July 17th, 2001 (4:15-10:00pm)

My friend and I had decided to stay in the park before the employee party started. We headed down to the Comet, but encountered a fairly long line! Ugh... I wasn't going to wait when I could just walk on it at night -- we decided to check back later. The 'looper had no line, as per normal, so we hopped on that. It gave a decent ride, as always. Next up was Great Bear. Not a bad ride, but I'm becoming "immune" to it. I know every inch.

We decided to head out to Midway America and catch a ride on the Lightning Racer. We rode in the back seat of Lightning -- best seat in the house! LR gives a very nice ride, but I still think it's too smooth for a wooden coaster. It also feels like it wants to go faster, but can't because of the massive trains. After a good ride on the 'racer, we headed up and rode Chaos. Chaos is fun, but for some reason, it gave me a minor headache. I decided that the best way to cure that would be to take a spin on Wildcat. Back seat -- nothing can possibly beat this. I've only ridden one other ride I've liked better than Wildcat and that particular rollercoaster is 310ft. tall.

We hit Lightning Racer 4 more times, simply because there was absolutely no line. We literrally walked right on twice. I think we got a re-ride, but I'm not 100% sure. We hit Wildcat and Chaos one last time before heading to the employee cafeteria to grab a soda and a bite to eat.

After the munchies, it was back to Comet. The good ol' Comet still had a 20 minute wait. That's one line I'll skip, thank you very much. 'Looper had no line, but neither of us really felt like riding it. We rode Great Bear again - 2nd row - not bad, but the only decent seat on this ride is the front. After Great Bear, we hit the arcade and played some hockey before heading back to the employee entrance and waiting for the party to start...