Cedar Point Opening Day 2014

Cedar Point as I've described it in the past, truly is a second home for me. I've been coming to this world class park now for 23 straight seasons and there truly is no place like it anywhere. Every time I leave here, I keep trying to figure out how long will it be before I can come back again! I love photographing the rides in this park (can't you tell?), and 2014 Opening Day would provide an interesting challenge for me because the entire eastern half of the country had a very cold and long, drawn out winter which caused a delayed spring. This meant that the trees had barely any leaves on them which is very unusual, especially for this part of Ohio at this time of the year. I had to find a way to work with these trees and decided I would focus the photography on having the coasters "hide behind the trees" with the tiny leaves on them. I think this ended up working to my advantage, but I'll let you decide. Enjoy...

New for 2014 is Chickie's & Pete's Sports Bar, located in the former Game Day Grille restaurant in the park. I had a delicious
Buffalo Chicken variety of a Cheesesteak with the restaurant's signature "Crab Fries" which were excellent! Good eats and TV
monitors all over the restaurant make this an excellent sports bar in the park!

Also new for 2014 is a full Starbucks Coffee restaurant located in the former "Donut Time" shop on the main midway.

The Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad's 2-4-0 Steamer #44 "Judy K" approaches one of the road crossings in the park. The "dead" town
of "Boneville" is behind the train and the Mean Streak roller coaster looms in the distance!

A view of the Mean Streak wooden coaster. This is one awesome ride that has been entertaining guests at CP since 1991!

The 310ft tall Millennium Force coaster. This monster will leave you never challenging the laws of physics again!

LEFT: Wicked Twister, a double-impulse coaster. RIGHT: The Mantis coaster hiding in the trees! The delayed spring was the only
reason I was able to get pix like this with flowering trees still having the flowers on them along with the tiny leaves.

Mantis now going down its first hill.

Millennium Force approaching the top of its 310ft tall lift hill.

MaxAir, a swinging pendulum ride that has you spinning in circles while the ride swings back and forth!
After a good ride, you can have a good burger at Johnny Rockets!

The Cedar Creek Mine Ride! This coaster gives the impression you are on a runaway mine train! This ride celebrates 45 years at the
park this year having opened in 1969, the same year America put a man on the moon!

The 2007-built Maverick coaster which is one seriously wild ride!

Maverick's 105ft tall lift hill features a 95 degree angle drop! The blue building in the foreground is used for a haunted house
during the park's HalloWeekends event each fall and originally housed a carousel.

Celebrating 50 years this year is Cedar Point's oldest coaster, the Blue Streak!

The Blue Streak was designed by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and is named after the
Sandusky High School's sports teams known as the "Blue Streaks".

Hiding behind that tree is a coaster celebrating 20 years at CP, the Raptor! This coaster has you suspended under the track
and gives you the feeling you're flying in a fighter jet!

Celebrating 25 years this year at CP is the Magnum XL-200 coaster. This is without a doubt, my favorite roller coaster on the planet!!!

A couple views of Magnum, this ride reaches a top speed of 72mph and when it opened in 1989 was the tallest (at 205ft) and
fastest roller coaster in the world and it would hold that record for five years.

This is a photo I had wanted to get in 2013 but the weather just wouldn't cooperate, and it almost didn't this year either! This was taken
from Shoreline Park in Sandusky, OH of the Cedar Point Skyline. This is the side of the park that is bordered by Sandusky Bay. As
you know, I love Manual HDR Night Photography and this photo was done using that technique.

This ended up being an excellent trip where I got to do some good railfanning in the Northwest Ohio area as well as go back to Cedar Point which I just can't go to enough! The ride back to Buffalo on May 11th was uneventful which is always a good thing! Until my next road trip, Happy Railfanning...