March is now upon us and February 2021 is in the books. I feel like I didn’t have a lot to write about here in this installment of the monthly CAG Report, but February certainly fit the saying, “quality over quantity.” Some of the projects that I tackled were quite in depth, whether it was a lengthy, involved editorial piece, or the massive overhaul of the site’s design and search engine optimization that I’m still currently looking at and improving. I’ll touch more on that in a bit, but let’s take a look at the month that was February 2021 as a whole.
I Wished...
I didn’t find a genie in a bottle. I didn’t see a shooting star. There has been no wishbone in sight. Nevertheless, at the beginning of February, I wrote one of the most lengthy editorials to be featured on We Were Inverted, titled, “Six Flags America Wish List – One Enthusiast’s Hopes.” The reason for writing this piece was because of the recent hiring of new Park President Richard Pretlow.
My aim was to keep the piece to just three topics, but when I began to explore some of those topics, my ideas began flowing. I broke a few of those topics into some of my ideas. There are subheadings under other subheadings. I touched on new coasters, some quality of life upgrades to the park, and ended discussing my feelings on the park’s merchandise. If you’re a local to Six Flags America (SFA), I’d love for you to give it a read, if you haven’t already. Tell me what you think. Am I on point with some of my ideas, or do you think differently?
First Park Visits of 2021? Sorta...
So if you go to an amusement park, but you never enter the gate, does it count as a visit? I only ask because it sure felt like I visited both Dutch Wonderland and Hersheypark on Friday, February 12, 2021. I didn’t ride any rides, eat any funnel cake, or purchase any new pins, however. My goal was to shoot photos of the coasters at both parks covered in the recent snowfall. I succeeded at both parks, shooting everything from the outside since neither were open.
Dutch Wonderland saw me focus solely upon Kingdom Coaster with its teal and purple structure really popping out against the white setting. At Hersheypark I was able to capture more than one coaster, but I sure had to work for it. Doing quite a bit of walking and driving from spot to spot, I was able to capture Lightning Racer, Skyrush, Comet, Storm Runner and SooperDooperLooper primarily. You can also see hints of Great Bear, Fahrenheit, and Trailblazer in some of the pictures too.
I’ve always been a huge fan of the snow-covered photos most parks publish to their social media accounts, so it was awesome getting to do a bit of it myself. If you haven’t checked out any of these photos, be sure to do so by checking out, “Dutch Wonderland – Snow Day Photos, Part 1,” and “Hersheypark – Snow Day Photos, Part 2.”
A Whole Lot of Redesign
If you haven’t noticed already, this blog format is different than what you’re used to reading. As a matter of fact, the entire site got a new look at the end February 2021. Putting aside some of my blog series and regular updates, I focused on revamping the entirety of this site. Every single page and the blog template have all been updated, for what I feel like, is the best it’s looked since I launched.
I go into all the details of what has been changed in the blog, “We Were Inverted’s Retracking… Ehh, Redesign.” The only thing I didn’t touch upon there was the revamp of the blog templates. That was something I started after I finished up with all the pages. I’m still going through those now and cleaning a few of them up. I won’t really get into the other changes here as I went into some detail in the blog above. Be sure to give that read for all that information.
Blog Optimization (Ongoing)
Something else I have been hard at work on here, and will be making changes to throughout the month, is some of the search engine and social media optimization settings. I’m learning quite a bit about some of the behind the scenes elements that will hopefully make this site stand out a little better moving forward.
I want everyone to know that I appreciate any and all feedback about your experiences. Do you like the redesign? Are things working well for you on your viewing platform (desktop, tablet, or mobile)? Please let me know.
Mailyn Makes Her Way Onto We Were Inverted
For the last couple of months I have thought about adding Mindy’s daughter, Mailyn, to the site as one of the Flight Crew. She’s been visiting parks with her mother and I for years now, hence her debuting as a Rank 9 Lieutenant. That means she’s visited nine different parks with me, the most recent of which was back in July 2020 when we went to Hersheypark with a bunch of the site’s crew.
It will only take one more park for her to jump to the Commander rank, where both Elaina and Greg currently reside. With talks of us visiting Adventure Park USA and Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW), I’m sure she’ll at least be Rank 11 by mid-summer. Here’s hoping to seeing her rival her mom up there in the Captain ranking.
32 New Pins, 2 Months in a Row
I didn’t plan it to happen this way, but February 2021, like January 2021, saw me add 32 new pins to my Pin Collection. By the way, I’m giving a little more attention to that page on the site throughout. At 365 pins at the end of the month, it’s becoming quite the hit. A few pin traders and collectors in several Facebook groups have made some positive comments about the entirety of the collection. As I’ve been saying, it’s now rivaling my Coaster Credit Count. Which one will make it to 400 first? Sadly, I’m guessing the pins. I wish I could order coasters off eBay and have them shipped to the house. Well, as long as they’re the same price as most of these pins, that is. I can’t afford millions of dollars for an inverted coaster of my own.
Getting Back to Blogging & the Norm
Influential Coasters of My Childhood
Now that I have gotten the site redesign mostly taken care of, my aim is to post another installment of the “Influential Coasters of My Childhood” series. That launched back in December 2020 with “Influential Coasters of My Childhood – Anaconda,” and then I followed that up in January 2021 with “Influential Coasters of My Childhood – Wild One” in January. Of course I also added the “Modern Take” follow ups to both of those, so be sure to give all of those a read if you still haven’t yet. I have a number of coasters picked out for future installments, so I just have to figure out what one to do next. Maybe I’ll let one of my crew members decide.
Coaster Collectibles
Speaking of series, it’s been a while since my last “Coaster Collectibles” installment. Greg’s feature, “Coaster Collectibles – Greg Lane: Ride Photo Keychains,” was the last one back in November 2020. I have reached out to someone with quite the following on Instagram to see if she’d be interested being featured. She looks to have a lot of merchandise of all sorts, but I think I have an idea of what might make for a great addition to that series. Hopefully she’s game.
An All-New Interview
Lastly, I have been wanting to do an interview with Chris D.‘s daughter, Carrie, about what it was like for her growing up and getting into this hobby. Chris gave me his permission to proceed and I recently sent over a handful of questions for her. I can’t wait to get that up on the site and think it will be a great read. I’d be looking for that to be published this month.
That pretty much wraps up this installment of the monthly “CAG Report.” Soon I should be getting back out to some parks and posting some trip reports. Right now, however, I’m much more interested in getting some of these features up onto the site.
