I
had offered to drive my friend Mike Berman's car from New Jersey to his
new house in California, and he took me up on it. So in the course of
8 days I drove his Saturn station wagon almost 4,000 miles, visited 10
amusement parks, rode 30 new roller coasters, visited 2 National Parks,
and drove 1,000 miles in a single day. I scanned over 100 photos from
the trip for this web report.
A little bit about me in regards to roller coasters - prior to this trip I'd ridden 201 roller coasters, so I consider myself somewhat seasoned. I have definite opinions about what I like and what I don't. I like coasters that are fun and can be re-ridden over and over again without long-lasting ill effects. Among my favorite wooden coasters are the Phoenix, the Comet, the Raven, the Wildcat and the Blue Streak at Conneaut Lake. I love airtime, good pacing and good atmosphere. In steel coasters I also crave airtime, and while I'm not averse to loops they're not that compelling. I had high hopes for some of the new-for-2000 coasters out there, and my opinions can be found on the pages that follow.
All of the photos on this trip were taken with a Yashica T4 Super point-and-shoot camera. I normally travel with an arsenal of 35mm and medium format cameras, but I wanted to see what it was like to travel light. I also wanted to see just how good a decent point-and-shoot can be. Turns out they can be pretty good, if you take into account their limitations. Film was exclusively Fuji Superia 400.