Conneaut Lake Park

This is Conneaut Lake Park in Pennsylvania. It was one of my local amusement parks and the one I visited most as a kid. It's also the place I rode my first rollercoaster so it has a special place in my heart. The park is small; it only added two coasters, Blue Streak and Toboggan, to our conquered list and was the 2nd stop on our Western Pennsylvania road trip. It has good prices, intimate surroundings and is rather charming.

The park has been around for over 100 years and recently has had lots of financial problems keeping the park open. It used to have a bowling alley, a ballroom, roller skating rink and the scariest "rotor" ride ever called the Hell Hole. The signage for the Hell Hole had a 10 foot tall statue of a devil and gave me nightmares as a kid but became one of my favorite rides as a teen until it closed in 1992. They have your standard dark, "scary" ride with glow in the dark pictures, rubber spiders, loud noises, monster mannequins & the ever trashy & disgusting used chewing gum wall. The Ultimate Trip is the best use of a Scrambler ever. It ran for 3-5 minutes, in the dark, with black lights everywhere & loud rock music, but it closed in 2005. Lastly, my first coaster love, the Blue Streak is the 6th oldest coaster in the United States and a classic out & back wooden coaster. The ride starts in a tunnel before getting to the first hill, has a top speed of 51 mph and lasts 1.32 minutes. Unfortunately, those financial difficulties have caused the coaster to not run since 2007.

I wish I could tell you this is a must visit park but it in all honesty, this park is all but dead. Even in its prime, you could get through the highlights in 2-3 hours. I'm just happy I got to share this park, it's rides and all of it's charm with my wife while it was still a shell of it's former self.

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