Washington DC

In the evening our driver very kindly gave us a quick tour of DC and we had a couple of opportunities to hop out and take photos of the White House and the Lincoln Memorial.

This dude is the American equivalent of Brian Hawes in the UK and is permanently there to protest at the Afghan War. If the war hadn't taken place he'd probably be there protesting about something else; the price of spoons or such like.

A quick hop over the fence and I was able to take this photo.

We played a good wind up with some members asking them to pose all taking photos of the building then with their backs turned walked away and left them there.

This statue is near the White House and I wish I got a better photo than this drive by one taken from the coach. The physicality of the piece is amazing!

This is the Capital Building. Stunning!

From afar I couldn't see the point of this monument but up close I could. It's not as sharp as it looks.

This is the Jefferson Memorial

I was also disappointed to find that the Lincoln Memorial did not have the head of a monkey like in that movie I saw a while back. It's a stunning memorial though.

The view back from the Memorial towards Cleopatra's Needle. I wonder if they've held rowing races on that water as that's what it reminded me of.

I have no idea why I did this. Blame Darren!

From the capital of America to Six Flags America

Six Flags America

Six Flags America was yet another park I'd previously visited on the 2006 holiday and another park I could take at a gentle pace, which was essential in the ridiculous heat and humidity levels that greeted us.

The morning began with an ERS on Roar, was running well but the ride is a bit of a twister for my liking. I have no idea how others were able to ride this with their hands up. It's not an easy ride to photograph but to the left of the entrance ramp there's a wooden staff gate you can stick your camera through.

Instead I chose to entertain myself by taking photos of birds cooling off in puddles.

The park was looking extremely clean with the majority of the staff armed with those grabber things, nice idea. Park staff were friendly with lots of high fives realising my slapcoaster concept had been taken on board.

One thing that I did find a bit odd with the park was the abundance of "no trespassing or you'll die" type signs. Either they're lying or there is a major issue with exposed electricity wires in bits of the park you're not supposed to enter. Why not just say "If you jump this fence and the coaster hits you then it's your own stupidity" and be done with it.

The water boat ride has a history of flakey performance and today was the same too. It was down more than it was up. I had not intention of riding it after the last time when we were left stuck in the metal shack before the final drop sweating buckets whilst the ride op who couldn't leave her post 6 ft away drank lots of water to keep cool... Perhaps the sign should read "This attraction is always closed"

In an attempt to generate more advertising revenue the Six Flags chain has come up with some novel things to put adverts on. But hanging this massive poster for chocolate was just a shame! The ironic thing is if they sold the chocolate in this park it'd melt before you got it out of the wrapper.

The last time I was here I didn't get to ride the kiddy coaster, in fact I didn't bother trying as I was fed up asking to do so. This time we were allowed to.

Jokers Jinx was excellent and as with the Outer Limits, the ride is excellent with the OTSRs removed. We rode this countless times, especially as there was hardly any queue.

Something the park would need to take note of. People prefer to leave their bags on the floor than put them into a paid locker. A sign that the idea is deemed one of making money rather than practicality. I'm not sure why the bags couldn't be left on the platform, it was a one-train operation after all.

Wild One offered some lovely pops of airtime and still running well despite its age. Personally I find it much more enjoyable than Roar.

Mind Eraser was the typical hang-and-bang. Excellent!

Batwing suffered from a single train operation, the second one having been taken away for a service. We know this because we saw it being brought back on the truck.

We volunteered Mick to take part in the stunt show and being the thespian that he is (he's in the new Harry Potter don't you know) he was more than happy to go up and give it a go!

The park has really come on since my last visit but still needs some additional shade. One of those arches with vines would have offered the perfect respite from the heat today. I did mention it to the park manager but he was under the impression there were lots of trees already offering shade. I'm not sure they're mature enough to do that just yet.

Unique point about the park was the massage chair sofa which had been decked out to look like a living room modelled here by my glamorous assistant. A little bit of surrealism in another wise very corporately run park.

If you're probably hungry you could probably do better than eating one of these.

The main reason for visiting the park has to be for Superman Ride of Steel, a large Intamin coaster with lovely airtime. Powerful helixes and a support coming out of the helix that is just too close to your arms to scare the bejesus out of you. Special mention should be given to Will, Kevin and Ever in the Superman station. They were brilliant with impromptu singing, impressions and all round entertainment making sure the people had a good time. If they're running the ride when you're there ask for the Stevie Wonder impression. By far the best ride ops on the trip.

Six Flags had come on a long way since my last trip but with a few minor tweaks could be something special. The main downer had to be the lack of shade.

How's about another Six Flags Park

Six Flags Great Adventure

I had been to Great Adventure twice before both in 2006, firstly with the club and second with a friend to ride El Toro which wasn't open on the initial trip. So this was another park where I didn't have to run around to ride everything and could take things a little easy.

We started the day with a morning ERS on Nitro. The ride is still running well with a little more roughness than I remember the last time I rode it, but still overall pleasant. We spent the majority of the ride trying to spot the best item in the workshop area under the ride. Darren won with a Bat-Boat, which initially seemed pretty unique given there isn't any bat boat rides in the park, but in hindsight I think it may have come from the lake stunt show.

From there we headed over to Kingda Ka with a baying crowd of general public that were being held back by security whilst we took the advantage to queue jump. We did actually have to sprint to the ride, all quite funny really. The majority of the group queued for the front train not realising that rides were sent out of the station in pairs. This meant myself and Richard were able to hop onto the front seat of the second ride. The ride was as excellent as I remember with popeye inducing speed and the most ridiculous height (its still the tallest in the world). We then ran over to El Toro for one of the first rides on that too, choosing the back row. A great way to start the day.

I have no idea what Jeppe and Darren are actually doing but I do know that they liked Kingda Ka and must have ridden it half a dozen times at least. Perhaps the perma-grins are a side effect of repeat riding.

Following that we mopped up the credits that we didn't attain on the last visit. Fortunately the left hand side of the racing wooden was running. It was the other side that I'd already ridden. That worked out quite nice. What ended up even better was that they then ran the second side and raced the two, something that they didn't usually do, excellent! I did notice that the yellow train needed a clean so wrote "dirty" on it. I wonder how long it'll remain there. Row 2 left-hand side if anyone else is riding it and sees it there, it was me.

Skittles are not awesome. The Grand Canyon is awesome, The Great Wall of China is awesome, perhaps the Great Barrier Reef but not a packet of chemically made sweets...end rant.

On the day we were there, a ten-pin bowling competition was taking place and it would appear if you're a professional player you have one of two photos: the arm up behind the head, and the about to line up the shot concentration shot. Both looked retarded! You're hitting skittles with a ball, not trying to destroy me with your Jedi mind tricks!

Dark Knight is another new ride for me at this park, but its just weird. A copy of the ride I'd ridden in Chicago 2 years ago. Perhaps some of the effects on the indoor ride weren't quite right, I don't know but the ride didn't particularly excite me.

It was a shame to see the old Batman and Robin rides go, especially given the poor replacement. This part of the park is now barren and we think this building now houses company meetings like some sort of Masonic secret society.

We did ride the parachute ride, and yes we did have to split the group, and yes our group did consist of just two people. Weight is an issue on this ride :) We did take comfort in knowing the rather large ride-op would never have been able to ride this ride, even if he attempted to do so on his own.

Bizarro was as weird as the ride op was fat. Originally titled "Medusa" this ride has been painted Purple and has fire, mist and water effects along its length and stoopid theming supposedly indicating a failed science experiment. The ride also has an on-ride system that does nothing but confuse the riders with the cacophony of random sound effects. I did pick up the "Game over man" from Aliens though, which made me laugh.

We caught up with a few other rides, none of which were particularly amazing.

As a new attraction, the park staff talk about their favourite sport shoes. I didn't check it out though.

I've always found Mr Six a little creepy, even more so when hey make up women to play the part.

This was not creepy but hilarious. Was this guy so hard up for work that he agreed to dress up in a pink condom?

If you can't think of a clever marketing campaign you probably work for this company.

At the end of the day we finished with a half hour of El Toro ERS. The speed of the ride at the end of the day is totally opposite to the beginning. It was absolutely flying and became a challenge, of the fun kind to remain on the train for the duration. With two trains running (one with ridiculously advertisting btw) I was able to remain in the same seat for the duration.

For those that are interested in park history, check out the main gift shop as they have a nice photo archive above your heads!

SFGAdv is still a great park but let down by a ridiculous ride operation policy. But it did give us a running joke for the rest of the trip....visual scan!

Time to go to the Jersey Shore