THSCC Forums

Carl & I went on a mini MINI adventure last weekend. Paramount King's Island amusement park in Cincinnati, OH opened a new rollercoaster this spring that's modeled after the movie The Italian Job. As a promotional thing, the park sponsored a MINI Owner's Day last Sat. ~150 MINIs (& ~400 MINI folks) from WI, IL, TN, GA, NC, SC, VA, DC, & OH (& probably come other places I didn't know about) converged on the park last Sat. Carl & I were members of an 18-MINI caravan (until the MINIs in the very back complained of having to drive 110 to keep up , so we decided it might be "better" to split into 2 groups).

The park was pretty good to us for our $45 ticket; we got special parking, a continental breakfast, the first rides of the day on the IJ coaster, reserved seating for the School of Rock show at lunch, a picnic dinner (w/ Cincy's version of BBQ, fried chicken, & the usual picnic fixin's), & the last rides of the day on the IJ & a couple of other coasters. They closed the park to the public at 11p & just the MINI group got to ride these several coasters from 11p-12a.

I hate rollercoasters, but the IJ ride is a "family" coaster (rated "medium" intensity) & I did manage to ride the thing 3 times (though I should have stuck to 2 times ). I sorta felt it was "mandatory" for me to give it a try since that's why we were there. Luckily for Carl, Keith Strassel & Chris Suich & clan (2 MINI guys who have been autoXing with us this yr) were also there, giving Carl some folks as crazy as he is (or, well, at least crazy enough to get on those major vomit rides, too) to play with.

One of the coolest things for Carl & me was that we got to display our -BRRLMKR at the entrance to the park! We had received letters saying that the first 50 owners to email this park rep would get to "display" our cars in a special location at the park. ~20 MINIs were pulled aside to park on the grassy strip that folks walk by on their way to the park entrance. Chris got to display his MINI there. All I can think is that I must have been one of the very first folks to email as they pulled 4 of us out of the group as we drove in, led us into the park before it opened, & parked us right in front of the entrance turnstiles inside the park! There were only 5 MINIs parked there; the 5th was a "student driver" car.

Carl & I were our usual slacker-selves with taking pics, but I put up a few pics here (note THSCC sticker prominently displayed; I also mentioned THSCC on the "facts sheet" they taped to my window ).

Other folks did better at pic taking than we did. Some that give the best visuals of the number of MINIs that were there are in a private forum, but here are a few more "public" pics...
* caravan before we picked up the GA & TN folks
* pretty cool pic Chris took of us as we arrived in Cincy
* aerial of King's Island parking lot; MINIs parked on the grassy strip & the first 2.5 rows to the right of the top grassy strip

Even though all the driving for this event was on the highway, we still had a really fun time!

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Mary E./ME/Emmie Fisher/Daniel/Daniel-Fisher
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