Woke up after a rainy night's sleep to the pickup guy and his music. Sigh. Eventually though he got drowned out at 7am by the trash truck that came by to empty the dumpsters. Why would you schedule this at 7am on a Saturday in a campground? Are they trying to annoy the maximum number of people at any given time?
Always check your boots
Pymatuning Lake
Campsites just scattered in the field
I thought this guy was being pretty ambitious
I didn't need to leave early, as I was only scooting up to Erie about 40 miles away. I was eagerly anticipating riding the new-to-me wooden coaster at Waldameer, the Ravine Flyer II. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a huge coaster fan and have ridden nearly every coaster in North America (a little over 440 different coasters at last count). Wooden coasters are my favorite, and the Ravine Flyer II was getting rave reviews from enthusiasts.
I walked around the campground for a bit as I waited for the tent to dry out some. One of the worst parts of camping is packing up a wet tent. Pymatuning SP was not the greatest campground for those looking for privacy - most of the sites were just kinda spread out in a field.
Rode over to Conneaut Lake Park to see what it looked like in the harsh light of day. Still pretty depressing. On the plus side, you can pretty much ride around inside the park.
Try doing this at Six Flags sometime
From there it was a quick uneventful ride up 18 to 5, and then over to Erie. Waldameer's rides didn't open until 1pm so I rode up to Presque Isle State Park. What a delight! Ambled very slowly around the perimeter of this little peninsula that sticks out into Lake Erie and enjoyed the water views. The south side of the park had views of Erie across the way, but the north side just looked out into the seemingly endless expanse of Lake Erie. I found a nice spot to pull in on the north side and shed all my gear for a walk on the beach.
Glad I had my MotoGP kickstand plate with me
No one will steal this, right?
Lake Erie scene
The Lighthouse
Bike and Beach
Back on the road and over to Waldameer Park. The Ravine Flyer lived up to all expectiations, a truly terrific ride. It's easily in my top five, and maybe my top 3 "modern" wooden coasters. Front seat gives lots of dramatic airtime moments, and the banked (and overbanked) turns are lots of fun. Very re-rideable. Rode the Steel Dragon, their spinning compact steel coaster, and that was quite fun also - better than the wild mouse style of spinning coasters. Finished up with a ride on the classic John Miller junior woodie, The Comet.
That blue bridge is actually the roller coaster - it flies over the highway after the first drop. Cool!
First drop on the Ravine Flyer II
Steel Dragon spinning coaster
Vintage PTC junior trains
The Comet
Hit the road around 2:45. Very hot and sucky getting out of Erie, lots of lights and traffic. Mostly took 8 to 36, which was a nice enough way to make time across that corner of the state I suppose. It was raining on and off for a while, but by the time I got to Brookville it had started really pouring. Coming down in buckets, cars going slow, huge bow waves through the puddles, that kind of rain. I got drenched as I continued past I-80 and through Punxutawney. My goal for the night was Prince Galatzin State Park about 15 miles NW of Altoona. I had plans to meet fellow STN'er SLK50 and his family for another day of amusement parks on Sunday.
Pretty soggy day
I had a good chuckle along the way as I passed a familiar car dealership north of Punxutawney. It took me a minute to figure out why it was familiar, but eventually it came to me. Skee had led us on a group ride at the 2009 STN Meet and Eat, and we passed this same dealership 3 times as Frank and his Zumo were trying to come to terms with each other.
I rolled into Patton, the closest town to Prince Galatzin, just as the rain tapered off. I had neglected to bring rain gloves, and was of course to lazy to stop and put on the Aerostich Triple-Digit rain covers, so my hands were soaked and black from the leather. My Phantom had leaked through the two chest vents, which is quite surprising since they have waterproof zippers AND are covered by a substantial flap. If I took the suit off it looked like I was lactating - 2 big wet circles on my chest. The suit stays on for now.
In the state I was in, I figured best bet was dinner at the Sheetz gas station. I got a meatball sub to go and ate outside, as the a/c was unbearable in my wet condition. Not the best dinner of the trip. The rain had not yet started again, so I zoomed up to the park to grab a campsite.
Fancy dinner at the Sheetz
There was a very friendly young girl at the park office, and asked me what kind of site I wanted for the night. Did I want seclusion, or to be around a lot of people? "Seclusion please". She sent me off to site 398, saying if I didn't like it she could give me something else. Once I got to the site, at the farthest end of the campground, there was no way I'd be going back to switch. No one around in any direction, trees all around me, my own private path down to the lake - perfect!
Some ugly spiders at this place
It started to rain as I set up camp, I had just enough time to get everything unpacked and laid out before it started to really come down hard again. Spent the evening in the tent, writing in the journal and going through pictures. No cell service at all.
234 miles for the day