New Picture

I decided I wanted to change the picture in my title bar. The new picture is of the ride Calypso at Cedar Point taken on Opening Day 2008. Shawn was off riding Blue Streak so I decided to experiment with my camera. The above picture was taken with my flash off and the ride was about 1/2 speed. I've decided I'm going to put a few of my "interesting" pictures in this post. If you click on a picture it should bring it up larger.

The picture below is the same ride but at full speed. It probably would be clearer if I had used a tripod but I don't feel like dragging one to the park.
This is Corkscrew (1st roller coaster to take you upside down 3 times, twice over the midway). Corkscrew made it's debut in 1976. Power Tower is in the near background. Top Thrill Dragster can be seen through the corkscrew of Corkscrew. I call this picture "Ghost Train". This is the teardrop loop on Mantis (stand up coaster). The train enters the loop from the right and exits the left. The "ghost train" is the blur that you see going around the loop. I thought the title was appropriate since this picture was taken during Halloweekends. The lift hill for Mantis is the first thing you see through the loop. The structures for Iron Dragon (suspended roller coaster) and Top Thrill Dragster are in the background.

I did manipulate this picture on my computer some. I played with the color. This was taken July 4, 2007. It's of Gemini's twin trains cresting the lift hill. What I love about how this picture turned out is the trains switched colors. In the original picture, the closest train would be blue and the furthest one would be red. I had this as my desktop background for the longest time. I currently have the pic I have in the title bar.
This is the Gemini station. It's empty because Shawn & I were the only ones up there other than the Gemini crew. We had just gotten up to the platform when it started pouring rain. We decided to wait it out on the platform to stay dry. We were there 30-45 minutes. We had some interesting conversation with the crew though. They got a giggle on Closing Day when we showed up just before the park closed and waited on the platform to ride the final train of the Season. This was fun. Maybe I'll do it with some of the other parks we've been to.