Sandy Lake Park

While our primary reason for being in Dallas was to go to Six Flags, we did take the time one afternoon to have some Exclusive Park time at Sandy Lake Park, a little picnic park in the north end of Dallas.

While not a coaster park -- they had two kiddie coasters to their name -- this was still a charming little park.

For one, they had a classic Pretzel dark ride:

It was not anything really scary, but it was fun for what it was.  Pretzel rides are  dark rides that send you in your car into one large dark room where all the stunts are, meaning you may catch a glimpse of another car "tripping" a stunt.

They had a super fast vomit inducing swing ride:

And they also had some of the best bumper cars out there.  I would say they were in third place for me, with top honours going first to the ones at Knoebels and in second place the ones at the defunct Astroland.   One friend of mine managed to even lodge his vehicle under someone elses'!

So, while this park might not have a New Texas Giant or a Flashback... this park was definitely fun (we literally kept riding for our entire 3 hour session there), and they treated ACE well.  If I am in the area again, I will definitely stop by!

Six Flags Over Texas

Wow.. its been a while since I was posted... just been so damn busy!  Been to so many parks... time to catch up!

In June, we made the trek down to Texas for ACE's Coaster Con... the single largest roller coaster event there is.  Five parks and 2 water parks in one week.  Ambitious and sleep deprived are good words to use to describe the week.  But, it was fun!

The main host park was Six Flags Over Texas, in Arlington, Texas.  Or, as they say, "the original Six Flags".  We spent parts of 4 days in that park.  We endured some of the highest heat I have ever experienced.  We also had some of the most fun I have had there, too.

SFOT treated us like royalty.  ERT (exclusive ride time) was abundant.  Every coaster was covered in at least one session, and most were covered at least twice.  The food-- awesome.  The hospitality -- incredible-- free drinks for us our entire stay.  Free gifts every night (shirts, vintage stickers from the 1970s, a New Texas Giant glass mug).  They even opened up an old unused restaurant just for us as a cooling station.

But enough about that... lets talk about the rides!

While many of the coasters were run-of-the mill, there were some standouts.  Shockwave was a throwback Schwartzkopf that was smooth and fun... and unfortunately I did not take a decent picture of it.

Judge Roy Scream was an awesome little woody:

And, of course, there was the risen-from-the-dead-and-rebuilt New Texas Giant:

My verdict on this coaster?  FANTASTIC!!!!  Airtime everywhere.  Smooth as glass.  Freaky restraints.  A ride I would go on over and over again.  It was wonderful.

As for other attractions, the standouts for me were the parachute drop.....

...as well as the Looney Toones dark ride, and  their log flume, the first one ever built.

They even brought in the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders to entertain us!

All in all, I really loved this park, and want to go back someday!