With the first day of Coasterfest 2022 cut short by torrential rains, Karen and I drove the short distance to our hotel. We stayed at the Wyndham Southbury. It wasn't cheap and I thought we'd have a somewhat luxurious stay. But as I'm gradually learning, price no longer has much relation to quality in the world of hotels (unless you spend thousands). Our room was certainly different, with a 16-foot-high ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows with heavy drapes that wouldn't shut all the way. Oddly, the air conditioner was behind one of the drapes, making it useless except as a noise machine. There were three light switches for the tiny bathroom, and they cancelled each other out. Opening the door to the bathroom completely obstructed the sink. When I went to take a shower, the shower handle fell off in my hand. So yes, their high hotel prices didn't seem to reflect high quality. I mentioned the shower handle to the desk clerk the next morning and she burst out laughing. She followed that with, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh." We passed on their all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, which was priced at an absurd $17 per person, and instead drove to the nearby Laurel Diner. It was really tiny, with a parking lot to match, sandwiched between an auto mechanic and a gift shop. But we snagged a parking spot. Just before we entered, Karen noticed a sign on the door that read "Cash Only". So we found a nearby ATM and then returned. The walls of the diner were whiteboards and their offerings were written on them. It was a busy place. There were little tables with chairs near the windows at the front. The only other seats were stools at the counter, like most traditional diners. We squeezed into table seats. Our friendly waitress was quick and efficient. Karen got French toast, scrambled eggs, an English muffin and home fries. I got blueberry pancakes and home fries. The pancakes were the best I've had in a long time, with huge and plentiful blueberries. They also served real maple syrup. And it was a lot cheaper than the hotel's buffet. The weather couldn't have been a bigger contrast from the day before. The sky was bright blue and the air was dry. It was going to be a perfect park day. We made the half-hour drive to Lake Compounce in Bristol, Connecticut, and arrived at 10:00 am. We had returned to this park last fall for the first time in many years. I loved the new look to the buildings and grounds; everything was colorful and inviting. We arrived at the parking gates to find something a bit less inviting: parking now cost a whopping $20. Since that wasn't included with our Coasterfest ticket, we ponied up the money (though we later heard from some other club members that they simply showed their Coasterfest badge and they were let in for free). Some people paid an extra $5 for "premium" parking. But we were there early enough that we were able to park near the front anyway. We met up with some of the other members who had just arrived. We strolled along the shaded walk to the tunneled entrance. The general public was already forming a long line in front of the security checkpoints. As with Quassy, the original plans at the park had been dialed back a bit. So there was no ERT on Boulder Dash. Instead, we were all going to head over there for "Informal Takeover Time" when the park opened. As 11:00 neared, we were still missing a few members. So once again Yvonne Wheeler volunteered to stay behind and wait for people. Park officials appeared and escorted us through security and over to the group sales window. The ticket concourse was still a spectacular sight. It took a while for Bob Wheeler to get the tickets and food vouchers from the managers. He eventually was able to hand them out. The food voucher was very specific: we could get either a personal pizza, a grilled cheese or chicken tenders. I knew the park served veggie burgers, so the limited menu we were given was a disappointment. Even their Potato Patch fries would have been a welcome option. When most of group had gathered, we entered the park and turned right, heading around toward the west end of the park and the entrance to Boulder Dash. That legendary coaster wasn't opened the last time we visited, so I was eager to see how it was running. As with Quassy the previous day, there were a few people in our group who hadn't yet experienced the park nor Boulder Dash and I wondered what they would think of it. For the first few years after it was built (in 2000), it was my favorite wood coaster. Gradually though it began to get rougher, and the park didn't seem to be able to correct the problem. When we all arrived at the entrance, we proceeded up the long queue and over the bridge to the station. I noticed that not only was the park running just one train (the green one), the red train was nowhere to be seen. It would normally have been parked on the side of the station when it wasn't being used. If the park was going to be running only one train during the season, the coaster was going to have really long lines. But for us that wasn't a problem, since we were some of the first guests in line. Karen and I lined up for the front seat as usual. Others in the group weren't as picky and climbed aboard whichever seat was empty. Some in the group who had been to the park recently were warning others about the park's other wood coaster, Wildcat, which had been running inexplicably rough, so rough in fact that many enthusiasts were regretting having ridden it. Karen and I discovered that last fall, and it puzzled me because there was lots of new track work and new trains, so the ride should have been more enjoyable. But it wasn't. A local chiropractor could probably have gotten a big boost by having business cards available at the ride's exit. Within two cycles, Karen and I were in the front seat and riding up the picturesque and shady lift hill, climbing the side of the mountain. Boulder Dash still ranked as one of the most impressive feats of coaster engineering, putting the mountain's terrain to good use. At the top of the lift, the track turned to the right and then we flew down the curving first drop. I knew immediately that it was going to be a challenge: the train felt like it was riding over rocks, vibrating wildly. The amount of speed it had was truly impressive, and it never let up until the brake run. But I returned to the station with a slight headache. Karen and I decided to take it easy for a bit after that, simply walking the midway and chatting with others in the group. Across from Down Time, the park's drop tower, there was a game concession with a very enthusiastic worker who was walking around with one of the prizes, a five-foot-tall stuffed banana. He was doing his best to try to convince passersby how terrific it would be to take one of those home, how everyone needed a bright red plush banana wearing sunglasses. The schedule said that at noon we were going to have a group photo at Boulder Dash. So everyone gathered by the ride entrance. I suggested it might make for a better photo op down by the trolley road where you could see the long length of the coaster track. So we took a quick photo at the entrance and then walked down toward the trolley station. The south end of the park was blocked off though. The trolley wasn't running, and obviously the only other ride down there, Thunder Rapids, wasn't running either. So instead we gathered in front of the trolley station for a well-timed photo as the coaster train barrelled past. Several of us were getting hungry, so we talked about where to eat. Karen and I loved the pizza from the shop near the Crok Pot restaurant. But that was closed, plus it wasn't one of the places on the meal ticket. We were intrigued by the offering of grilled cheese, so we headed over to that eatery, just past the Boulder Dash entrance. When we arrived, we found it was closed. The only thing open was the Pizza Place. So I guess that narrowed down our choices. There were two doors to the building and neither were marked with anything, so it was a crap shoot as to which door was the entrance and which was the exit. When we figured that out, we each ordered a personal pizza and handed our meal tickets to the clerk at the cash register. She didn't know what to do with them and called her supervisor. Her supervisor told us that those meal tickets had expired. I said that was odd, since park management had just given them to us. She fiddled around at the cash register a bit and discovered that the clerk hadn't pressed a certain button. So finally we all had our pizzas and sat down at the nearby patio to eat. The pizzas were lukewarm and rather dry, nothing like the ones Karen and I used to get. We all relaxed and chatted for a bit. The afternoon sun was getting intensely hot. Next to the patio was Saw Mill Plunge, the park's terrific flume ride that I hadn't ridden in years (because it was always shut down when we were at the park). I asked if anyone else had any interest in riding it, and Duke, John and his wife Maryanne were up for it. John asked if you got wet on the ride, and I said no. The park took out the jets of water at the bottom of the drop, so you'd get only mildly wet. The line was pretty long but moved along steadily. So many parks had started removing their flume rides, even though they're still really popular. I was glad that Compounce still had this unique one. It took about 40 minutes before we boarded our "log". We all decided to get in the same one. Duke warned us that we were all going to get soaked because of the amount of weight in it. The ride attendant asked for the tallest first, so that was John, then me, then Maryanne and lastly Duke. We drifted off toward the long steep lift, which was built onto the side of the mountain like Boulder Dash. At the top, we leveled off and gently drifted along through a peaceful forested area before emerging at the top of the long drop. We plunged down and the log hit the bottom with tremendous force, sending up a wall of water like a shoot-the-chute ride that drenched all of us. John called back, "I thought you said we weren't going to get wet!" At least with the hot dry weather, it didn't take long for us to dry off. Maryanne really wanted to ride Ghost Hunt, the park's interactive dark ride. So we queued up for that. The line was long and moved fairly slowly (which helped with drying off). As we waited, we watched the nearby steel coaster Phobia run through its twisted course. We also noticed that the grilled cheese concession had opened, a little too late for us. We bided our time chatting. I still marveled at some of the subtle and whimsical architectural details the designers put into the Ghost Hunt building. When Karen and I were about to board, the attendant told us that only two adults per car were allowed. I thought that was strange since there were four seats in each car. But Karen and I got in by ourselves. I noticed that the "Boo Blasters" now showed a red circle on targets to help you aim. The high score for the day was well over a million. I couldn't understand how anyone could have done that. The ride was fun. There seemed to be some slightly modified scenes inside. The mirrored hallway, which previously was a fairly boring section, now had targets throughout. With all the mirrors, the targets were really challenging to hit. When we arrived back at the station, I had 126,000 points. Duke ended up being the highest scorer with 148,000 points. I asked the ride attendant if they knew who hit over a million points. The attendant smiled and said, "That's my boss. He knows where everything is in there." By that point it was after 3:00, and the group members were ready to call it a day. John wanted to hang out a bit longer to get a ride on Wildcat, even though we warned him. So we said our goodbyes and bid farewell to another annual Coasterfest. I was surprised to find that I had more fun at Quassy than at Lake Compounce. In theory, there's more for us to do at Compounce. (We didn't even get to ride the Ferris wheel, the train nor Zoomer's Gas & Go.) And we certainly had better weather at Compounce. Maybe it was my bone-jarring ride on Boulder Dash. Maybe it was the lack of decent food offerings. Maybe it was the long lines. But I'm willing to give Compounce another chance. Management seemed to care a lot about the aesthetics of the park, and it was indeed visually impressive. This was the first season of operation after pulling out of the pandemic, and I realized parks across the world were having difficulty getting help. So I hoped my dissatisfaction was due to issues that the park will iron out as the season progressed, and to perhaps some nostalgia for the park that I remembered from two decades before. There was stilll so much potential and I looked forward to seeing where the future would take the oldest amusement park in the country.

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