Roller Coaster Road Trip 2017 - An Unplanned Stop in Pittsburgh and Kennywood

Road trips can be a lot of fun, and when you add amusement parks into the mix, then they can be super fun, especially for roller coaster nuts like me and my friends.  This year was my pal Rich and I's third Roller Coaster Road Trip and we had some new company this year, fellow coaster enthusiast Gary.  Now every time we do one of these things, I'm usually the one who comes up with the plan...it's kind of my thing, and this year all I knew was that I wanted to include a little bit of Canada.

Since Rich and I loved King's Island, near Cincinnati...and home to The Beast, and Gary had never been there, we made that our first stop.  Next it was on to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.  Cedar Point is the Mecca for roller coaster enthusiasts and this one wasn't hard to decide upon since we all love the place.  Niagara Falls, Toronto and Canada's Wonderland would round out the trip.  So after much planning and preparation, on July 23rd we were on our way.

Now here's one of the reasons why I love these road trips...unplanned pit-stops.  Our first destination was an AirBnB place in Cincinnati and the route our GPS was taking us was through southern Pennsylvania, a route Rich and I had taken before, right past Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh was one of our stops on the very first Roller Coaster Road Trip and we enjoyed the city and of course its nearby theme park, Kennywood.  We had a pit-stop to make!

We had discovered Primanti Brothers on that first trip and since we arrived in the Pittsburgh area a little early for the evening run at Kennywood, we decided to give it another go.  Primanti is a Pittsburgh staple.  All of the restaurants sandwiches come on sourdough bread, with some french fries and cole slaw inside...interesting and tasty!  

After a cheers to the beginning of our trip and a quick Primanti, it was off to Kennywood, one of America's oldest theme parks. The place has been providing entertainment to people since 1898 and it is quaint and beautiful. They've got six coasters, three classic woodies, a dark mouse ride, and two steel monsters: Skyrocket and Phantom's Revenge, and we got our first five coasters in the check column! (We skipped Exterminator, the indoor mouse coaster.)

Now, Skyrocket, Jack Rabbit, The Racer, and Thunderbolt are all nice rides, though I found the latter a bit rough.  Phantom's Revenge, formerly known as Steel Phantom before a renovation to remove some four rough loops back in 2000 (check out this video on the history of the coaster), is da bomb!  It's one of the reasons I love roller coasters so much.  This one is unique in that it's second drop is higher and steeper than the first.  That's only possible because of the hilly terrain of the area and the fact that this particular drop careens through a ravine, straight through the structure of Thunderbolt!  Wicked!  Oh did we ride this one a few times.  Check out a video I took of the coaster: 

Anyway, this was a great, unplanned start to our trip.  Kennywood is a great place to spend a few hours, especially to ride Phantom, and now we had King's Island to look forward to.  Stay tuned!  In the meantime, check out some pictures from our evening at Kennywood...

Skyrocket

Phantom's Revenge

                 Me n Gary