Tag: amusement park

Too Fat to Ride

judiang and I are currently holed up in a Microtel in Huron, OH where the cable doesn’t work but the wi-fi does. Go geeks!

We got up early this morning (well, 7am for me, 7:40am for Judi) and got ready for our trip to Cedar Point. We had purchased tickets from AAA yesterday after visiting the kitties. So I drove oop north to Sandusky. (Interesting note, Upper Sandusky is south of Sandusky in Ohio. Ohio sure is weird!) We arrived there an hour after opening time (11am for us) and immediately headed for Millennium Force. We’d ridden that ride a few years ago and had to wait 1.5 hours for it. We decided it was worth the wait. This morning, with the Sunday Light Crowds, it was only half an hour. But when I got there, I couldn’t buckle the seat belt! Gah, I knew I was heavier, but surely not too heavy to fit? Alas, I was. Still, Judi the petite-r than me got to ride and she enjoyed it.

Our next destination was Thunder Canyon. I told Judi that going on a water ride early on would help us with the heat that was already nearing Unbearable Status. She reluctantly joined me. They promised that “you WILL get wet on this ride.” Well, they like to make you think you might not. After all, the first waterfall hit the girls across us only. And then it moves around a bit more. But right before the ride is over, 3 waterfalls show up and drench EVERYBODY in the raft. Yup, they kept their promise. Poor Judi looked like a drowned cat.

We dripped our way to a food place to pick up napkins and then hunted for another ride to ride. This one was the new ride, Skyhawk. It’s basically a giant swing that eventually has you facing the ground. I figured it would give us a nice airing. And boy did it! Good addition, Cedar Point!

The next attempt also did its best to say “Damnit Trina, go on a diet!” That was the Cedar Creek Mine Ride. Alas, the way they have that set up, everyone in our mine car had to get out because of my fat belly. So even Judi missed that ride. Bleh. Still, after this time Cedar Point was much kinder about my weight problem. (And I took to getting in the “can you fit in this seat?” thingies in the rides that had longer lines.

Oh yeah, line length? According to the website, Sundays, Tuesdays & Thursdays are the best times to go to avoid big crowds. Well this Sunday was pretty low on crowds. Most of our wait times were less than 15 minutes! Quite nice.

Anyhoo, back to the rides. Gemini was our next stop where we rode the red train. We raced against the blue train and WON. Go us! So of course, being the Doctor Who fan that I am, I cheered “Red trains! Red trains! Red trains are best! Who’s best? Red trains!” Judi, who’s avoided most of the Sylvester McCoy stories, had no idea what I was talking about. Silly girl.

We rode the carnival ride Monster (which is one of those spinny rides that I usually can’t do – but I did this one and felt OK.) Judi then rode the Witches’ Wheel (another carnie-style spinny ride). Next was the Magnum XL-200 (with Magnum PI music & all.)

By now, we were ready for some food. We walked back some of the way we’d come to check out The Chuck Wagon. You know, I learned something important about Judi today. She’s secretly a country & western fan. I mean, why else would she have picked the Chuck Wagon for lunch? Heh heh. We had a nice (expensive) meal of roasted chicken with sides while we plotted the rides to try next. And the next ride to try? The new (for us) Top Thrill Dragster. We heard the wait was an hour & a half (but worth it) and figured we could digest while we waited. But before we stood in line forever, I checked out the test seat & couldn’t buckle! Bummer, no Dragster for Trina. Judi, meanwhile, took the out with good grace. (Heh – I think she was glad she didn’t have to ride it.)

The Power Tower has two choices – get thrust down 240 feet or get thrust up 240 feet. Judi didn’t care which we did (actually, she wanted to sit that one out) so I picked thrust up. And it was cool! Even Judi decided she liked it. (She’s not a height girl. I’m not a spin girl. Between the two of us there’s a perfect roller coaster rider. Who’s probably too fat to ride the Millennium Force. Poor dear!)

The Corkscrew and Iron Dragon are both nice smooth rides. I think the Iron Dragon’s probably my favorite of the older rides. The Mantis made us stand up for the ride which was harder on my legs than I thought it would be. We decided then to take a bit of a break to cool off from the hot day and ordered rootbeer floats & bottled water from Coasters Drive-In Restaurant. We stayed in there as long as possible until we figured we could handle the rest of the evening.

The next ride was probably both of our favorites. The Wicked Twister. Judi wanted to do it again right after our trip and I nixed the idea (silly me) thinking we’d come back after trying some of the others. We moved onto another new ride – the maXair – which spins as it swings. I did fine with the spinning as long as the swinging was going on. But towards the end, where spinning takes precedence, I got a bit nauseous. A normal person would think “Hmmm, I should sit down a bit before trying another ride.” Silly me thought “Well, let’s go do the Raptor.”

The Raptor is a fun ride, but unfortunately the very end of it made me even more nauseous than before. And then the bit where it stopped made it even worse. Let’s just say I was glad I’d only had drinks from the Coasters Drive-In. Bleh.

Judi was in full worry mode by that time (I figured I’d be ok once I cooled off & sat a bit) so we stopped at Johnny Rockets to get something to settle my stomach. Dr. Judi advised me to order a grilled chicken sammich, plain, and Sierra Mist (and water). So I did. They put Mayo on the sandwich, so I sent it back for a plain one. Judi meanwhile had a burger & shake. Heh.

We enjoyed the cooler interior of the restaurant for awhile before moving on. We took the Sky Ride (since it’s a nice gentle “ski-lift”-style ride) to the middle of the park. Judi wanted to do Wicked Twister & maXair again, so we headed that way. I held her water bottle while she rode it. Then she also rode the Troika (another spinny-carnie ride). When she got in line for maXair, I decided to try one of the Guessing Game places to see if my young looks (heh) could fool the guesser. But no, this guy was GOOD. He guessed 33. (I lose if they’re in 2 years of my age.) I returned to maXair to find it not moving. Eventually Judi found me & said that it wasn’t working at the moment and she wasn’t going to wait around for it to get back in session. (Sensible girl).

I took her off to lose $5 from the Guessing Game as well (or have her win me a stuffed toy if he was wrong). I warned her that he was good at guessing ages. He guessed 47. (Poor thing is only 46.) Damn, he’s good. 🙂

We rode the Sky Ride back to the front of the park and then headed for the exit. It was a good day at the park (with a few glitches). We found the hotel OK and are, as I wrote at the start, enjoying the nice air-conditioned room and chatting with elsaf on AIM. Ain’t technology grand?

A Comparison of Days

Yesterday morning, I got up at 5am and woke up judiang in the next half hour. She had a 6:55am flight back to Chicago (gah!), so we headed out to the airport. We arrived at United’s desks at 6:27am. And they wouldn’t let her get a boarding pass. They cited the 30 minute rule for not giving up her boarding pass (and did the same to an irate businessman). So Judi was forced to go on standby for the next flight out. Yuck!

(Oh, Judi, MJ says that it’s quite possible that UA had already given up your seat to someone else because they always overbook. Her hubby’s had that happen to him several times – they use the 30 minute excuse because they can. Blech. Dirty rotters!)

I would have stayed or driven Judi back or something, except that I had to get to work. I had promised MJ, the senior class adviser (and HS secretary – one and the same), that I’d be a chaperon for her on the senior field trip to King’s Island (an Amusement Park in Southern Ohio). Yeah, difficult work to get, no?

We left the school a little after 8am and headed for the park. We made good time and arrived before they opened. No matter, MJ got our tickets and we all skuttered into the park. It wasn’t long before the rides opened and a good portion of us rushed over to Drop Zone. I, of course, did the ride. And once I got off, I took my glasses out of the case where I’d stored them for the trip – and the screw promptly fell out of the left side. The lens fell to the ground, but didn’t break. However, the screw was a loss. Thankfully, MJ and the senior girls with us led me around to the next few rides. We did Face Off and the Racer. Oh, and the Vortex. And some others – but I’ve forgotten them!

Once it became lunch time, MJ and I headed to Skyline for lunch (yay 4-way Cincinnati chili!) while the girls headed off to try the bungee jumping ride, which was currently only $5 instead of the usual $20. After lunch, we headed for a store to see if they had any glasses repair kits. No luck there, and the salesman called to another store – they didn’t either. He did let me have some masking tape and I managed to repair the glasses for the rest of the trip.

MJ and I then headed off to the train station to meet the girls again. Once we got there, we discovered they’d been trying to call us – whoops! We never did hear the phones. Turns out they’d just left on the train we saw leaving when we arrived. So we sat in the train station and enjoyed a breezy, shady break from what was becoming a miserably hot day.

We headed to the water park section of King’s Island where we became Table Sitters. Joy joy. Almost all of the 27 seniors were in the park and left their bags, clothes, shoes, etc at a table (and half of another) where MJ and I sat, watching & waiting. Thankfully, a couple of girls arrived an hour later or so with smoothies and told us where we could get ’em. They watched the table while we nipped off to buy smoothies – yay! I got Mango/Pineapple. Note to self – don’t go barefoot when it’s nearly 90F and sunny – hot on the soles!

We stayed at the table for awhile longer, when MJ’s daughter and some of the other girls said we should switch tables – there was another near the wave pool that was shadier. Everyone gathered all the stuff up (except for one boy’s boots – we’d warned him we weren’t taking them with us) and we moved tables. MJ and I did get to wade in the water – which was refreshing.

Eventually, folks were ready to go back to the main park. Our group of girls decided to do some kiddie rides. We did the Wild Thornberry’s water ride – we thought it should be safe. Everyone getting off the ride was barely wet. Nope. I went with 3 of the girls in one log, MJ went in the next with her daughter and another. And we all came out drenched! Damn, if only we’d known this earlier in the day! 🙂

We did some other kiddie rides, then headed towards the Festhaus for supper. Only we got distracted by the Pop Star try-outs they were doing under the Eiffel Tower. The girls decided they’d enter and sing Stacy’s Mom (but substitute it for Amy’s Mom in honor of MJ). They managed to get a number of the other seniors there to watch and finally got to perform. They did pretty well, and I thought they were better than the girl who kept winning the rounds. They lost, despite being the audience favorite. They got tissues and Loser badges, which they wore proudly to dinner. Supper was La Rosa’s pizza (you’d think they’d want to distance their name from the pizza they serve at King’s Island, but there ya go…) And then Graeter’s Ice Cream for dessert. Graeter’s is a local ice cream manufacturer that is wonderful. And the ice cream here was no different. Yum! I liked it so much, I had some before supper AND after supper. Judi would be so proud!

After ice cream, it was time for the park to close. So we all met up front and took several pictures of the seniors in front of the fountains and Eiffel tower. They even got me in a couple – yuk! Anyhoo, we all headed off to the bus for an uneventful ride home. It was a truly good day.

And while I was having all this fun (hot & shitty fun, but still fun), where was Judi? Still at the airport! Gah!

While I was chaperoning, I kept texting Judi to find out her status. And it just never got much better. When the 10am flight came around, they were too full, so no go for Judi. Then she was shooting for the noon flight. And the 3pm flight. And eventually the 6pm flight! Already at the airport for 12 frickin’ hours and they couldn’t get her on a flight?

We sent several text messages (I think I got 14 from her throughout the day) with a couple of actual calls during the day. I felt so bad for her having to deal with all that shit & boredom while I was having fun watching senior bags and shoes. Once they finally DID get Judi onto a flight, it was delayed! Good grief! There were storms in Chicago, apparently.

In the end, she did get home – yay! And she got home around the same time that I did! Eeep! Poor Judi!

Apart from Judi’s horrible trip home, I think she had a nice weekend with me and elsaf. I know that I loved having them here again! And it’ll be great seeing them in Chicago for the 4th of July! And grief, I hope I don’t have to wait a day at Dayton International to get there!