The Rob and James show. PT.2

Ah, Silver Dollar City day... What should have been the only relaxing day of this lovely trip. Sadly it was full of non stop rain and way to much downtime. That being said, the park is still one of my favorites and I hope the next visit I have is more like my 2005 visit, less like 2012 

(although you can keep Outlaw Run around)

The day started off pretty early so we could be at Silver Dollar City for opening but with enough time to make a pit-stop first to check on the depressing site that was Celebration City.

yup, Celebration City was a park in Branson owned by Silver Dollar City's parent company. The idea of the park was that you would spend the day at Silver Dollar City and once they closed for the day you would head back into the town and spend your night at Celebration City (SDC didn't have night hours and CC didn't open till late afternoon and closed with a firework show) The thing is, it was hard to convince your average park guest to spend the money on two full priced parks in one day and for them to see the value in it. The concept was good, I just don't think it was marketed well enough. Sadly, in 2008 Celebration City closed its doors for good. (Although a few of its rides have found new homes elsewhere, mostly at Wild Adventures)  Back in 2005 I had a great time at Celebration City and Ozark Wildcat was the *first* GCI coaster I rode that I really liked and until 2007 it was the only one I liked (until I rode Tory and KY Rumbler)

Driving up to the park you can see Ozark Wildcat in all its glory, just rotting away and becoming overgrown, never to run again.

Well, there she is. The only GCI coaster to go SBNO, ever.... Ozark Wildcat

(Gwazi doesn't count...yet)

Here's the station and the exit ramp and some trees starting grow up between the track... sadness

And a bunny I found!

Along with OzCat, there are a few other rides still standing in the park, like this Flying Carpet. The parks S&S Double Shot was still visible in the back as well and a few kiddie rides could be seen from the road too.

Hey look, its me, and my GoPro?

Rob took this photo for me, while complaining about how he never got the chance to ride it and how seeing OzCat just standing there was making him mad... So we left and headed up into the mountains

So we could get here!

Silver Dollar City, one of the finest parks in the world 

and one of my favorites as well.

That being said, there were many closed rides during our visit and many that were contently opening and closing back down, off and on rain (cold rain), and never making it into the caves. It just left me kinda... moody, I guess.

 Once in the park our plan was to run over to Powder Keg and ride it a few times before lines got long, assuming everyone would rush Outlaw Run first....

Once at Powder Keg, we found it closed. Even worse, we were told it had been closed the entire day before! Not off to a good start. Luckily, Fire in the Hole... the parks random darkride-coaster is located next to it... Also closed................... So it was off to Wildfire.

THANKFULLY, it was open.. and running as fantastic as it was in 05, if not.. better. This ride is soooo good.

It may be a bit on the short side, but it super fun and ultra-smooth. After a few front and back seat rides on it we walked over to the parks flume.

The American Plunge... featuring extremely cold water. But its a fun ride so it was worth the ride and at this point it hadn't started to rain so we assumed we would dry off once the sun came out (aaahahahaha)

By this point we were both kinda itching to ride Outlaw Run... walking down to the area we had yet to see it running but you can't really see much of it until you get to the queue. Walking up to it we stopped for a quick (short) ride on the parks Screamin' Swing

The Giant Barn Swing. It was new since my last visit and Rob likes them so we got in a fairly short ride and were loaded... as it started to rain.  We still walked over to Outlaw just to see what was up... and were greeted by this

Seeing the train completing the second of its two barrel-rolls and final turn got us super excited (hyper?) and we ran to get in line. It was only posted at 45m and moved at an OK pace but the park was forcing pretty much EVERYONE into the test seat before allowing them in the queue (because we were there in the wake of Texas Giant incident) that being said, it still seemed like at least one person from every train was being walk-of-shamed off the ride for not fitting. :roll:

For my first ride I *had* to ride the front. Sadly, this became incredibly annoying as every other train was loaded with people who paid for the "skip the line" passes and every time the front would be taken, doubling our wait time........

It was worth it.

Outlaw Run was absolutely incredible.

One of the best coasters I've ever ridden. I'd still take Boulderdash and El Toro over it, but that's pretty much it. The first drop is amazing, the 153° Over-Banked Turn almost inversion was awesome... the view going into double barrel-roll had me laughing... and of course, my favorite part of the ride was the 90° banked airtime hill, yeah... the entire hill is banked so you take it sideways.

As soon as we exited the giftshop we ran back to get in line for a second ride. Making it all the way to the station when the rain started coming down heavier and this happened.....

We were literally the next two riders for the back row when it was announced the ride would not be reopening and that everyone would need to exit the station/queue... Worse even, the ride remained closed until 45 minutes of park closing (IE: like... 8 hours)

 At least by this point we saw Powder Keg cycling and quickly made our way over to it.

Powder Keg is still super fun. I really liked it in 05 and was glad to see it was still fun. Although we were only able to get one ride on it because soon after we rode it, it also closed for the day and never reopened.

But at least we got on it once and that Rob got his credit.

I would have loved to have gotten a night ride on it :(

After Powder Keg we saw people queuing up for Fire in the Hole and assumed it had finally opened for the day, halfway through the day

And we were greeted with this gigantic line!

But the ride is super fun, and when raining... its indoors

And unlike its clone at Dollywood, Fire in the Hole still has the water splashdown :D

 NUM NUMS!

Red-Velvet funnel cake with cheesecake icing :D :D

 Walking down to the craft-village area of the park that I somehow completely overlooked my first time here, I had no idea there was a petting zoo!

There were some geese and chickens... a dog... and some goats. Who knew?

 I.... made nice with the goats for a while.

After lunching and walking around the park a bit we headed into The Grand Exposition area of the park.

The Grand Exposition area opened in 2006 and added some much needed flatrides to the park that before was nothing but coasters and water rides. 

(but in the expansion the park added a kiddie coaster with it!)

Woo woo, The Grand Exposition Coaster! +1?

It was surprisingly busy down in this area, I guess with 2 of your 4 major coasters closed everyone funneled down into the valley.

 But we did ride the wave swinger (and swinging ship)

 ...Before heading back up the hill to the parks out-of-control mine train, ThuNderaTion

On our way to the ride, we passed this rather large tower of stairs...

 And then I realized it was where Waterworks Waterboggan... used to be.

I knew the slides had been removed but I didn't know the tower was still standing. It was a fun ride, not really sure why it was removed. 

I mean, Dollywood kept theirs.

 ThuNderaTion! I love this ride... and its massive helix! Sadly, the park no longer has backwards cars on it. Cars 3 and 5 used to be turned around backwards and it made the ride even better, not knowing where you were going... or if you had friends in the frontward facing cars... being able to ride face to face.

 ((while we never did get to ride Powder Keg at night.... TNT in the darkness made up for it for sure!))

 uuuggghhhhhh

 They had this.....thing.

(if you watched my 2012 adventure video you'd get it...)

 ugghhhhhh! (again!)

Somehow Rob convinced me to ride the Lost River of the Ozarks, with its freezing cold water.

Maybe at this point I was still hopeful the sun would come out.

 (bitching aside, its a fun ride and I'd ride it again)

High-Low Silos!

I love these stupid Heege Towers! I've been on 7 of them.

Rob wasn't having any of this... but because we kept walking up on a still closed Outlaw Run, he caved and rode with me. yaayyy!

Speaking of cave, we never got around to going in the parks AMAZING Marvel Cave, under the park itself. But in the end I doubt it would have been much fun due to the rain/mud/cold... maybe next time...

So with that, it pretty much never stopped raining and with less than an hour to go before park closing.... Outlaw Run suddenly started testing.  We hung around the ride area and... it opened?! Never would I have believed any park would open their star attraction with less than an hour to go in the park day... but I'm so very thankful the park did! The queue had yet to open but people were lining up at the entrance. We were maybe 40 people back at this point.... Once the ride did open turning around you could see it went well past the parks S&S Swing, up to the Rib House! I'm pretty sure at that point every remaining guest at Silver Dollar City was now in line with us for Outlaw Run.

 Once the queue was opened Rob and I raced for our backrow ride we were cheated of so many hours earlier and had one of the greatest coaster experiences of my life.

Outlaw Run, back row, pitch-black darkness... in the rain.

It was so good I wanted to cry :')

ITS TRUE!

In the end, I feel like we made the best of the poor weather and downtimes... If I could have only ridden Outlaw Run more than twice.

 

Bonus photo via twitter -
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/361487090631966721

Bonus random tweets -
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/361512906631806977
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/361525960794845185

Day 2 down, day 3 is up next..... who knew?