Well, this edition of the monthly CAG Report is going to be heavily Virginia themed. Pretty much everything I will recap from June has ties to either Busch Gardens Williamsburg (BGW) or Kings Dominion. This includes trips, new pins, and even an entry into the Influential Coasters of My Childhood series. Let’s get into this!
Time for Another Influential Coaster
At the end of April I knew I was going to be publishing my next entry in the Influential Coasters of My of Childhood series on Loch Ness Monster. When I decided to make an impromptu solo trip to BGW, I took several cameras with the intention of getting lots of footage of the Monster. I spent over an hour just filming the coaster flying over the river, into the interlocking loops, and even shooting it from the Skyview cable cars. Oh, and I shot POV footage too, which recently made it onto the We Were Inverted YouTube channel.
Originally, my plan was to write the series and have it published in May, but I pushed it back one too many times. I aim for both the Influential piece and its Modern Take follow up to be published in the same month, with a few days between each. Once I realized that wouldn’t happen in May, I decided to save it for June.
This series has been one of the more popular blogs I publish on We Were Inverted. They tend to be a hit with those looking for a bit of nostalgia. That being said, I was shocked to see the low viewership numbers for “Influential Coasters of My Childhood – Loch Ness Monster.” I honestly thought Nessie would be one of the more popular entries into the series.
With the initial entry not doing as well as I expected, I didn’t know how, “Modern Take on Influential Coasters of My Childhood – Loch Ness Monster” would perform. Oddly, it’s outdoing the initial entry and did so rather quickly. Sometimes you just can’t predict how things will go.
New YouTube Title Cards
Since things are slow-going pertaining to trips right now, I have been using some of the downtime to tend to odds and ends. In June, YouTube got some attention in the form of all new title cards.
I didn’t hate the title cards I was using with the images, logos, and text used. I honestly, quite liked many of them. A few did have some text that was too small to read, but I thought they still looked appealing a first glance. What my aim was in redoing these cards was to give them all a similar look.
Most of the cards use the same images and logos, just updated with the new borders, depending on what type of video the content shows. They also feature a We Were Inverted logo and a box stating what type of video can be found when clicked upon – like in the Pantheon On-Ride POV video featured above.
Since the change I have seen a slight up-tick in views and followers. I don’t know if this is because of the title cards, or the fact that I opened a TikTok (@WeWereInverted) and Twitter (@InvertedCrew) account for We Were Inverted last month. TikTok is getting some views, but Twitter has been a ghost town. You can follow the site on those platforms and others found in the footer down below.
Virginia Pins, with Some Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, and Texas Too
Okay, here is the one area where Virginia isn’t the sole focus. While I did pick up nine pins from Kings Dominion, 11 from BGW, and one from an artist based off of Alpengeist (in Virginia), pins from a few other parks outside Virginia managed to slip into the mix as well. Here’s a breakdown of where everything came from:
- Kings Dominion (9): Twisted Timbers (1), Tumbili (1), Jungle Expedition/General (7)
- Six Flags Over Texas (1): Titan (1)
- Six Flags Great Adventure (2): Skull Mountain (1), General (1)
- Theme Park Collection by Joseph Fells (1): Alpengeist (1)
- Hersheypark (7): Skyrush (1), Storm Runner (1), Sooperdooperlooper (1), Great Bear (1), Fahrenheit (1), Jolly Rancher Remix (1), Candymonium (1)
- Busch Gardens Tampa (1): Iron Gwazi (1)
- Busch Gardens Williamsburg (11): Pantheon (5), Le Scoot (1), Escape From Pompeii (1), Finnegan’s Flyer (1), InvadR (1), Tempesto (1), Verbolten (1)
I want to thank Sam, Chris D., and Carrie for a majority of these pins. Sam picked up the Hersheypark and Six Flags Great Adventure (SFGAdv) pins on recent visits to both parks. She gave them to me as birthday gifts and I was so happy to add them all to my collection.
Chris was holding onto all but one of the Pantheon pins you see above. We planned to trade those pins for I had picked up for him. It had been a while since we were able to meet up, so we had stashed quite a few for one another. In addition to those, we also bought some of the License Plate Series 2 Mystery Boxes at BGW and swapped our duplicates with one other. With the four sets I picked up and the two he grabbed, I managed to complete the set of six after trades.
And lastly, Carrie was kind enough to give me the Iron Gwazi slider pin from Busch Gardens Tampa (BGT) that same day. Talk about an amazing surprise! I can surely say that was unexpected. Carrie is a sweetheart and I thank her deeply for wanting me to have this hard-to-find pin.
Like Kings Exploring Gardens
That might be one of the weirdest headings I’ve ever typed in any of my CAG Reports, but it’s staying. The month of June was also a slow one for me when it came to visiting parks. I am currently looking for full-time work and with travel prices so high, I haven’t been out and about as much as I was in 2020 and 2021. Hopefully I’ll find something up my alley soon. While that won’t leave me as much open time, having the funds to do things and venture out to some other parks would be nice.
While Sam and Kaylee were able to get out to some other parks in recent weeks, my adventures had me at Kings Dominion on my birthday with Sam and Greg, and then at BGW most recently with Chris and Carrie. Check out both trip reports at the links below:
- (06.04.2022) “Kings Dominion – First Rides on Tumbili“
- (06.25.2022) “Busch Gardens Williamsburg – Pin Swappin’ & Coaster Hoppin’“
What Does July Hold in Store?
To answer the above question, I honestly don’t know. Sam had hoped to go to Cedar Point with a friend of hers for her first time during the week of Fourth of July, but plans fell through. We’ve talked about hitting up a park in the area and then maybe catching a minor league baseball game that same evening. We have a few options such as Six Flags America (SFA) and the Bowie Baysox or Kings Dominion and the Fredericksburg Nationals. We haven’t cemented anything as of yet and the early forecast is showing a lot of rain and storms next week. Fingers crossed that something works out.
Regardless of whether my butt finds its way onto coasters or not, I will find something for everyone who visit the site to check out. I have some POV’s and off-ride footage I need to post to YouTube too, so be on the lookout for that. I am also thinking of people to interview for the site moving forward. Any suggestions? I’d love to hear them.
