Oh Honestly, Erin

Today, I’m challenging myself to not word-vomit all over this thing because I’m sure whatever readers I have left are sick of the amusement park recaps. So let’s be succinct! Succinct is seccy!

OK, that’s not ever going to be a thing. Sorry for testing that out publicly.

Anyway, there were several reasons why we chose to go to Waldameer on Sunday:

• it’s only about 2 hours away so it’s a nice little day trip
• it’s free admission if you’re not riding, which Henry LOVES
• they got a new SBF Visa Spinning coaster last year and Chooch wanted that credit
• they retracked part of Ravine Flyer III and I wanted to try that…new wood out

The spinning coaster was trash, as expected. The ride operator cycled it five times and I hit my head at the same spot every time, you’d think I’d learn.

I love Comet because it’s a very cute family coaster, and actually was less rough than I remembered.

Henry’s only responsibility is to hold our phones and take pictures of us being adorbs on the rides. And also foraging for snacks for us too.

Look at the beastly Ravine Flyer hill in the background. Bless.

You guys can literally NOT go to Waldameer and not ride the Whacky Shack, I’m goddamn sorry but that ain’t happen’ on MY watch, mothercheffers. This is one of my favorite classic dark rides of all time!

The line for it was actually “long” (by Waldameer standards, anyway; I’d say we waited for a whole whopping 15 minutes) and people were seriously exclaiming, “OH WOW THAT LINE IS LONG!” and turning around. Like wow don’t go to Cedar Point, then lullll. This one old lady got into line and as she passed me in the queue, she looked me point blank in the eyes and asked, “Tell me the truth: is this ride worth it?” I was so put on the spot! People around us were looking me with great expectation twinkling in their eyes!

“Um, I think it is,” I said with faux-confidence and Chooch sighed, “Ohmygod” under his breath because anytime MOMMY talks to a STRANGER it is très embarrasing, you know.

There’s Henry hulking in the background with FOODS. Also, I love the Whacky Shack cars! As soon as we sit down inside them, the musty scent of a 1950s tool shed overwhelms the senses. Nostalgia for something I have never actually lived through.

WHACKY SHACK!!!

Post-Whacky Shack family portrait featuring Chooch’s phone that he never puts down because OMG DISCHORD FRIENDS.

Pirate’s Cove is another great dark ride, but this one is a walk-through and I just love it so much! It’s dark and dangerous, oooh.

I made Chooch ride the Paratroopers because KENNYWOOD removed theirs so who knows how often we will get to ride this now!?  The ride operator was having black outs I think because he was running 4 minute cycles. (Chooch timed ours and it was 4:33,) It was definitelt the longest we stood in any line that day and not because of the amount of people in front of us!

You can tell Chooch really wanted to ride this. Also, I had to scream, “TAKE OUR DAMN PICTURE HENRY ALL THE OTHER DADS ARE DOING IT!!” from the air because Henry was being annoying about not wanting to take photos of his adorable family having A TIME on  the Paratroopers. He really needs to work on this.

Yeah, Ravine Flyer II! Henry used his “Wally Card” to ride this – Waldameer is a cash-free park so you have to get a “Wally Card” and put money on it. Then you can scan it for games, food, etc and it’s pretty handy if you only want to go to Waldameer to ride the Ravine Flyer II and don’t want to buy a $37 ride-all-day wrist band – you can get a Wally Card and put $4.50 on it and take one joyride on the RFII and then split. It’s pretty good for grandparents too who want to be able to go to parks and chill with the grandkids without spending $$$ on a wristband they’re not going to use, but perhaps they’d like to take a spin on the carousel with Jimmy and Susie.

Kennywood used to be like this, with a ticketing system as well as the ride-all-day option, and it was so nice. I wish they still did that so, for instance, Henry’s mom could tag along with us sometime without having to spend like $40 just to walk into the park.

Corporate sell-out! I’m so mad at Kennywood.

(I mean, I will probably still go there once this summer but THAT DOESN’T MEAN I FORGIVE THEM for putting in STEELERS COUNTRY and removing FOUR ICONIC FLATRIDES. Fuck you, whoever owns Kennywood.)

(I know who owns it but I forget at the mo’ and don’t care enough to look it up, but I hate them.)

PUDDIN’ FACES in line for Ravine Flyer.

Chooch waited longer to ride in the back again and we tried to embarrass him by taking his picture like it’s BABY’S FIRST SOLO COASTER RIDE or something.

THERE HE GOES, MY BAYYYYBAYYYY!

He comes back, MOMMY’S LITTLE BRAVE BOY!!!

Love this ride but it felt like the second half was crawling. I kept saying that to Henry and Chooch and no one was agreeing or disagreeing so that leads me to believe they weren’t listening to me as usual. Especially Chooch who never misses a chance to offer a dissenting view.

Oh shit I forgot to mention that after the Whacky Shack, Chooch and I sat a nearby table with Henry, who had bought us cookies and soft pretzels (mmm, lunch) and I purposely waited for the old lady to make it through the Whacky Shack so I could ask her if she liked it. She said YES SHE DID, IT WAS CUTE.

Then I said OK GOOD I WAS WORRIED.

And then she said OH NO, YOU’RE FINE.

And then I was satisfied so we continued on with our day.

This bucket seat may have been the most uncomfortable of any swing seat I’ve sat in.

This was Chooch telling me that the stink bug on the seat in front of him was still  there.

On the swings with us was a dad with shitty tattoos that looked like they were penciled onto his skin by a toddler, in case you were wondering what kind of clientele you could expect to see at Waldameer. Very creepy and concerning.

Wasting $$$. (Actually, he won a little Nemo at this game and then later won a bigger thing that we can’t figure out what it’s supposed to be but it’s cute, and then I won a little pink dolphin throwing darts at balloons but I gave it to Henry’s granddaughter Lily yesterday because I don’t want more clutter in the house.)

The Music Express always makes me so giddy and this one is ESPECIALLY FUN AND WILD and the ride operator makes you scream. I love when ride operators ask for rider participation! Meanwhile, Chooch was mad because I took a selfie with him before the ride started and then a ride attendant came over and told him he’d have to put his STUFFED ANIMAL in his pocket OR DOWN HIS SHIRT before the ride started and for some reason this made him really embarrassed and that just made me laugh harder AND THEN DURING THE RIDE the same ride attendant motioned for Chooch to hold on to the bars in front of us and he was like OMG WHY WON’T THIS GUY LET ME LIVE MY FUCKING LIFE.

Wasting more $$$.

Chooch is REALLY INTO CAROUSELFIES.

Henry moved to a horse closer to me after I took the carouselfie and I was like, “OH HELLO, DID I INVITE YOU TO JOIN ME?” God, let me breathe!

Lol, left Chooch in t he dust. He truly cared.

Carouselfie in the mirror.

We made it through the whole day (well, we were really only there for about 4 hours, so…) without fighting once. Usually we at least argue over food because we act like goddamn scavengers. But not on this day!

Welp, I think I failed at keeping this succinct and seccy but it’s probably definitely….succy. OK OK OK I’ll stop.

Until next week when we go to FOUR AMUSEMENT PARKS IN ONE WEEK FOR MY AMAZING AMUSEMENT PARK BIRTHDAY ROADTRIP that was supposed to happen last year but didn’t because, well, you know why so we’re going to attempt it this year instead! Unsubscribe now!

I realized the other day that we have been to 7 parks since getting vaccinated, and not a single one is our home park (Kennywood). One day this summer!

I will try to keep this short n’ sweet because OH WOW another amusement park post, cool story, etc.

But we had fun and memories were had, you know?

The morning started off icky though because similar to Cedar Point, King’s Island also does early entry access for passholders. That fucking gold pass really ruins everything for us Kingly platinum pass holders though lol. Anyway, it was cool when we went the day before because it was so late in the day and there was no line of traffic into the parking lot, so we cruised right through the handy-dandy self-scan line for pass holders.

However, it was a different story on Monday morning. First of all, the park gate’s were supposed to open at 10:30 but the parking lot was STILL CLOSED AT 10:20ish! It was absurd! So there was a huge line of cars waiting to get in, and once the lanes opened, tons of non-pass holders were getting in the wrong lane, so then they’d realize that they were screwed when they got to the front and would have to try and cut over into another line. Then people were trying to scan the pass from their phone and it wasn’t working so a parking attendant would have to leave the lane that actually required the service of a real person to come to our “SELF-SERVE” line and it was fucking mayhem. Our line was literally the slowest out of all of them. THEN! The car two in front of us kept scanning their pass over and over again WHILE THE FUCKING GATE WAS UP! Henry actually fucking BELLOWED out the window, “THE GATE IS OPEN, GO!!!” and there was a SUPER COOL GUY in the passenger seat of the car next to us who also yelled, “PAY ATTENTION!” then he looked over at us and shook his head and we HAD A BONDING MOMENT and just now it occurred to me that he kind of looked like DUFF GOLDMAN.

We thought for sure we would see him a million times that day because that is usually how things happen with us, but alas, we never did. :(

On our walk to the front gate, the stupid NATIONAL ANTHEM started to play and 99.9 % of the people stopped walking and did the respectful thing by standing in place and removing their hats if necessary and I stopped walking too but let it be known that I was NOT happy about it!

The process of entering the park went very smoothly and Henry hilariously assumed the role as FAMILY LEADER and power walked, nay—STALKED, toward Orion for early access.

30 minutes isn’t much time to work with but we were able to get quick rides sans the general public on Orion and Mystic Timbers before the riff raff started trickling in.

We were only at the park for about 4 hours since we had accomplished everything we wanted the night before and we wanted to get a good headstart on our drive home, but I will list some of the highlights here!

• When we were in line for Diamondback (which might be my #2 ride there?! I ended up loving it so much more this visit!), I saw a guy that makes appearances in several of the coaster vloggers I follow and it wasn’t too surprising to see him because I THINK he’s a ride operator there, but on this day he was just a park visitor. I hoarsely whispered, “LOOK IT’S PAUL! FROM COASTER STUDIOS AND COASTER IDIOTS…!” but of course Henry can NOT hear whispers, probably from all that time he spent “working” on “planes” in “THE SERVICE.” Finally, he understood what I was saying and smirked. “He looks like an asshole,” he said. Later on, I told Chooch about it too (he missed out on this convo in real time because we split up in the station and he was waiting in line for the front row) and when I showed him who Paul is in one of the Coaster Studios videos, Chooch said, “Oh. He looks like an asshole.” Yeah, he kind of did.

• BLUE ICE CREAM WAS HAD! It was only 11:30am but who the fuck cares. We were running on amusement park time and to be quite frank, anytime is ice cream time. Here are some pictures of the BLUE ICE CREAM:

• After this, we got our traditional carouselfie. The BACK STORY is that while we were standing in line, Chooch started complaining because his phone that he broke last September was getting progressively worse and now he was barely able to read texts. He was all “wah wah you said you would get it fixed” and Henry totally snapped and was all, “you listen here, you little ingrate, I still have $200 left to pay on  the fucking iPhone and now you expect me to pay an additional $200 to get that thing fixed?!” And I was like “YEAH WHAT HE SAID” and then it was our turn  to mount the horses and I was the only one who was able to mimic the HAPPY FAMILY vibe, clearly.

• The park was really getting somewhat crowded noon. Not unbearably so, but the wait times for some of the coasters were around 45-60 minutes, so Chooch and I rode a flat ride and then convinced Henry to ride the rapids ride, which required us to walk what felt like a mile of empty queue to get to where the line actually ended. We ended up sharing a thingie with a couple in their…early 30s? We didn’t vibe much with them so I felt like, as a family unit on a rapids ride, we were really dialing it back. It was one of the rougher ones I’ve ever ridden and I was exciting because there was a plaque thing on our raft that said it was manufactured by INTAMIN (and it even had the patent # so I felt like I was at work, reviewing a patent matter, my job is boring sometimes, it’s fine). It’s funny how now we care more about ride manufacturers than back in the day (well, that’s not true- I was very much into dark ride manufacturers). ANYWAY the reason I’m telling you this is because later on that day, Henry was like, “Oh shit” and showed me a news article about a kid who had JUST DIED on a rapids ride earlier that weekend at another park in the US. God, you never want to think about the freak accidents that could and do happen at parks. But I was reading an article about it later and it said that this particular ride did not come equipped with the QUICK DRAIN EMERGENCY SYSTEM that the INTAMIN MODELS have. Intamin!!

• I really forgot how wonderful Mystic Timbers is. I would recommend it to people who think that all wooden coasters are rough pieces of shit, because this one will pleasantly surprise them.
• When Chooch and I were in line for the Bat, I was so angry with him because he stood there the whole time, fucking around on his phone (I thought he couldn’t see anything??) leaving me to stand there in silence, sadly watching all the friends and families having special fun time together, laughing it up, talking about food plans, etc. It’s so awkward when he does this shit to me! And then when I try to say something to him, he gives me THAT LOOK – parents of teenagers past & present, you know that fucking look – like, “You deign to speak to me in public?” I hate it! Especially when it was our turn to enter the station and I said, “Where do you want to sit? Where do you want to sit? WHERE. DO. YOU. WANT. TO. SIT.” because he was totally spaced out on his phone, but when he heard me the third time, he snapped, “I SAID I DON’T CARE.” OH MY GOD NO HE DID NOT. The whole point of this is that we were seated behind a mom and her young son – Jake – who totally lost his shit before they even sent the train out of the station. I mean, it was panic city in front of me. There is this one part of the lift hill where the suspension above makes a loud POP sound and when that happened, he fucking SCREAMED and then I started feeding off his fear and Chooch was like, “Oh my fucking god” and then I kept thinking in my head, “WHAT IF JAKE KNEW” as I envisioned the suspension breaking and our train careening into the Mason, Ohio forest. It ended up being fine and it turned out that Jake really enjoyed the ride once it hit the brake run. I started laughing when we got off the ride because he was older than I thought (maybe 9?) and his much-younger who was sitting in front of him gave him this, “You’re a fucking embarrassment” look when he got out of his seat. I guess YOU HAD TO BE THERE.

• Before we left, I bought some really cool holographic post cards (MAYBE YOU RECEIVED ONE FROM IN THE REAL LIFE MAIL, OMG) and Chooch settled on a Diamondback tshirt while Henry hemmed and hawed over hats and then ended up not buying anything because why buy a cool hat when you can get free Faygo ones from work, I guess. :/

And that was pretty much all that happened on our second day at King’s Island! The Beast hadn’t opened yet by the time we left around 2 so I’m really glad that we rode it the day before. I would have liked to have ridden Racer 76 because some of it has been retracked but the line seemed long and apparently, the retrack didn’t make it that much better, so OH WELL. We also had a fun ride on the Shake, Rattle, and Roll because the ride operator was super energetic and all about that rider-participation. I love riding shit when the operator is telling us what to shout! I wish all ride operators had that kind of fun personality. King’s Island in general is actually pretty good on that front. But I still think that Dollywood and Holiday World have every other non-Disney park in the US beat in that area!

I’m desperate to find friends to go to parks with us though since Chooch HATES HAVING CONVERSATIONS IN LINE. Someone buy a Cedar Fair Platinum Pass next year and meet up with us. I promise I won’t get you in trouble for running (lol, j/k, you will definitely get in trouble).

Going to a theme park on the fourth of July seems like the dumbest idea that ever hatched from my brain-egg (so many people who know me in real life would read that line and agree that I’ve had way dumber ideas though) but listen, Linda. Listen. I had a strategy. Much like with our Cedar Point weekend, I felt that splitting one day into two half-days would be the way to go because that way we could leave the park earlier on Monday so we wouldn’t be making the four and a half hour drive home super late on Monday night, while still getting in some night rides on Sunday. If we didn’t have those Cedar Fair passes, we definitely couldn’t do something like this because that would be pay park admission for two days PLUS PARKING for two days! Have you been to a fucking amusement park in the 21st century? Parking is outrageous – usually about $20!! In some cases, that’s not much less than the actual park admission!

We rolled up around 6:30/7:00 and the parking lot was packed so we were like “aw shit son, did we make a huge mistake?” but also we weren’t too worried because even if it was very crowded, maybe we could get on some flat rides and just, I dunno, enjoy the scenery. But you guys, guess what?? Apparently everyone was waiting in line for Invertigo and Flight of Fear because the wait times for nearly every other coaster was 45 minutes or less! Orion was listed as 30 minutes so we went straight to the back of the park to take that new-new for a spin.

Daebak…..Orion is technically a giga coaster because even though the lift hill is just shy of the 300 foot mark, the drop itself is 300 feet so most sane people are counting it as a giga. Of course there are the naysayers out there but I say: is it a fun coaster? yes? then who cares?!!?

This is the problem with labels!

The line would have probably actually been about 30 minutes as stated if King’s Island didn’t have such a high line-jumping problem. OMFG it was insane the amount of people cutting in line. Some of them would go through the unmanned Fast Lane entrance knowing that they wouldn’t be checked until they got to the station, and then slyly slid into the general line before the Fast Lane line started up the steps. Other people just blatantly cruised under the empty switchbacks and then pushed through everyone to get their ONE PERSON PLACEHOLDER. Literally, this one guy who was a few heads in front of us started jumping and waving and I was like OH GREAT but then only one person joined him so then I was TOO PISSED because Orion seats four people across and they don’t generally use single riders to fill empty spaces as far as I’ve seen at King’s Island so I figured that dude would have just been sitting alone anyway and now he has someone else to sit with him so this won’t affect us…

AND THEN 5 MORE PEOPLE JOINED HIM. And they had no shame at all. Just shouldered their way right the fuck in and a bunch of us just watched this play out, totally appalled, and of course not DARING to say anything to these YOUNG ENTITLED PEOPLE because you can’t fucking say shit to this shitty generation without worrying about getting kicked in the head. This line was set up in a way that made it entirely too easy for this shit to happen and there wasn’t a single KI employee around to watch for this shit. I don’t care how much “line jumping” signage they have – these kids know that there will be no repercussions so they just do what they want because ENTITLEMENT.

Aside from that, the ride was great. Maybe a little underwhelming? It’s only the third giga I’ve ridden (wow I really tried to spell that with a “wr”) and I would say that it’s less forceful than Intimidator 305 in King’s Dominion, but the second half is more interesting than the second half of Millennium Force in Cedar Force. Overall, I though it was solid! You just can’t beat the views on Millie, and I ALWAYS gray out on I305, but did not gray out on Orion, sadly. I need to ride it more times though because I didn’t gray out on Millie the first couple times I rode her either!

Surprisingly, for a Fourth of July evening, this park was NOT all that crowded. I couldn’t believe our good fortune.

We made it on the Beast (aka Daddy) in about 15 minutes. Chooch and I were in the back seat and I fucking swear to god at one point I thought we were popping off the track. How do you explain the Beast to anyone who hasn’t ridden it? It is A PSYCHO MACHNE. Totally brutal yet somehow not as painful as some other ratchety woodies. I’m obsessed with it.

Henry for some reason didn’t ride Mystic Timbers with us in 2019 but this time he did and now understands the hype. If you don’t like wooden coasters because of the roughness, you gotta get your ass on a newer GCI because they are so smooth while still fucking FLYING over that track.

Next, Chooch and I knocked out the two kiddie coasters that he missed in 2019 because of rain. This yellow thing was surprisingly fun even though it was ONE TRAIN OPS.

I was obsessed with the two little boys in line in front of us because they were so adorable and I think Chooch was jealous, well then maybe he should pay attention to me!!!!!!!! Anyway it was funny because they kept calling their mom over to the fence to tell her things, and we kept calling Henry over too, like two needy children.

Tightwad Hank was so angry that I wanted to purchase this picture, because UGH MONEY, NO SPEND! but I just think it’s funny because I look petrified on a kiddie coaster and Chooch is trying to calm me down, when really I was squinting because the camera flash hurt my eyes. No, really! I’m serious! OMG I WASN’T SCARED, OK!?

Then we kind of just wandered around for a bit, got some snacks and waited for the fireworks show to start. Our strategy was to hang out near the entrance of the Beast, which was going to close down during the fireworks and then reopen after. We thought that would be a good time to get a night ride, but I kept saying, “I don’t think ALL of the rides are shutting down during this, maybe we should get in line for Diamondback,” but Mr. I Am King’s Island Mgmt was adamant that ALL RIDES were stopping during the fireworks and that we would get “stuck in line” if we attempted to ride Diamondback at that time.

Well, that motherfucker was INCORRECT because almost every ride was still operating except those in the area where the fireworks were being set off (Orion, Racer, Beast) so we could have been getting flung around over those sweet-ass Diamondback hills instead of sitting on a wall waiting out the fireworks THANKS HENRY. And after all that, Beast never reopened for the night! A bunch of us were viciously yelled at by an older park employee to vacate the area (ok, maybe VICIOUSLY is the wrong word but he was definitely an asshole).

Chooch and I took that opportunity to jump on Diamondback finally and the line was so short, only about 15 minutes! We sat in the last car and it was the best ride I’ve had on it, super memorable, whereas the last time we there I only thought it was “OK.” Always re-ride coasters, because you never know when something is going to go from mediocre in your eyes to fucking DOPE AF.

Chooch whined about playing games as usual. This pisses me off so much. I keep waiting for him to outgrow this obnoxious penchant to waste his parents’ hard-earned cash on RIGGED CARNIVAL GAMES but it has yet to happen and now I’m starting to panic a little but eventually this will be someone else’s problem so I just have to wait it out I guess. Good luck to his future dates/partners/spouses.

I had to drag his ass on Adventure Express because he’s too “cool” to ride “lame” mine train rides now apparently. But even he couldn’t deny that this was FUCKING AMAZING AS A NIGHT RIDE. I even declared at one point that it was my favorite ride in the park when he gave me a disgusted look, I walked back on my opinion and edited it to “second favorite.”

After this, Banshee was a FIVE MINUTE WAIT. Literally almost a station wait, I couldn’t believe it because this is one of their premier coasters, and I’m pretty sure Chooch waited in line for about 90 minutes when we were there in 2019 and that annoyance definitely swayed my opinion at the time. But this time? On a beautiful summer night? It felt like a masterpiece. It was Henry’s first time riding it and his review was, “It was good.”

So there you have it!

After that, we were the sole riders on the Bat. Chooch and I took the last row while Henry claimed the front. It was….as scary as I remembered. From the concerning popping noises as you’re ascending up the lift hill to the precarious feeling of being suspended above pitch black landscape, I was screaming the whole time. Chooch declared this to be his favorite ride in the whole park because apparently Chooch is able to claim underdogs as his #1 but I’m not. OK, cook on.

That stupid boomerang, Invertigo, was a goddamn walk-on at this point of the night (it was around 11:35 and I was panicking because I wanted ride on Adventure Express before the park closed at midnight!!) but Chooch had to get this dumb credit so on the dumb thing we went. Ugh, it was awful, just awful. I hate boomerangs with my whole damn heart.

We got off that motherfucking whiplash factory around 11:45 and started to run toward Adventure Express, where a passing King’s Island kindly murmured, “Please don’t run, guys.” Chooch and I stopped to a fast walk and I could feel Henry, yards behind us, shaking his head disapprovingly. We somehow managed to get Henry to ride it this time, though he was NOT as happy about it as we were. The only downfall this time around was that there was this SUPER drunk white trash dad in a wife beater leading his ragamuffin family through the queue and I was so pissed because they took up all of the back rows and I was like “JUST SIT IN THE FRONT, I WANT TO BE AS FAR AWAY FROM THIS ASSHOLE AS POSSIBLE” because he was scream-shouting to his family the whole time and no way did I want his beer breath pelting me on the back of the head.

Anyway, this ride was somehow even more fun though because Henry looked so pained and this was making me scream, “I’M GOING TO PEE MY PANTS!!!” over and over and he just kept grimacing at me which, I know what you’re thinking, “isn’t that normal?” and yes. Yes it is.

After we got off, we realized we had time to get one more ride on it before the park closed. STUPIDLY, we followed white trash family who cut through from the exit ramp to the fast lane entrance (I think that’s what was happening?) in order to bypass walking all the way down the exit ramp and getting back into the regular line. I didn’t know what was happening at the time so we followed them like lemmings and then the ride operator yelled over the speaker “PLEASE DO NOT CUT THROUGH THE LINE, GO BACK TO BEGINNING OF THE ENTRANCE” and I was like “I SURRENDER!” like, I would be the worst criminal because the moment a cop started yelling through the bullhorn, I’d be all, “YOU CAUGHT ME! BOOK ME, DANNO!” Chooch and I turned around as we were told to do because even though we get excited and might lose our rule-abiding minds for a seconds, we are genuinely not assholes when it comes to respecting park employees. They have a tough job, dealing with assholes all day! HOWEVER, the white trash family just PRETENDED to turn around, but then they went right back to what they were doing, beat us to the ride station again and hogged the whole back car AGAIN. What fucking assholes!! The WORST PART is that when Chooch and I got to the station, the ride attendant at the end of the queue looked Chooch dead in the eyes and said in a low, stern voice, “Do not run.”

Chooch was so flustered! “I wasn’t running,” he hissed at me as we were buckling our seatbelts. “I did like, a light jog around one corner back there to catch up with you, but I WASN’T RUNNING.” I was mad too because why they gotta target us when White Trash Family were the REAL offenders??

Meanwhile, a bunch of other people had done the same thing that White Trash Family did by cutting through the Fast Lane line so the ride operator once again got on his speaker thing to admonish them BUT THEY DIDN’T LISTEN so he had to sic the Mean Guy Who Yelled At Chooch on them and they weren’t allowed to ride – PUT THIS TEAM ON ORION, PLEASE. They were INTENSE with their rule upholding.

But, I felt like an asshole since first I was associated with White Trash Family’s line jumping, and now I was associated with Chooch’s running-not-walking. So, this ride was a bit uncomfy.

Also, Henry didn’t come back on with us because when were walking down the exit ramp after the last ride, he spotted a skunk in the grass next to the ride station and was STILL STANDING THERE narrating his internal nature show in his head when we got off the final ride of the night.

And that’ll do it for Day One at King’s Island! I was pleasantly surprised at how wonderful it turned out. I didn’t think we would stay all the way until midnight but we did and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Especially considering that a lot of parks seem to be closing around 7 or 8 this season, I guess because of staffing reasons??

I personally DO NOT care about the fourth of July AT ALL but it was really nice to be at a beautiful park during it because their lightning was magnificent.

We went back to the hotel and fucking crashed HARD.