|
I have travelled A LOT this year. All totalled, I will have visited
over fifty amusement parks before the end of this coastering season.
Some of those parks have seen me return as many as three or four times
over the course of this year. And on each of those visits, I am often
not content to spend only one day at the park, no matter how small the
park is or how full the day may be. Big or small, there are some
parks that you just can't get enough of. There are some parks where
time seems to stand still, where you feel as though you've been
transported to a completely different environment, to a place you
never want to leave. And while I have really enjoyed every park I've
been to this year, there are some parks that have a certain intangible
quality that make them stand out among the rest as unforgettable. Silverwood Theme Park in Athol, Idaho stands out as an unforgettable place - one of those magical parks that you just can't get enough of. This is a park that is best characterized, in a word, as charming. It exudes charm on a type and scale I have not seen in any other park. The atmosphere here is so unique, so original, so downright charming that I cannot find a proper way to label it. It is a very unique mix of old west charm, victorian elegance, independent spirit and the incredible beauty and isolation of the northwest. The park is so original I hesitate to compare it to any other place. However, I managed to note many similarities to yet another standout park, Knotts Berry Farm. Like Knotts, Silverwood is western themed, distinctly unpretentious, shows no signs of commercialism, prides itself on having a friendly and personable staff, has a superior sit-down full service restaurant, unusual shows, well-maintained rides and a top ten wooden roller-coaster. The look of the park is one of the things I liked best. It is unlike any other park I've been to, and in this day and age of cloned rides and the "malling" of amusement parks, an original design and look is truly appreciated. Even the flower beds are simple, original and very pretty. The layout is fragmented into several sections, each of them distinct and original. The first is Main Street, which sits off to the right away from the rest of the park and is not like most main streets in that you don't automatically walk into it upon entering the park. You must *go* to Main Street. And go you must. It is a true old west Main Street, with a two sided boardwalk divided by a railroad that runs through the center of the street. On either side of the street are original and beautifully designed western buildings, each offering something unique and a welcome variation from other amusement park main streets. The Victorian Coffee Shop is SO GOOD I cannot give proper justice to it. It is truly a victorian coffee shop! It is staffed by victorian dressed employees, and decorated with truly original crafts and wares, most of which are on display and for sale. Plates, dishes, utensils, old fashioned furniture and kitchen appliances, country crafts, homemade canned jellies and jams. I bought several jars of wild huckleberry jam, huckleberry syrup and creamy chokeberry honey. One taste of huckleberry and I was hooked! It is truly native to this area and is somewhat similar to the boysenberry at Knotts Berry Farm. Oh yes, the Victorian Coffee Shop also sells coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. You can buy it by the bag, or by the drink. And you can have just about any variation of coffee you want here. I had a frozen cappuccino (with extra coffee added), and an iced mocha latte. Carole Sanderson had an iced huckleberry latte, which I could just kick myself for not ordering! Outside the Victorian Coffee Shop, pretty tables and chairs have been set up on the lawn. Now I don't mean set down on a slab of concrete and corporatized into commercial blandness, I mean they are set right down on the shaded lawn, under a tree, overlooking the airstrip that is part of the park's property and serves as the staging area for the nightly fireworks show that runs on weekends. The fireworks are an extremely popular feature at the park, and families begin gathering early on the lawn to pick just the right spot to spread out their blanket and watch the planes take off and land before the fireworks. A concession grill sells 99 cent hamburgers, hot dogs and cokes. I'm telling you, this is Americana at its finest. Further down the lawn, Main Street also features a large, old fashioned candy store with homemade chocolates and candy. I bought some chocolates including chocolate huckleberry sticks, while Fred bought some homemade suckers that smelled very potent! Next to the candy store is the Silverwood Ice Palace. The Palace is presented an ice show with an olympic and world figure skating champion as their featured performer! I find it absolutely amazing that this small park in Idaho would offer a show of this caliber with talent at this level!!! Across the street was an old fashioned independent movie theatre. The lobby sold fresh popcorn that smelled incredible, along with other snacks. Fred and I went inside the theatre for a while and watched the movie. This theatre must double as another entertainment venue because there was a large trunk and lighting equipment on the stage. Neither Fred nor I recognized the movie being played on the screen, but the music was distinctly reminiscent of 70's style porno so we hightailed it outta there! Next door to the movie house is an ice cream parlour. Oh my god, you simply would not believe how huge these scoops of ice cream are!!! They scoop like a quart of ice cream into either a bowl or a waffle cone, and they come in good flavors, including, of course, huckleberry! The ice cream parlour empties into a saloon which on this night was packed with people watching a magic show. Again, Silverwood's show lineup really impressed me! Next door to the saloon was the only establishment typically found in other amusement parks, a clothing shop. Fortunately, Silverwood sells outstanding merchandise (not only on Main Street but throughout the park), and I bought a Tremors cap and a park polo shirt. Main Street also serves as the boarding area for the train ride, one of Silverwood's signature attractions and an extremely popular ride. The train leaves the station every thirty minutes, goes way out into the woods and includes a few surprises along the way. Our ride was memorable in that we stopped along the way to pick up a stranded "woman" and her baby. Somehow Fred never made the connection that it was actually a man in drag. I think this has happened to Fred before! Unfortunately our ride was hampered by a jerk sitting behind Tim and Dave - you know, one of those people who thinks he's funny but isn't and feels compelled to continuously shout things out because he is just sooooo darn funny. Where's the live ammo when you need it? The rest of the park is to the left of the main entrance and consists primarily of two distinct sections - the "rides area" and Coaster Alley. The layout contains long, S-shaped, meandering walkways. Other than Coaster Alley, you cannot see the park in full, sweeping view and consquently, each turn in the walkway brings new surprises, making the park feel much bigger than it actually is! The first building to the left of Main Street is Lindy's Restaurant. This is a full-service, sit-down restaurant and I cannot tell you what a rare and refreshing thing it is to find a restaurant of this caliber in an amusement park these days. Lindy's features both covered patio and air-conditioned indoor seating. It is exquisitely designed and decorated - the park's PR director, Nancy DiGiamarco, told me that the Norton family (owners of the park) matriarch was an interior decorator and oversaw the construction and design of the restaurant. She certainly has good taste. They have good taste in food, too! The offerings range from burgers, sandwiches and caesar and taco salads to ribs, chicken and steaks. I had the barbeque ribs (of course) and as picky as I am about my ribs, these were delicious! I am so glad we took the time the have lunch at Lindy's as this was one of the highlights of the weekend for me. There were eight of us at our table, including Fred of LA, Fred of Utah, Tim, Dave, myself, and my friend Kerri and her husband Bert, who joined us for lunch. It was also Fred Biedermann's birthday and we surprised him with birthday cake and a happy birthday song! Silverwood has a surprising amount of quality flat rides! I saw a Paratrooper, Tilt-a-Whirl, Round Up, Scrambler, Monster, Antique Cars and Log Flume. Among the flat rides, I thought these were standouts: Bumper Boats (which are extremely popular), the really cool old fashioned Krazy Kar bumper cars, the *insane* looking Thunder Canyon Rapids Ride (Fred wanted me to go on it soooo bad!) and the Sky Diver, which Fred wanted me to stop it soooo bad!!! Silverwood has more flat rides than almost any Six Flags park I can think of (except Six Flags Great America). The only thing I can think of that's missing is a dark ride. This would be the ideal park for a Sally interactive dark ride! They could theme it to an old west mine, similar to the one at Family Kingdom in Myrtle Beach, SC. They also have a very good kiddie section called Tinywood, which includes a kiddie-only coaster called Tiny Toot Toot! Speaking of coasters, let's take a walk down Coaster Alley! Coaster Alley is, in a word, magnificent. Think of it as the gateway to a coaster lover's heaven. You turn the corner, see a huge wooden sign saying "COASTER ALLEY" and all around you is a sweeping paranoramic view of wooden coaster track. You walk along the meandering path and see and feel the trains of Tremors and Timber Terror roaring past you. It's a beautiful thing. Timber Terror is one of the greatest surprise coasters it has been my privilege to discover. What a *fantastic* wooden out and back! Incredible airtime on every hill, a fast and furious helix finishing with a nice little dip and a *SLAMMING* left lateral to end the ride! This coaster has everything! It is so hard to decide which I like better, the front or the back. The back has incredible yanks, especially a long extended one down the third hill. But the front seat is great, too, with nice ejector pops and an extended floater down the third hill. I have heard some people compare it to a mini-Shivering Timbers, which I can see the similarities but don't really think of it that way. I just think it's a great ride in it's own right, and definitely a top twenty ride. Now, on to Tremors. OH. MY. GOD. Tremors is perfect. Front, back, middle - every seat is good. It's fast, it's scary, it's got everything you'd ever want in a roller-coaster, including a couple of oh-my-god-we're-all-gonna-die moments! The underground tunnels are *brilliant* and now they look so much better - more natural with the grass grown over the top. There's not a bad seat on the train - even the dead middle seats give great airtime! The backseat delivers the overall better ride, but I prefer the front seats for the first half alone. Going into the second tunnel is truly frightening in front, thanks to airtime in the extreme. But! If it's airtime you want, wait until you come out of that second tunnel! You hit the top of that third hill and turn quickly to the left and it's ejection city. A couple of times I seriously felt in imminent danger of being thrown from the coaster, so much so that I was reaching for the front or side of the car, anything to hold on to. By that time, though, it was too late - I was so far out of my seat I couldn't do anything except grab futilely at the air. This is a truly frightening moment! On one ride I got so scared I was reaching for something to hand onto and ended up sacrificing my GhostRider hat! It was at this point that I knew Dave Sandborg had gotten his wish - Tremors had kicked my ass! Tremors has wonderful pacing. There's not a dull moment on the ride. There was some discussion as to whether or not it loses some of its punch during the second half. I don't think it does - I was still being thrown into the air on the fourth tunnel and into the final helix, and I always came into the station huffing and puffing, something that wouldn't happen if I'd had a chance to catch my breath. Tremors is without a doubt one of the top five coasters in the country. Right now I'm placing it at number four in my top ten list. I could easily see moving it up to number three or even number two in the future. Unlike Boulder Dash, my current number two, Tremors seems to be a model of consistency. And I think I'll have to ride GhostRider again to decide which of the two gives the better overall ride. I have to say, though, I can't think a thing I would change on Tremors. It is incredibly powerful, brilliantly designed, truly frightening, intensely challenging, and wonderfully rerideable. This was THE coaster of 99! As for the actual ACE Summer Coaster Con, it was, to quote Tim Melago, a *tremendous* event. Of all the coaster events I've attended this year I have to say overall I think one has been my favorite. Everything went so smooth - from the travelling to the accommodations to the people to the park and all the activities, it was one of those truly special trips that don't come along very often. I travelled with Tim Melago and Dave Sandborg, and I'm so glad to have had this opportunity to travel with them, as both are two of my favorite friends. They are so easygoing and fun to hang out with - although both of them seemed very intent on kicking my ass. They were very threatening the entire weekend - if I was even a little bit late getting downstairs in the morning the first thing I heard was Dave saying "You're late. I'm gonna kick your ass." Now that I think about it those two are nothing but a couple of thugs! It was also a lot of fun hanging out with Fred Biedermann. Fred is SO funny, SO intense about everything, and SO easy to poke fun at. Thank God he doesn't snore. It was also great getting to hang out with a lot of people I don't normally get to see a lot of, namely Fred of LA, Locoboy and Mike Saunders. And I was happy to spend almost all of Friday with Phillip Reuss, who I found wandering aimlessly in the Spokane airport. Seems his travelling partner, Mr. Positivity Chris Trotter, had his flight cancelled, which left Phillip, being just a poor college student, in a bit of a jam. So I took him to the park with us and got him a roommate for the night. Luckily Chris made it the next day! It was also nice to see Doug McClure, Lori Watson (who's indignation over Family Funways' inclusion in Tim O'Brien's book cracked me up), Jim Raimar and Lynn, Rich Koppleman, Fleming Cook, Mark Cole, Dave Baker, Bill Linkenheimer, David Escalante and Zank Umagat. I also got to spend a lot of time riding with, talking to and getting to know Carole Sanderson, who I really like a lot. Carole is the ACE VP and she is very talkative and enthusiastic about both coasters and people. I think she will make a great ACE Pres. someday! There were three people I met for the first time over the weekend that I wanted to mention. One is Steve Gzesh, who I snaked a ride with in the front seat and ended up finishing out the final night of ERT on Tremors. Another is Reuben Anderson. Reuben is from Billings, Montana, and this was his very first ACE event (there were a surprising number of first ACE event attendees!). Reuben ran right up to me and introduced himself - seems he had stumbled on my website - and ended up spending a big portion of the weekend with us. He came all by himself and didn't know about RRC, but he was a very nice guy and I enjoyed talking to and riding with him. Finally, it made my weekend to finally meet my friend, Kerri. Kerri is Executive Director of the Post Falls Chamber of Commerce, which is right next to Coeur d'Alene. We met in cyberspace awhile ago, and while she is not a coaster enthusiast by any means, she had as much to do with making this weekend special as anything else. When I got to my hotel room, I opened up the door and immediately saw all these welcome balloons, card and Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls tote bag filled with all kinds of goodies - Idaho Spud buttons, Spud candy bars, a t-shirt, coffee mug, lots of things I shared with Tim, Dave and Phillip. Anyway, Kerri came to the park on Saturday and we finally got to meet in person and it was great. She and her husband spent over half the day with us, had lunch with all of us, interviewed some of us (she also writes for the newspaper), took pictures and video with us, and I even got to ride Tremors with Bert. She seemed fascinated at the enthusiasm we had for the park and for the area. I think a lot of times locals don't really appreciate the things they have in their own backyard. But it's like I told her: going to a park is just like moving to a city - it's a quality of life thing. You go to a Six Flags and sure, they have a bunch of dazzling roller-coasters. But if you have to put up with overpriced parking, admission and food, long lines, unruly crowds and poor ride operations and park policies, the quality of your experience is low. Then you come to a park like Silverwood, with two dollar parking, $1.95 large cokes, incredibly friendly staff, well-maintained and quality rides and coasters, and where are you going to have the better time? Some final thoughts on the ACE Summer Con and Silverwood: * The management. The future for this park is extremely bright, thanks to a management staff that is on the ball. Nancy DiGiamarco is every bit as friendly as personable as Holiday World's Paula Werne. She is also a coaster enthusiast. She gave a warm welcome at the reception Friday night, and stopped to chat with us several times over the weekend. An incredibly warm person - I'm just sorry I didn't get to ride with her like we were supposed to! * The owner. I don't remember his first name, but his last name is Norton and his father is the one who purchased Silverwood and began the improvements that made the park what it is today. Now this guy is awesome. He gave a speech at the welcome reception (which was wonderful, by the way) and told us some of the park's history. He also waited with us in the Tremors queue during Friday night's ERT and talked to all of us at length. He said he wants to put in another wooden coaster, and he's done his homework with regard to what kind of design and trains he wants. I really think this park has a bright future, thanks to a hands on owner who actually gets out and researches other parks to find out what works and what doesn't. And, much like Wil Koch at Holiday World, this guy takes pride in his park and knows what he wants. * The hospitality. WOW. This park is the closest thing to Holiday World when it comes to hospitality. All of the employees were extremely friendly. Even the ride ops, some of whom initially stapled people in their seats, were cool and quickly pulled up on our lap bars instead of pushing down! The Friday night reception was great, with lots of veggies and hot hors d'oeurves being served, and a *HUGE* bag of goodies including those embarressingly big tube shaped drink holders, Grizzly cups, a souvenir Silverwood train bank, block of Tremors wood - too many things to list! They also offered the most incredible door prizes I have ever seen. One person won a ride on the Red Baron - their stunt airplane! Unfortunately her flight was Sunday so I didn't get to see it, but they promised her they'd be taking her upside down and into barrel rolls and stunt dives - all kinds of puke-worthy stunts! Mr. Norton said he made the pilots ride the roller-coasters over and over the day before so they would know that *she* was going to be challenging *them!* They also offered 5 people the opportunity to walk the Tremors lift hill on Sunday, which they called the "golden screw." As if that weren't enough, on Saturday morning they let everyone climb all over the Tremors structure, climb into the second tunnel and walk the track! Then they let everyone stand on top of the second tunnel as some of us rode the train! I could go on and on about the hospitality we were shown on this weekend - suffice to say they people at Silverwood were incredibly generous! * The karaoke. After the presentations were made during Saturday's dinner, someone made a comment about the Legendary Singers at Holiday World, and said that we were about to hear another version of that, this time by ACE members. Two girls walked up and proceeded to inflict on us the most excruciatingly awful, painfully embarressing "rap" I have ever heard. The whole thing was a capella and contained the most insipid, meaningless lyrics. A small sample:
Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH Who has the coasters? The coasters, the coasters Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH What is the park in I-da-ho Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH Idaho, Idaho, I-da-ho Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH Where is the ACE Con, the ACE Con, the ACE Con Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH Who gives us blocks of Tremors wood Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH
Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH Where is the park that's open till ten? Silverwood, Silverwood, OH YEAH
* The lake cruise. On Saturday afternoon, almost everyone in attendance went to Coeur d'Alene Lake for a ninety minute cruise. This was *wonderful*! Such a beautiful lake, with appropriately overdeveloped property. Dave Sandborg objected to it, but I thought it was a beautiful thing. Call me Mark Slash-and-Burn McKenzie. Anyway, it was supposed to be a public cruise, but so many ACEers signed up we ended up getting our own private boat. Fred of LA, Fred of Utah, Dave, Tim, Fleming Cook, Chris Trotter and myself got a nice table, then we proceeded to spend the entire time on the bow of the boat! The scenery was spectacular and included two unforgettable sights - a house built *into* a cliff (much like the footers on Boulder Dash) perched over the lake, and the world's only floating golf green! * The ERT. It was *very* special. Tremors and Timber Terror are right next to each other, so you could exit one ride and run right over to the other. Halfway through both nights ERT the park turned out the flood lights on both coasters as well as the station lights. And they *left them off.* The only way you could see in the station was with a lighter. Both nights we were treated to a cloudless sky, and as we climbed the lifthill, you couldn't help but be awed by the clarity of the stars and the Milky Way. We also got to ride as the fireworks were going off. Twenty minutes of fireworks serenading our rides. Never have I experienced a feeling of euphoria like that - pure adrenaline and fear combined with excitement and awe. Climbing on coaster track. Two click lap bars. Starry skies. Beautiful mountains. Decapatation illuminated by pyrotechnics. Coaster Alley. In all my travels, I never would have imagined that in a tiny little corner of northwestern Idaho, I would find a top ten park, a top five coaster and a top twenty out and back. Thanks to all the people who made this trip so special.
Mark- Up Next: Vancouver and Playland |
Back to The Trip Report
Email: MarkinArk@earthlink.net
