Frontier City

Day 11 was a westerly drive from Tulsa to Amarillo with two parks and a random visit to another location. After a nice lie-in due to the hotel being next to the park we made our way to Frontier City, the first park of the day.

Errr, what a terrible coaster to meet you at the entrance to the park - an Arrow looper. They definitely didn't put their best coaster at the front.

At FC you have to enter through the gift shop as well as exiting through it. The park was one of the small number that Six Flags walked away from a few years ago, now owned by CNL and operated by Premier Parks, the same duo that run/own Darien Lake and Elitch Gardens amongst others.

The park has a western theme throughout and not just in one small part as with most parks; this actually helps the immersion. 

We had to endure the national anthem and a little crowd interaction before the rope would drop allowing us into the park properly.

The park has one of those Larson Looper rides. By this point in the trip I'd lost count of how many we'd come across and not ridden.

I really liked the effort put into the theming here. I'm not sure why Six Flags dropped this park

The park had some shade, I would say that might be a reason why they didn't like this park as we know how much they love putting concrete down in their park.

Nice!

Anyway onto the coasters and ignoring the Arrow monstrosity we headed into the park properly and walked past the suspended ride also. Thomas had an interest in another ride here and we were headed straight to that.

Silver Bullet is a Schwarzkopf Looping Star ride. This maker has a special following within the coaster community and Thomas is dedicating a lot of his time researching the history of their rides so that's why we were heading straight here.

This is not a Larson Loop. This is a Schwarzkopf loop and therefore one that we had to do, and we did starting the day with a few goes on this. Not a surprise that it was running extremely well 

At the rear of the park is the park's wooden coaster "Wildcat" and this wasn't bad either. A mid-length out-and-back which was holding up nicely. I liked that it ran through the trees on the return leg. With no queue we had a few goes on this too.

We went back to the suspended coaster for ride number 3. This was forgettable but I do prefer these cars to the ones that bash your ears.

Why you'd want to spend any time in here on a hot day like this I do not know...

I was really liking this park the more time I spent walking around it. I like parks with so much theming that things can be overlooked, and a great test for theming was if you could have a good time at the park without riding anything. I think this park would pass that test.

They even had a macabre execution reference hidden within a jail cell.

A nice job on the flying ride theming the cars to look like parrots.

Quick Draw is the one dark ride, a shooting attraction where my gun failed to work. Booo!

Coaster number 4 was that infernal Arrow thing. It's just one of those rides that you have to endure, and not enjoy.

The final coaster is in the kids zoo section of the park, and whilst the animals were escaping the sun...

...the kids had to go out into it to ride the coaster. This was a ride that we were told we couldn't ride, after all it was in the kids section of the park. Wild Kitty was a coaster I had to talk my way onto when it used to reside in sister park Elitch Gardens in Denver before moving here. So I wasn't fussed about not getting to ride it here. However it helps if you know an enthusiast who works in the park, which is what happened here and with Michael Schwitek's help we were all able to get the ride here, just not together - I'd imagine we'd have derailed it had we done it. Thanks Michael!

Waiting for the little train that circuits the park and a brief escape from the heat.

Later in the afternoon Tal decided to do the log flume ride and came off mentioning he'd seen another rollercoaster whilst riding it. After some disbelief from the rest of us, Christof also rode the flume and confirmed it and whilst he was riding I walked around the flume and spotted this piece; so there was something there after all. Sorry Tal!

Anyway after a little investigation we concluded this is the remains of Nightmare Mine, an enclosed Zyklon coaster that has remained SBNO for a very long time.

We finished our visit with more rides on the Schwarzkopf. Due to the low crowds I think Thomas was able to get a solo ride, which I'm sure would have made his day. 

and that was Frontier City, a rather excellent half-day park that was only spoiled by the heat, and I know the park can't do anything about that. It's the only proper park in Oklahoma City so if you're an enthusiast who finds himself here you'll be here regardless of what I say.

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