Photo courtesy of RideZone

Dear Diary, Today was supposed to be a full day at Hersheypark. It wasn't. Our ERT ended so late last night that Cindy and I were just too tired to get up early for morning ERT. To be honest the morning ERTs are not all that enticing on this trip. Great Bear is a good draw, but ERT on rides that don't normally have long lines to begin with, like the Kissing Tower, Rodeo and Wave Swinger are not worth waking up early for. So we chose to sleep in late this morning and get to the park just before noon. We met up with Sean, Chris, Neil, Phyllis, Jon, Barry Short, and Barry Martin at noon in front of Chocolate World. Today was Chris Murray's 79th birthday, so I bought him a couple of gifts: some Hershey's ice cube trays so that he can entertain his guests with inappropriate ice molds, and a Hersheypark beanie complete with propeller. It turns out Chris had already spotted this beanie and was planning to get one, so my present was a good one! I love Chocolate World. I think it's fascinatin! We rode in two groups and of course everyone made fun of the ride, particularly the part where the chocolate kisses come spurting out onto the paper - plllllll. Chris Murray is a master of observation and has a funny one liner for everything. My personal favorite was "It burns!" as we went into the "roaster." Afterward we were touring the gift shop and I made the unpardonable error of bouncing a basketball *one time.* All of a sudden everybody in the group descended on the basketball bin and started bouncing basketballs. I gotta get some new friends. I also made the unfortunate mistake of wincing in pain. A couple of days earlier we rode the bumper cars at Conneaut and Tim Melago banged into me hard and hurt my shoulders. Well, when Chris asked me what was wrong I said without even thinking "Tim Melago banged me so hard it knocked my shoulders back." Well that was a mistake and of course they immediately picked up on it. Both Sean and Chris have been teasing me about getting banged by Tim Melago ever since. Poor Tim, he probably doesn't even know he's the center of a joke by some very sick and twisted people. For some reason Chris really wanted to do the water rides. And for some reason he wanted me to do them, too. I don't like to do water rides! First of all I'm afraid of shoot the chutes, and second, I don't like to get my shoes wet. But for some reason Chris wants enjoys seeing me look like a drowned rat! I think it's because he knows I don't like it! Anyway, they all went off to do the water rides and we didn't see them again until later in the day. Cindy, Greg and I chose to do the coasters in Midway America - Mad Mouse, Wildcat and Lightning Racer. Wildcat is quite a bit rougher this year - it has some nasty shuffling on the first two drops - but it's still tolerable and delivering enormous airtime in the front. We then began the first of what would be three ice cream sillies that day. There is an old fashioned ice cream stand just outside of Lightning Racer that features hand dipped ice cream and specialty sundaes. When I saw that they had strawberry shortcake featuring fresh strawberries, whipped cream, sprinkles and a chocolate covered strawberry, I had to have one. Greg followed up with a root beer float and Cindy chose the irresistable popcorn chicken-tub o' perogies combination. We were entertained by a group calling themselves Trash Time, which was actually very entertaining! And for the record, my strawberry shortcake was so good I am determined to have another one before this Con ends. We rode Lightning Racer over and over until it was time to leave Hersheypark for the second park of this Con, Williams Grove. I was so excited to go back to Williams Grove! I went there for the first time last year and found the park to be so charming and so weird, all at the same time. I knew the ambience of my first visit would be lost this time. Seven hundred ACEers will do that. But I was excited for Cindy to see it, and I knew she would love it as much as I did. We were lucky to be the first in line to get in. We got to enter the park as I saw it on my last visit - virtually deserted. The place just has a different feel than any other traditional park I've been to. Some things are totally cool while others are just plain weird. Williams Grove is a park that is best described as being slightly off kilter. That isn't to say it isn't pretty because it definitely is! The park is completely shaded by huge trees, and a meandering creek runs the entire length of the park. Ducks, geese and on this visit, bunny rabbits roamed at random throughout the park! The bunny rabbits alone gave this park a different kind of atmosphere than any other park I've been to. There must have been over a thousand bunny rabbits running around here! Everywhere you looked there was a bunny rabbit just barely getting past the choo choo train, and three more running alongside the coaster. The park was closed to the general public and was fully open for us. Well, not entirely fully - a couple of rides and concession stands weren't open but there were plenty of food options, games, kiddie rides, flat rides and all three coasters. And I cannot give enough praise to Williams Grove for the way we were treated on this day. I think it's safe to say that everyone had a much better time than they expected! The rides here are so much fun, and the staff treated us like kings! Williams Grove Cyclone is such a shock to those who've never ridden it before. Some love it, some don't. But everyone goes through an initiation of sorts. Cindy and I chose the backseat for our very first ride. Most who do usually don't ever again. EVER again. This is a really fun coaster - extremely choppy but with very comfortable seats, and thank God! The ride op was also the carpenter and maintenance man for the coaster and was great at telling us all about the coaster and all the improvements he'd made. One "improvement" may not be looked on as such - the final hill has been curved now, no more 90 degree jump onto the brake run! This man clearly loves his coaster - toward the end of the night he rode in front of Cindy and I, and he was hooting and hollering right along with the rest of us. For me, Williams Grove is all about quirks. This park has an abundance of quirks. I think my favorite quirk in this park, other than the Cyclone, is the fun house. The whole time you're in this fun house you are serenaded to the funereal song "Amazing Grace." It just cracked me up to stumble around in a wacky shack and hear that organ playing "Amazing Grace!" The final element is a spinning barrel that you have to pass through. The ride op showed us how to walk it, but some of us still made spectacles of ourselves. I attempted to put my arms and legs out to do a rolling handstand but the barrel is too big and I looked like an idiot trying to get out of there. Dante's Inferno is one of the best dark rides I've been on. It is so dark and the scenes are great - the funniest is a guy laying on a table flailing his arms about while getting split in half by a rotary blade. The picnic at Williams Grove was AWESOME. This park really had their act together for this event. They had a huge serving pavillion and set up three buffet lines, as opposed to the endless single line last night at Hersheypark. The result was an efficient serving process and allowing everybody to get their food quickly and eat together. And oh my God, the food was so good! Homemade fried chicken, TONS of it - and this chicken was some of the best I've ever had! HUGE chunks of wonderful potato salad (I am a potato salad *nut* and this was fantastic) and pork and beans, hot dogs and sauerkraut, potato chips and a huge bowl of fruit cocktail. They really did provide an all-you-can-eat buffet. I can't imagine how they made all that food. Cindy and I sat at the end of the pavillion near the roller-coaster and laughed a lot watching backseat riders get tossed around like rag dolls! We ate with the Fluhartys and Ansleys and it was a *really* nice dinner. Kudos to Williams Grove for doing it right! I also achieved a personal milestone on this night. I rode my 300th roller-coaster! I chose the Williams Grove Kiddie Coaster as my 300th. It was great - several bunny rabbits chose to mark the occasion by running around the train, and the woman who ran it was so sweet and enthusiastic - she gave the "raise the roof" sign everytime the coaster went around and she ran it just like the High Speed Thrill Coaster at Knoebels. It was also here that Dave Hamburger ran up and hugged me! Yay, Dave's here! And I was amused by a female employee we deemed "Helga," a German sounding woman who continually rode up on her golf cart spouting orders to the ride op and conversing with all the ACEers standing in line. In the back of Helga's cart she proudly displayed the ACE plaque that was given to the park over fifteen years ago. Next we headed back back back to a hidden section of the park to ride their Wildcat. This is a new coaster for Williams Grove and apparantly came from a pier park in New Jersey. It is really tucked back in the park - if you don't actively look for it you'll miss it! I just love Wildcat coasters! They only had two cars running on this night, and the ride op said one of them was running eight seconds slower than the other! Cindy and I rode in the slow car with Mike Thompson and Ron Bean and Mike felt compelled to blow at the back of the car in order to keep us from valleying at the top of the second hill. The rest of the night was spent having fun with a variety of friends. Cindy and I played miniature golf with Tom Kelley and Curt Hassinger while Mark Gobat kept score. Chris Murray threw ice at me and attempted to disrupt my game, but I still managed a tie for the win with Curt. We also rode the train ride and were treated to tons of bunny rabbits and fireflies. We must have seen more bunny rabbits and fireflies than any other place! We tried to make the boat ride with Sean and Chris and everybody but our game took too long. It turned out to be a good thing because I finally got to meet Mike and Dawn Robinson and their son, Zack! I have known Mike online for years now and have never had the opportunity to meet him. We instantly hugged and it was like we'd friends forever! Mike and Dawn make a very cute couple and with Zack they are the picture perfect family. Williams Grove is a small park, but they seem to have an awful lot to do. Their paratrooper is probably my favorite, thanks to the absence of the gut crushing lap bar found on most of them. Their Tilt-a-Whirl *looks* promising but turned out to be all tilt and no whirl! It turned out to be probably the best worst ride I've ever had as it was so bad we ended up acting silly on it. And their Twister doesn't come close to the insanity of Conneaut's, but we occasionally got some good spins and had a lot fun taking it over. Phyllis Withers seemed to have found a new home on it! She just laughed and laughed with every spin! For most of the night there was only one moving floor working in the upper section of the fun house, but toward the end of the night Cindy and I decided to make one more pass. We got upstairs and turned the corner and saw all those noisy floors working and both of us literally jumped for joy! At one point there is a huge blast of air shooting up from the floor, and Cindy struck her best Marilyn Monroe pose. Later on Jon Smith laid down in the barrel and let himself get rolled over by it. We ended the night with Sean and gang, Greg Galley and several others, taking our last rides on Twister and finally the Musik Express. Several in Sean's gang ended up buying the same Hersheypark beanie that I got Chris for his birthday, and they all wore them to Williams Grove. Chris, Jon and Neil put their beanies over their faces and looked hilarious as their propellers spun wildly. We didn't leave Williams Grove until they kicked us out and turned off the lights. It was so nice to hear everyone raving about the fun time they had at this park. It was not the exaagerated freak park that others have claimed, but truly a wonderful traditional park with great rides, friendly employees, and a very unique atmosphere. Say goodnight to the bunnies and fireflies. It was truly a magical night at Williams Grove.