You guys, the greatest thing happened last week. Well, it wasn’t great at first. We had planned to go to Waldameer on Friday because I had the day off and wanted to ride Ravine Flyer II. We were going to go after Henry came home from work. I even told Chooch to bring a friend.

Then, the day before, Henry the Killjoy came home from work and said HE WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO GO WITH US NOW. Something about how HIS JOB IS THE FUCKING WORST AND HE GETS THE RAW END OF THE DEAL EVERYTIME.

“Great, it’ll just be me and Chooch then, fuck off,” I said, but Chooch, overhearing this, said, “Zakk said he can go.”

So then I was like GREAT NOW I HAVE TO BE THE THIRD WHEEL WTF?! And I was so upset about this, thinking that, I don’t know, they were going to exclude me and I would have to walk 20 feet behind them and eat alone on a bench near a putrid garbage can. Probably. I decided to just not go. I was really going to just not go!

But then Henry THE TRAITOR said, “You know he’s not going to go if you don’t go. So just go.”

And you know what? FUCK YOU HENRY YOU’RE NOT GOING TO RUIN MY DAY, DAMN RIGHT I’M STILL GOING TO GO!

(I even half-jokingly suggested that Zakk ask his mom if she wanted to go too but then I would have to be fake-nice all day because I don’t know her well.)

Aside from Chooch’s driving scaring me (I stay fixated on the speedometer from the backseat), it wasn’t a very eventful drive there. Waldameer is in Erie and that’s about a 2 hour drive, but we did run into some traffic which had Chooch extra-surly.

Oh!! There was one point where Zakk mentioned Sleep Token. Chooch and I locked eyes in the rearview mirror and he mouthed, “Go ahead,” with an annoyed eye-flick, so I popped my head up between the seats and said, “I RECENTLY STARTED LISTENING TO SLEEP TOKEN.”

Whew. That felt good! Ever since Chooch told me that they’re like Zakk’s favorite band, I have been dying to say something in an effort to RELATE to the younger generation. I am so desperate for to be liked, clearly.

Anyway, we arrived around 1:30 and, after Chooch was being ridiculous about choosing a parking spot, we entered the park and IMMEDIATELY passed Josh from Coaster Crew who was on his way out with a small group.

“Hey, that’s Josh from our Norden coaster trip,” I said to Chooch. “Go say hi!”

“Why me?!” he cried.

“Because he hated me!” (honestly I truly felt like he did after I deigned talk to him on the bus on our first day about T-Express in Korea. GOD FORBID a woman had a coaster credit that a MAN DIDN’T.)

Chooch actually ran over to him and they exchanged pleasantries! Chooch said he was about to tell him who he was but that it seemed like he actually knew, and even from where Zakk and I were standing, I got that same impression based on Josh’s friendly facial expressions.

Ugh, why can’t anyone ever be pleased to see ME? Or even REMEMBER me?

Chooch really does have it all.

Anyway, Josh is mentioned in this post, if you care. Actually, he wasn’t too bad but it was the guy sitting with him who TRULY despised me and even went so far as snubbing me (no, he did — it was intentional) the next morning when I said hello to him before breakfast. YIKES. Yet another space for women to feel uncomfortable, thanks men!

 

Zakk had never been to Waldemeer before so I was like WE HAVE TO RIDE RAVINE FLYER II FIRST HE WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT HIM. We’re in the reflection in this mirror. Hello.

It was a beautiful June day, blue skies, mid-60s. So the park had a healthy crowd but even then, it was only about a 10 minute wait. I don’t think we waited longer than 10 minutes for anything all day, and most of the stuff was a complete walk-on.

Since I was the third wheel all day, I had to ride alone on everything—except for this. As I was putting my stuff in the drop box, some man slid into my seat which totally took me by surprise. I tried to ask him if he was excited but he was very clearly on the spectrum (is this bad to say? I do not mean it in a bad way!) so he turned his face away from me and that was the end of that.

Anyway—Zakk loved it! And Chooch said he forgot about how crazy it is. I agree—it felt like it was flying faster than it ever has?! Rag doll city! But damn, the fact that this crazy ass coaster is in some small family park in Erie, PA. Insane.

This ride was new for 2025, I think. A few American parks have these family rides in them now but I have only ridden one in Sweden’s Liseberg. They look so good but they’re not that fun, honestly. And Waldameer wasn’t stacking it so I don’t understand the point of that.

I won’t ride these anymore because sometimes they make me sick.

I don’t have any pictures of this but we had pizza for lunch. Well, Zakk got pizza and Chooch and I each got a pizza boat which was made to order apparently so I had to be the person who waited forever while Chooch and Zakk got to chill at a table and for a small moment of time, I kind of understood what it feels like…to be Henry.

Also we almost only got one pizza boat because the cashier kid didn’t hear me say I wanted one too and it wasn’t until I was standing alone that I felt the sudden inspiration to do mental math when $11-something seemed….kind of cheap for 2 pizza boats and a drink. I mean, cheap by American amusement park standards. So I looked at the menu and noticed that one pizza boat was almost $6 so I had to run over to the guy and ask, “Hey, I ordered 2 pizza boats—” JUST AS SOME OTHER GUY WAS GETTING A PIZZA BOAT OUT OF THE COOLER. So the cashier had to yell for him to get a second one and that is how I saved myself from having to wait 20 minutes instead of 10 for a fucking pizza boat.

(Yes, I paid for the second one at that time!)

(It was pretty good, actually.)

Then we rode Comet and some kid got yelled at for standing up when the coaster was coming back into the station. That was pretty exciting.

I own’t ride this either. You can put me on something that flips me upside down mercilessly a la the Zipper, but anything that has a back and forth motion? It’s a good way to see regurgitated pizza boat.

I waited while Chooch and Zakk rode it and then afterward, I wanted to go talk to this dad who was wearing a SEVENTEEN shirt but then I just felt weird because he was sitting with his family and eating. I wanted to say, “I’m a Carat, too.”

:(

Oh, not pictured but we also rode the log flume there — Big Thunder — and I think it was actually only the second time I’ve ridden it. I forgot how good it is!! First of all, god bless log flumes. I am still so pissed at Kennywood for getting rid of theirs. (Oh it was past its shelf life, OK great, REFURB IT ASSHOLES!)

ANYWAY, this was hilarious because I wanted to ride in the same log but obviously not in the same compartment as either Chooch or Zakk so I made them squeeze into the front together while I had all the room in the world in the back. I was all stretched out, super comfortable, while they looked like they were going to need the jaws of life to remove them from the log.

At one point, we were going up one of the lift hills and a log of young girls below us drifted by, One of them made some strange flipper-like gesture with her hand, while looking up at us.

“What was that?? What does that mean?” I yelled up to Chooch and Zakk. Zakk was like “tf if I know” while Surly Chooch was super irritated by this. Were they making fun of us?

When we reached the top of the hill, the track was curved into a horseshoe shape so there was another log ahead of, facing the other direction, about to go down the drop. The kids in that log looked over at us and did the same thing!!!

“I AM NOT DOING IT,” Chooch growled.

“Doing what?? What do they want you to do? Is this a local gang thing!?!?!” I screamed.

“No, worse! IT’S A TIKTOK THING.”

Oh.

Zakk and I both said that we were not aware of this phenomenon and Chooch was shocked that I hadn’t seen it because it seems like something “stupid Jake and Johnny would do,” Chooch said in disgust. Wow, he hates everyone I follow on Insta and YouTube!

I guess it’s some scuba thing? I asked him if it was supposed to be like a reimagination of the 1950s/1960s swimmer dance thing and he said it’s not a dance at all so I’m even more confused now. Basically, anything that comes from TikTok, which I do not watch, confuses me. If that makes me an out of touch hag, so be it. I’m good with that.

But now that I know this is a thing, I kept seeing it ALL DAY LONG. It’s so fucking weird?!

“Is this like an elementary school kid thing?”  I asked Chooch later after seeing someone do it on Ravine Flyer while we were in line.

“No! It’s elementary all the way to like, college. It’s everyone and it’s stupid and I hate it,” he muttered.

I love that he gives off such agitated dad vibes. It kind of made up for Henry not being there.

I bought us all cookies from the Cookie House! I actually wanted a M&M one like Chooch and Zakk got but I went for the snickerdoodle just so I could send Henry a taunting picture of it to make him feel bad for ditching us (me).

When I was waiting for Chooch and Zakk to ride this, some bitch lady was screaming at her son for being too scared to ride this and then FORCED him to get in line with his brother. I muttered “cunt” under my breath and should have hit her with the scuba thing too. Make her wonder all weekend if I cursed her.

OMG this is genuinely my new favorite carouselfie because Zakk clearly had no idea what was going on and I cannot wait to get this framed and on the wall with the rest of them!

Oh, also not pictured but we had a fantastic ride on the Steel Dragon coaster, maybe the best ride I’ve ever had on it. It was spinning to perfection! But right before this, idiot bitch Chooch told the ride attendant that there were just two of them and she almost put them in a car with two other people, until I leaned forward and cried, “Hey!” and he said, “Oh yeah,  three.” So we got to go on the next one together :)

Also, right before this when we were standing in line, I was looking a tree and thought to myself, “That tree is really beautiful. I feel happy today” and then I started to briefly cry because EMOTIONS.

Lol.

Ugh.

They have all these creepy kid statues scattered through the park.

I’m desperate to get one of these for the house. I have wanted a clown trash can for ages!

Ew, we went on the Swings and there were these two little Jonny Craigs who were being so stupid and one of them was LIFTING HIMSELF UP OUT OF THE SWING as it was starting and I was like OMG MAKE HIM STOP but no one said anything?!!? Then he and his hooligan friend were screaming about how they were going to die and people on the ground were looking concerned.

I think we ended up riding Ravine Flyer 4x – two of those times were back to back and my brittle bones were crying. GodDAMN does this coaster fucking haul. I walked away with souvenir bruises as usual.

And obviously we rode my beloved Whacky Shack <3

What a fantastic day! We left a little after 6pm because they had plans with their friend Simon later that night and this is not a full day park anyway, but I actually think this might have been the longest we’ve ever stayed there. Even Chooch was like, “I don’t remember ever staying here this long.” We were having so much and they didn’t shun me or exclude me either (minus the time Chooch wrote me out of the equation by saying there were just 2 of them for Steel Dragon, sigh). I’m so glad we ended up still going even after Henry rudely abandoned us.

(Don’t worry, I had my Kodak Charmera with me so I’ll have another post with those pictures!)

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