In 1958, at the dawn of the theme park era, Lawrence Ferlinghetti published a book of poetry which has since become a modern classic, entitled A Coney Island of the Mind. I purchased a copy because I mistakenly thought it was about Coney Island, then the Holy Grail of amusement parks.

The new TEA/ERA Attendance report – now available here – is filled with Top 10 lists. What a great idea! It seemed like time to compile my own Top 10. But of what? I could offer my own Top 10 list of parks, Top 10 waterparks, Top 10 dark rides, even a Top 10 of terrific, tried and tested alliterations.

Six months after discovering America, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, reported seeing three mermaids, and described them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.”

To its credit, Hersheypark was recently voted the number one park in the US outside Orlando by the TripAdvisor travel group. But TripAdvisor's geography is twisted.

Four parks in four days; that's park hopping. Recently I drove to New England to visit Quassy, Lake Compounce, Six Flags New England and The Great Escape (which borders New England). I enjoyed four distinct adventures that confirmed the health of the amusement industry in North America.

When Huss unveiled its concept for the Topple Tower at the IAAPA trade show in 2002, I was fascinated. Imagine the Leaning Tower of Pisa run amok. We've all seen observation towers and drop towers, but a 63-foot tower that both spins and sways? Huss rides are good, but this was inspired.

Back in the early '70s I began photographing and writing about amusement parks because I was concerned they would all soon disappear. Traditional amusement parks were being bulldozed, and shopping malls and condominiums were rising in their place. They're no fun.

My first encounter with a Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) Dive Machine was a few years ago at Alton Towers in Staffordshire, England, when I climbed aboard Oblivion. What a glorious idea, to ride a rollercoaster that dove 197 feet straight down into a black hole in the ground! We exited, of course, and returned immediately to the loading platform. Short and sweet, it was an inspired one-trick-pony of a coaster.

Year-round coasting has been an aspiration of mankind for centuries. No? OK, then year-round coasting has been a goal of mine for several years now and finally I had the opportunity to enjoy a rollercoaster with snow on the ground. In the process I discovered a ride that, while widely known within the ski industry, has yet to be fully discovered by many amusement park operators. You can read about it elsewhere in this issue.

In the Western United States during the late 1800s, cattle were driven to market along the old Chisholm Trail. The trail stretched from Southern Texas northward to Abilene, Wichita, and eventually to Newton, Kansas, where they were shipped eastward. The adventure-packed life of a cowboy always appealed to me, so just last month I decided to trace part of the Chisholm Trail.

Here it is, the beginning of the season, and I’m having still flashbacks to the winter’s trade shows. One of my greatest pleasures when visiting an exhibition is discovering new, innovative attractions. I love innovation, at least when it works well. But it doesn’t always.

Recently the folks at Walt Disney World invited me there to learn more about their “Year of a Million Dreams” promotion. Is that a million dreams in total, or one for each guest? It would be nice if it were all just for me, but since I'm not greedy and was just going to be there one day, I went in search of - do the math with me here - 2,740 dreams.

Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari, Santa Claus, Indiana, was the only major theme park in America that I hadn’t experienced until recently. As the season was coming to an end, I finally visited and met the town’s namesake, pictured here (he’s the one with the beard).

Discovering the origins of the outdoor amusement industry is fascinating. So on a crisp November day I visited Reading, Pennsylvania, to discover the site of the Mount Penn Gravity Railroad that operated from 1890 through to 1923. It is a predecessor to modern rollercoasters.

It was picture-perfect weather, the beginning of a glorious day. Pilot Bob and I had chosen this day to fly to La Ronde Parc in Montreal because the weather was predicted to be excellent for a small plane flight, and because I wanted to photograph Goliath, the park’s new Bolliger & Mabillard coaster, in bright sun.

While some may consider riding a rollercoaster a preventable trauma, I’ve always enjoyed it. So when Six Flags president and CEO Mark Shapiro told me, “We’re going to stop buying $20 million rollercoasters,” I was momentarily overjoyed, expecting him to now buy bigger and faster $25 and $30 million dollar rides. But that was not his intention.