Adventureland

Day 9 was Thomas extension day and would see us spend the morning in Adventureland, Iowa before heading into Nebraska for an FEC and a park there before heading back south into Kansas City. First up was Adventureland

We arrived in time for opening and it wasn't clear where the entrance was until we spotted two garage doors which lead under the railway line. Those are your entrances.

Everyone headed straight down Main Street for probably the same reason. To ride their new coaster Monster.

Open only a month or so before our visit this was our "touch-and-go" coaster for this trip where we were tracking construction progress and unlike Zombie in Mexico which looked to take forever to construct and which we missed, Monster was built to plan.

The ride is a hang time beast and a coaster that I really enjoyed riding. With no over the shoulder restraints you have to have faith in the lap restraint.

The Tornado coaster is an OK out and back wooden coaster. No queue because we were running on ahead of the main crowd who were still at Monster.

I had a go on their sky flyer later in the day and the view is pretty good from up there.

Prizes of various quality. The turtles looked a little retarded.

Dragon is the scenic Hopkins steel coaster. It's a brutal ride but I liked the deadmau5 element.

We had a funny encounter with a local in the queue line who saw our trip t-shirt (today was t-shirt day) and was telling his daughters about how we were on The Rattlesnake Tour like it was heavily publicised and well known, which of course it wasn't.

More crazy gifts. Not a wall to look at if you've taken LSD.

At the rear of the park is a small western themed area in which resides coaster number 4. 

Outlaw is a pretty decent coaster that was built by CCI and opened in 1993. It's holding up well and would be the best ride in the park if Monster wasn't there.

The others enjoyed it enough to have a mini ERS here.

Poor Fred!

This is the shot of Dragon that most people probably hung around for. I had to wait ages as this end of the park was quiet and despatches were infrequent.

Storm Chaser and the Monster lift hill taking the skyline.

The final coaster is a bit of an oddity. It's called Underground and it's an enclosed wooden coaster. The only other one I know of is Knoebel's Black Diamond. To get to it we had to queue out in the heat and then at a door which would only open when the previous occupants had cleared the station area.

We liked it. A quirky ride indeed.

Having ridden all the coasters it was a no-brainer to ride Monster some more.

We knew this was going to be a good park and we were not disappointed. The park has a good selection of coasters and with 3 wooden coasters should be on any itineraries that pass close to this area. With Monster however they're now a must-do!

We thought we'd split up for a little bit before leaving the park. The chair ride goes through Monster which is super and offers some great photo opportunities, just hold onto the camera tightly.

There's also a small indoor area with a selection of rides.

A tiny wheel.

Is there anyone who visits this park who doesn't take a photo of the pig food stand?

I saw the lengthy queue and was curious what they were all waiting for. It turned out they were all employees of a company who'd booked a hall for lunch. Move along, nothing to see here. 

At the front of the park is their carousel which looked really pretty.

For lunch I had this chicken sandwich which looks a bit crap but was actually really nice. I was also getting addicted to the calorie-free Monster drink. It seemed apt to have a can of that here.

So I really liked this park, not over commercialised a la the Flags but just a place that encourages people to have a good time without emptying their pockets. Being out in the middle of Iowa probably protects them from all of that bad stuff. As I mentioned earlier, the park is now a must-do. Just add it to your trip plans and enjoy it.

(Photo is Tal's)

Our catalogue photo. We chose a good ride to have t-shirt day on!

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