. It also provided some fantastic views of the park and the Cannonball:
Eventually it became time to leave since we were going to Alabama Adventure next, which was about 3-4 hours away. I really liked Lake Winnie, as the charm of classic, traditional parks is unmatched by any of the big guns out there...and their rides are usually really good.
If you wish to look at all 200+ photos from Lake Winnie, just go here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakizle/sets/72157621523067127/
