We spent the afternoon at Six Flags over Georgia. First, we hit the Georgia Scorcher (a Bolliger & Mabillard coaster, BTW), pictured to the right. It was the first stand-up coaster I've been on, and I rode in front for maximum effect. Stand-up coasters definitely give the best feeling of steep drops when it comes to steel roller coasters, better than inverted coasters. Loops and corkscrews were different, of course, but for some reason I'm preferring the inverted for that kind of stuff. But it was still quite a nice experience, though a very short ride (32 seconds). We tried to sign up for a time to do Rip Cording, but unfortunately we didn't get there soon enough, and there were no slots left. So we decided to go for the Great American Scream Machine next. It's a nice 2-minute moderately fast wooden roller coaster. The section over the pond was a nice effect, but otherwise it's like any other typical wooden coaster. The third and last coaster we were able to hit before the awards ceremony that night was The Mind Bender. It was a long ride, 2:33, with 2 vertical loops and a corkscrew. A typical steel coaster, really, though a section of it went through the trees, which offered a nice effect. Paige actually took her video camera on this one, and that was cool!
The awards that night reflected our success, as we won Gold 1st place awards in all 3 possible categories. Our scores were 96, 97, and 99 out of 100 for the 3 judges. The typical pavilion-style awards was held followed by a crude "dance" setup, so we just went back to the hotel. There, we hung out til pretty late.
Friday, 20th of April, 2001
We started out by visitng the Stone Mountain Park, the area surrounding a huge rock mountain that offered a nice view of the area, and lots of green area to just sit and enjoy. Definitely a wonderful place. Then we dropped by the Cyclorama/Atlanta Zoo park-area and just walked around for fun. To conclude the day, we went to Underground Atlanta. The World of Coca-Cola was on the edge of it, so we went there first. It was a really neat place, with neat exhibits, and a huge tasting room where one could taste all the flavours of soda that Coke has in all the countries of the world. It's all about the Fanta fruit-flavoured sodas. Underground Atlanta was pretty neat, with a whole variety of stores, though once it hit 18 to 19:00, things started getting interesting. Lots of weird people started wandering the area, and we were stopped by people asking for money twice, since we were obviously teenage tourists traveling in a group. Mrs. Fette, our wonderful chaperone, did a good thing by leading us out of that place and to the place where we were meeting our bus early. I'm really glad nothing happened to anyone, because I heard the experience was even more wierd for some other groups of people.
Back at the hotel, the Angels gave Kevin a full haircut. Susan washed it, and Beth and Andrea cut it of course. They had their first shot at the vertical cut, and it worked out very very well. It looks very nice.
Thursday, 19th of April, 2001
We left at around 9:00 from the high school, after having to turn around and go back to get Eric's suitcase (he had left it in the orchestra room). The day's ride down there was actually very pleasant, familiar roads and all. The driver for the first leg of the journey was the same driver for the Strolling trip to Kansas City in January! That's really neat! We got there around 20:00 and settled into the Embassy Suites there. I have been feeling very invincible lately, and so I thought it'd be interesting if I jumped off a 20-foot concrete ledge into a bush. Well, I scraped my shin and poked two holes in my left middle finger. I guess it's not so bad, I can doctor them up to some extent.
Wednesday, 18th of April, 2001
Tuesday, 17th of April, 2001
Monday, 16th of April, 2001
Sunday, 15th of April, 2001