Last week, Cedar Point announced that Wicked Twister (otherwise affectionately known as Spaghetti Noodle if you live in my Oh Honestly house) would be retired this season, with the last cycles happening on Labor Day. At first I took solace in the fact that Chooch and I got to ride it twice in June because we do truly enjoy this strange coaster. But then I looked at Henry and said, “I mean, we could go this Sunday and just ride Spaghetti Noodle and leave DOT DOT DOT.”

Henry sighed and of course eventually agreed. Thank god for those Cedar Fair passes though because otherwise that would have been an expensive farewell to Spaghetti Noodle.

Anyway, that’s what we did today. We left the house around 6am in order to get to the park before 9am for early entry so we could at least get a ride on SteVe while we were there.

Of course half of early entry was spent watching SteVe being tested but I’d rather wait in line for 45 minutes than 150 minutes during regular park hours that’s for sure.

Henry opted to use his early entry time on Maverick instead and for some reason this was a Big Deal to Chooch and me because it’s funny to think of Henry going off and doing his own shit at a theme park. You know?

Just really funny.

Henry’s Big Early Entry.

Then Chooch and I got in a mild argument because he said he doesn’t really think SteVe is that worth it, and ow my heart. We are truly a house divided: he’s cuckoo for B&M gigas while my heart lies with RMC hyper hybrids.

I am seriously beholden to those Rocky Mountain Construction beasts. If Kennywood got an RMC, watch me get a season pass.

Anyway.

We managed to get on before the FAST LANE people made their mad stampede into the queue and that in and of itself felt like a huge win.

Then we reconvened with Henry and made our way to Millennium Force just in time for the park to open up to the GP and honestly after that, almost everything had between a 90-120 minute wait but we expected that since it’s a Sunday in August.

I had to bat my eyelashes at the ride attendant because he was assigning seats on Millie and I really wanted the back. He hesitated and I whined, “Puh-lease?” and he sighed and said, “ok go ahead.” Henry rolled his eyes but I was like THANK GOD I CAN STILL SOMETIMES WIN BOYS OVER.

Millie was nice. She is not my favorite giga but I do really enjoy that view of Lake Erie from the lift hill. It’s weird but I think I actually prefer hypers over gigas.

YOU CARE.

Then it was time for Spaghetti Noodle! Henry promised that he would actually ride it for once (and last).

Here’s me being said it’s my last ride on it and Henry not caring (chooch was too busy texting to get in the picture):

Usually this bitch is a station wait but since CP announced that it’s getting rid of it, people suddenly care about riding it so we had to wait a whole ass 30 minutes. Where were you people before??

I know it’s not a world-class ride that’s going to bring people to CP, but man, I truly do enjoy it!

Afterward, Henry said he could take it or leave it. “Well, I think it’s exhilarating!” I enthused.

“You’re exhilarating,” Henry said and I noted a pinch of sarcasm.

“Yeah I know, you’re not the first person to say that about me.”

“I bet,” he muttered.

For some inexplicable reason, Chooch’s season pass account received a free Fast Lane Plus to use on any one ride, so he chose to use it on Top Thrill Dragster; while that was happening, Henry and I pretended like we were on a date (lol no) and rode Gemini. Henry hates Gemini because the last time we rode it, the lap bar fell down as he was getting in the seat and he tripped and hurt his poor leggie awwwww. But I begged him to ride it with me today and he was all GODDAMNIT YOU OWE ME like he hasn’t been saying that to me for the last 20 years hahaha.

I’m sorry, but I think this is a fine ride. I screamed and laughed through the whole thing and yelled at Henry when he refused to slap hands with the people on the other train as they passed us because he “didn’t want to touch people’s dirty hands” and ok fine I guess I will give him a pass because it’s a pandemic still but show some enthusiasm, boy!

I really wanted to get this for Henry but I didn’t have my credit card because I never bring anything other than my phone to amusement parks, and Henry was in the Sweet Spot buying cookies at the time OH WELL.

(I kind of wish I had gone back and bought it for myself though because that design is rad.)

I know that I shouldn’t still be concerned with Bosco Sticks now that I know it was CHEESE ON A STICK that Carrie said is her favorite Cedar Point treat, but my stubborn side has me determined to eat a fucking Bosco Stick inside Cedar Point now. This time it was actually opened so I thought WOW THIS IS HAPPENING ITS REALLY HAPPENING. REALLY. REALLY REALLY.

Oh except that THEY DIDN’T HAVE ANY. Come on Cedar Point! You can order that shit from Amazon. There is no excuse for this Bosco Stick deficit!

It was around 2pm at this point and that’s when we loosely decided we were staying til, and having accomplished all we came to do in several hours, I think we all felt that we were ready to leave. It was a good day, actually! I got a SteVe coffee cup and then stared dreamily at him for a bit before I determined that I was definitely ready to go. Please enjoy some photos of this bad ass big boy.

Oh PS before we left, Henry had to buy cookies and when we were leaving the Candy place, some elderly lady in a motorized wheelchair was trying to get out so I opened the door for her.

“Wow. Did she have a cat or a squirrel on her lap? She must have for you to actually help a human,” Henry the Comic said. Wow he’s so funny. Catch his next act tonight at the garbage dump after I drop off his body.

Then immediately after this some guy practically thrusted his phone at me and asked me in a very THIS IS NOT UP FOR NEGOTIATION tone to take a picture of him and his family. I mean, I did it but man…that was too much Peopling for me in a very short span of time. I was definitely ready to leave after that!

After we left, we went back to that Big Ed’s Soda Shop in Vermilion where we ate last time. That place is so quaint.

My dad would probably go into conniptions if he ever came here. He LOVES old shit.

Well, now we’re about an hour and a half away from home so I’m going to go and make Henry talk about coasters while Chooch ignores us from the backseat.

(Proof that he was with us today lol.)

Thursday, aka Birthday Eve, was supposed to be our “relaxing day” where we didn’t have to drive for hours just to spend even more additional hours in a blacktop jungle surrounded by coasters with massive lines. We started the day off by rising and shining for an early AM walk on the beach. And by “we” I certainly only mean Henry and me because Surly Teen could not be stirred from his deep seaside slumber.

Wow. What a vision. Grumpy with a side of Get Off My Lawn.

As I said before, we’re not beach people in the sense that we’d ever be content with lugging chairs & towels & umbrellas, and whatever other beachy accouterment comes with the territory but I do enjoy walking along the water. Same with rivers and lakes – you won’t catch me doggy-paddling inside an innertube, but that wet nature just lures me to it.

Even though I may lose interest rather quickly.

After an invigorating morning stroll, Henry walked over to the OLYMPIC WHICH IS WHERE I STAYED WITH MY FAMILY IN CASE YOU MISSED THE PREVIOUS 87 TIMES I MENTIONED THAT and brought back some coffee and breakfast breadstuffs for us. Then we woke up The Surly One and took a drive over to Cape May because I was obsessed with revisiting it as an adult to see if it was still boring and I’m happy to report back that YES, CAPE MAY IS STILL FOR BORING PEOPLE who enjoy walking very slowly and buying ceramic things.

We drove around for a bit and I was honestly not inspired at all to park and do much of anything else.

“Why did we come here again?” Henry wrenched open his perma-frowned lips long enough to ask.

There was always one day on our vacations when my grandma would INSIST that we go to Cape May. Back then, it always seemed like it was so goddamn far away and I would sulk the whole way there in the backseat, knowing that it was going to one fucking boutique and novelty shop after another, waiting for my grandma to boost the local economy while the rest of us stood on sidewalks staring into space.

One time I bought Mexican jumping beans at some toy store there, and a pair of wooden domino earrings which I wore this one time my grandma took me to play BINGO. (The only time she took me to play BINGO lol.) That was the only semi-positive memory I have of this place. I think this is where we took a dolphin-watching boat tour one summer too and even in that picture, I look like I belong on the cover of a straight-to-VHS Firestarter sequel.

Anyway, what a boring drive. Congratulations Henry: you somehow made Cape May even more boring than my grandma did.

Came back to the GOLD CREST – DID I MENTION WE DIDN’T STAY AT THE OLYMPIC. Henry and Chooch “played ping pong” briefly before we walked to lunch. Quite possibly the shortest game of ping pong that ever pinged and ponged.

Shit I already forget the name of this place. Sea Side Diner or something? It was on the way to the boardwalk which is where we were heading after lunch. Henry thought our waitress was rude (she was just young) and Chooch was like WHY DON’T YOU TELL HER TO SMILE MORE but then he had to jump to clarify that he was joking because sometimes Henry is dumb.

Anyway, here is a series of pictures of Henry eating, courtesy of Chooch:

We almost matched, I hate when that happens.

Not me looking the most uncomfortable.

After lunch, we went back to the boardwalk because we promised Chooch that we’d play stupid mini golf.

I actually used to love mini golf when I was younger but lately, I do not have the patience or attention span for it. I get so bored when it’s not my turn! However, Henry was doing horribly for some reason so now that he was losing, I was suddenly inspired to give it my all.

He hit the ball way out of bounds at one point which is VERY OUT OF CHARACTER for him, and Chooch and I are usually the ones co-opting the Happy Gilmore title. Chooch and I had to do our patented pee-squat because we were laughing to the point of pee-drops as usual. Henry losing? LOVE TO SEE IT.

Then we went to MISTER SOFTEE which I had become obsessed with the day before when I learned that they had a Fruity Pebbles thing so I had tunnel vision after that and would not consider any other ice cream establishment. But then once we were there, my obsession spread to encompass the entire vibe of the place, which I would later go back to the room at the GOLD CREST, YOU ALREADY KNOW to write about it on the same day because I was that stupid-excited. 

Of course right as we were walking over to it, three old broads swooped in like septuagenarian sea gulls from the left and cut us off, so now we had to wait for the Granny Brigade to fuck around with their reading glasses and CHANGE PURSES.

“God, go back to Cape May,” I mumbled under my breath, and Henry, having just experienced the drowsiness of that place that very morning, actually laughed.

Henry, like, never laughs at anything I say. Well, I mean, NO ONE does but you’d expect your life partner to toss you a rewarding chuck, gig, or chort every now and then.

Then we gave Surly Son a wad of cash for the arcade and went off to buy souvenirs. I mean, maybe I’d have hated Cape May a little less if my grandma had had the same courtesy, YOU KNOW. I’m sure there was a Pac Man machine somewhere in Cape May.

A really strange thing happened though. As Henry and I were walking along the boardwalk, there was a family below us riding bikes on a sidewalk. A little boy was screaming his sister’s name over and over, and the mom was like, “OK WYANT STOP YELLING YOUR SISTER’S NAME.”

So I sneered, “Yeah, Wyant, you dumb bitch.” Because that’s the kind of sweetheart I am when it comes to stranger children. But then in my head I thought, “What an uncommon name for a kid,” you know? You don’t really run into many Wyant’s these days. And then also in my head I started repeating the name of the girl he was screaming. And suddenly, I was like, “OMG IS THIS WESTLEY’S FAMILY.” Because there is a neighborhood kid that Chooch used to hang out with when he was still at his old school and I remember thinking it was funny that the boys in the family all had names that started with a W (there’s an older son too who has a W-name), but then the youngest is a girl who does not have a W-name. I knew for sure that the two younger boys are Wyant and Westley because how do you forget those names, but I texted Chooch and asked him what Westley’s sister’s name is AND HE CONFIRMED THAT IT WAS THE NAME THE LITTLE BOY WAS SHOUTING AND WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT THIS COULD HAVE BEEN ANY OTHER FAMILY WITH KIDS NAMED WESTLEY, WYANT AND GEORGIE.

So I was like, “Congrats, they’re here in Wildwood” and of course Chooch was like, “WTF” because he and Westley ARE NOT BROS ANYMORE. And honestly,  thank god because I was lowkey jealous of the mom who apparently was a REAL MOM who was always baking cookies, dusting, feeding Chooch grilled cheese, etc etc. I got such a complex about her that I flipped out one day and accused him of wishing she was his mom so that year for Mother’s Day, he gave me a card that said “P.S. Fuck westley’s mom.”

AW.

Seriously though, I eventually met her at some school function and she seemed really nice. But apparently, Wesley turned into a jerk so Chooch is no longer friends with him and that’s probably for the best because they had a Trump flag in their yard last year.

So.

(Also I changed their names slightly lest I get in trouble for this blog again.)

I’m a sucker for good signage.

You know, I have never actually been on the tram car! At least, not that I can remember.

Chooch and I only did the rides on Wednesday, but Henry still had his ticket card so our plan was to hang out on the boardwalk until it got dark, put some credits on the card and take the Great White for a spin at night. Until then, we just enjoyed our time shopping for souvenirs and taffy and letting Chooch suck our wallets dry like the money-hungry arcade vampire that he is.

I just couldn’t get enough of this lighting package!

Chooch had pre-decided the day before that he would be dining on Hot Spot mozzarella stick pizza for dinner, so we sat with him while he ate and then went and got our own slices at Mack’s.

I don’t remember if we ever ate here when I was a kid, but I watched enough YouTube videos to understand that Mack’s is a big favorite among the Wildwood purists, so we definitely wanted to form our own opinions through mastication.

Um, yes. Yes, this was some good-ass motherfucking pizza, friends. I got a slice of plain (ONLY BECAUSE I DIDN’T SEE THE OPTION FOR BLACK OLIVES UNTIL AFTER FML) and one slice of white, and I can honestly tell you that Mack’s was the best slice of white pizza (NOT PICTURED) that this dirty mouth of mine ever did meet. Boardwalk pizza is so fucking good and I would actually be surprised if I found a slice anywhere there that I didn’t like, to be quite frank, and my new goal is to go back there next summer and try them all.

I’m a THIN CRUST bitch.

We were walking past this one arcade when I noticed that there was a sign in the back that said FASCINATION and Chooch loves that game. So we went inside and it turns out it was some vintage arcade and so goddamn cool.

Also, I’m not saying this is a sign or anything, but clearly, I am living in the past with my obsession with the Olympic Motor Inn and have name-dropped it 234679827 times during this vacation recap (actually, now that I think about it, I even have some old pictures of it that I posted some time ago on here!), the summer Olympics were on-going while we were here so we ended every night with watching the latest from Tokyo in whatever hotel room we happened to be in that day, and then I just noticed that the Fascination sign has an OLYMPIC FLAME on it.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN.

I say this all the time but motherfuck, I wish there were word lotteries.

I would really like one or 5 of those chairs, please.

Oh, let’s talk about “It” some more, you say? I wish I could put this in my backyard.

Actually…one would fit quite nicely in my mom’s yard…

I think the worst (and only bad) moment of the day was when Henry and I were walking along and suddenly we heard, “*THUMP THUMP THUMP* what’s up guys?” as Chooch came casually striding up to us with the stupid ass basketball he traded his tickets in for.

“Yay,” Henry deadpanned. “A $60 basketball.”

Ugh, he’s always trying to win basketballs.

The sun had finally set so Chooch and I got our back row night ride on The Great White, and while waiting in the station I heard the previously mentioned Bush and Fuel song’s of my 90s past and wow. I literally could not have asked for a better end to a wonderful (don’t get too excited Cape May, I’m just pretending like you didn’t happen that day) Thursday.

On the walk back to, well, you know where, little pebbles were scattering around Henry’s feet. After finally reaching his limit, Henry spun around and yelled, “STOP KICKING ROCKS AT ME!” to Chooch the Pest, who calmly corrected, “I’m THROWING them at you, actually.”

Chooch and I went to Kennywood on Tuesday, which I will recap with way too many words sometime soon, OH DON’T YOU WORRY ABOUT THAT, but until then, here’s the latest dumb on-ride souvenir picture that I deemed a must-purchase because memories, etc etc.

So, it was our third or fourth ride on Phantom’s Revenge that day. We were in the backseat as usual – I can’t remember the last time I sat anywhere other than the back or very first row on this daddy, now that I think about it…this is the EPITOME of back-row coaster for us, but we also like night rides in the front. There, now you know. Everything seemed regular until we began our ascent up the lift hill and the lady in front of me did one quick flick and shake of her hair, and suddenly the majority of her mane had encroached on my personal space. Her Disney Damsel locks were so incredibly long that they were straight up grazing my thighs.

I had no idea what to do. Gather her hair into a bushel and dump it back into her own seat?? I made a THE FUCK?? motion with my hands to Chooch, who started cracking up while watching the ends of her hair lap against my legs. I took off the hair elastic from my wrist and pantomimed wrapping it around her hair, which made Chooch crack up even harder. I kept trying to scooch back in my seat but there was no escaping this modern day Crystal Gale.

But then suddenly we had crested the top of the lift hill without me even realizing it, and as the train dropped, her hair came up like a sheet, crashing against my face. I kept my mouth clamped shut for fear of inhaling any tendrils which were now flying around my face willy-nilly like hair noodles. Out of instinct, I put my arms up in the air, as one does on rollercoasters, but my fingers became ensnared in her follicular garden and the thought of Stranger Strands coiling around my hands made me want to fucking die. Hair is so….INTIMATE. I did not want to have any sort of RELATIONS with this broad, especially behind her back.

Literally!

The frizz flagellation was relentless. The way this ginger sheath was whipping and slapping against my face, I felt like Cinderella being bitch-slapped by a mop, like a car going through a car wash, like a wall being pelted by cooked pasta.

And Chooch never stopped laughing at my…wigging out.

Eventually, I had to cover my face with my hands to protect myself from any additional lock lashings.

And my plight was captured on film for posterity.

Of course, I had to buy it at that point because even though the idea of having that much extended contact with some broad’s hair is utterly disgusting to me and is actually making me dry-heave days later as I relive it through this writing, my pain was so hilarious to Chooch that it became funny to me too.

One confused look from the Kennywood photo cashier and $15 later, here we are.

I sent it to my brother Corey who scream-texted, “WHAT IF SHE HAS LICE” which added new layers to my horror. But then he said that it was almost as good as THE best Kennywood on-ride picture ever of Janna and the deodorant model. I still think my favorite is THE INFAMOUS GIGGLE PICTURE.

But can we talk about how the other girl is sitting like this is her senior picture? HOW DOES SHE LOOK SO CALM AND COLLECTED ON THE PHANTOM’S REVENGE? This is some kind of fucking sorcery.

We capped off our first night in Wildwood by closing down the boardwalk. I definitely don’t think we ever did this when I was a kid! I know whenever I say that I’m just going to do a photo dump, I always end up pairing it with 2000 words but I swear I’m going to try and be chill about this. Like, let’s look at some night time pics from a cool ass boardwalk, no big deal.

We have barely been able to enjoy any amusement parks at night this summer, what with how early most places have been closing lately. I guess because of staffing issues. But it really sucks because we live for night rides on coasters! And really just the overall ambiance and bright lights, so it was AMAZING to be here at night. I just wanted to stuff my entire surroundings in a snow globe to keep FOREVER and I do mean that in the creepiest way possible.

I hope I never grow tired of the Musik Express! I love when they also go backward, and this one did! The one at Kennywood doesn’t (at least it didn’t when we were there on Tuesday and now I can’t remember if it ever has!) and that’s lame AF, TBQH.

THE VIBES.

Chooch tries to avoid the camera now and I pretty much fucking hate that. I told him it’s his obligation to pose for pictures since I brought him into this world and I have every parental right to take pictures of him, whether he’s mid-bite of a veggie burger or riding on the fucking Tilt-a-Whirl, say cheese mothercheffer.

Can you tell I was a little obsessed with The Hot Spot??

I wish I knew what happened to Hot Spot B.

Chooch spotting the mozzarella stick pizza which he would (SPOILER ALERT) have for dinner the next day.

‘It’ was the last ride we rode that night, right as everything was shutting down. It was exhilarating! Like my beloved CLAW from the Butler County Fair, but much more scenic and that LIGHTING PACKAGE, oh my lord, I want my house to light up like that (so do my neighbors, I bet).

Chooch should just get a job there.

I’d have grabbed a veggie wiener if they had one.

We got some Curley’s fries before heading out. I’m kicking myself for being so vehement about my dislike of crinkle-cut fries when we were hanging out in Cincinnati with Christina and Katie in July because I have since had NOT ONE BUT TWO great orders of curly fries (one was that very same day, like less than hour after I turned my nose up at the very mention of them lol). Actually, we only stopped here because cry baby Chooch was whining about wanting lemonade and then Henry had the audacity to order fries for himself without consulting with us!

We showed him though because after he came strutting over with “his” fries, I incredulously asked, “Wait, you didn’t get any special sauce?!” So while he was dejectedly ordering a $2.50 tiny container of whatever the special sauce was because god forbid I should just use ketchup after I had already seen SPECIAL SAUCE on the window (I can’t remember what it was called now), Chooch and I scarfed nearly the whole cup of fries. And then when Henry came back and started complaining, we were like, “Well, you should have ordered the bigger size I guess.”

I took this on the way out: LOOK AT THE MOON BEHIND GREAT WHITE.

I almost had over 30,000 steps that day but we didn’t get back to the hotel until after midnight so my stupid Fitbit stopped at 28,000ish for Wednesday and then put the remainder on Thursday, ugh. LOL, what a dumb thing to “ugh” about. But yeah, we went back to the GOLD CREST NOT THE OLYMPIC BECAUSE HENRY IS NOT MY PAPPAP and crashed. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep immediately after getting into bed, worn out probably mostly from all the crying and temper-tantruming I did earlier that day OH THE TRIALS & TRIBS OF ERIN RACHELLE.

I WAS SO STOKED FOR MOREY’S PIERS!! Also, I was super worried that it wouldn’t be a magical as it was when I was a kid and obviously I expected that it wasn’t going to be same because a shit ton of rides are gone (RIP Castle Dracula and Keystone Kops). But it still felt the same in my heart, you guys. It still felt the same. I am crying right now.

This bad boy, The Great White, was built several years after my last visit but honestly it looks like it has been there forever. I was so excited to ride this later!

We started out on Mariner’s Landing, because the other two piers don’t start running their rides until 5pm. Our main focus was to knock out all the coasters while it was still pretty uncrowded to ensure that Chooch would get all  the creds. Luckily, everything was running that day!

LOL our first ride, a stupid SBF Visa spinner. These things are pretty terrible but this one was good because….Wildwood, and also because the ride operator was 1000000% more animated than the one who was running it at Waldameer, PLUS Duran Duran’s “Rio” was playing and the day was beautiful and the ocean was RIGHT THERE and the sea gulls were so cute and everything was fucking perfect.

Actually, let me take a minute here to gush over the impeccable music selection of Morey’s Piers. It was ALL 80s, and not bullshit 80s either, but fucking Depeche Mode, the aforementioned Duran Duran, ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN, Talk Talk (their original version of “It’s My Life” and not the shitty No Doubt cover!!). Two fucking Cure songs!! “Boys Don’t Cry” played when Chooch and I were in the station for the Great Nor’easter, and then later that day, “Friday I’m In Love” was playing as our train was being loaded on The Great White, which was located on a pier that was playing primarily 90s music.

The next night, as Chooch waited in line for a coveted back row night ride on this bad boy, Bush’s “Chemicals Between Us” and Fuel’s “Shimmer” came on and I was nearly openly weeping.

Especially because I had just recently fallen down the Bush nostalgia spiral thanks to the Fear Street movies.

And that Fuel song. Oh god, that Fuel song. That was like my Summer of 1998 but make it a song so that I can lose my mind and cry every time I hear it for the rest of my life while also feeling the uncontrollable need to scream the lyrics until my voice gives out.

And at one point during the day, I am not kidding, Henry and I were walking to the gift shop when suddenly (or, my favorite Korean word: 갑자기) the opening drone of my beloved rollerskating jam, HEART AND SOUL BY T’PAU, sizzled down from the heavens. I grabbed Henry’s arm dramatically and yelled, “STOP. WAIT!” And then pointed up at the sky. When it was clear that Henry had no idea what was going on, I hissed impatiently, “THE SONG?!”

I am 100% sure that he still had no idea what was going on because the song hadn’t even yet fully kicked on and also it was buffeted by screaming sea gulls, the motors of rides in motion, people laughing, modern day boardwalk carnies on loud speakers reeling people in with false promises…my ears are actually super human when it comes to detecting a song beneath layers of miscellaneous cacophony. Henry can never hear the music over the din of talking and silverware scraping plates in restaurants, but I am always ready to scream, “OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS SONG IS PLAYING.”

Anyway, this Heart and Soul was playing and I had to make Henry sit down a bench with me while I listened to it because I was so obsessed with this jam as a kid that for two years in a row it was my “birthday party song request” at the VIP Roller Rink. It was also one of the first records I bought at National Record Mart and I remember so vividly not knowing who sang it so whoever took me to the mall, probably my mom – I guess I’m not remembering this as vividly as I initially boasted lol – told me to go ask someone to help me so there I was, some idiot elementary school kid probably wearing a corduroy jumper and knee high socks, telling the NRM associate, “I don’t know who sings it but she looks like Tracy Ullmann” BECAUSE I USED TO WATCH THE TRACY ULLMANN SHOW LOL.

It was almost like someone called Morey’s Piers and told them I was coming so that they could play the literal soundtrack to my childhood summers in Wildwood.

Phew. OK now that I got that out of my system, let’s look at some pictures of rides!

Rollie’s Coaster was Chooch’s second credit at Morey’s and it was more fun than we expected! I loved the vintage aesthetics.

The infamous Sea Serpent. I was TERRIFIED of this ride as a kid and never did ride it back then. I was actually kind of dreading this even now because it’s a Vekoma boomerang and I hate boomerangs. They’re usually so painful and kind of worthless!

That guy is totally ranting about how BIGBANG has not yet had a post-military comeback in any capacity.

“I MEAN, CAN G-DRAGON PUT DOWN THE NIKES AND PIC UP A MIC??”

Here’s Chooch and me in the fifth row, I look so thrilled, lol.

OK I’m not just saying this because it’s Wildwood but I really think this was the least worst boomerang I’ve been on. It was surprisingly smooth, but still terrifying.

Also, I didn’t know this until recently, but the Sea Serpent is the very first Vekoma boomerang built in the US! Did I run back in line as soon as I got off? I mean…no. But it was still really satisfying on some nostalgic level to ride this coaster that looms in the background of so many old Wildwood pictures.

Goddamn. Life was really good in that moment, as simple as that sounds.

Chooch and I rode this seagull pedal ride thingie and it was fun but he was pedaling too fast and I was trying to enjoy the scenery.

We had to stop because an actual seagull was on the track!

View of the Great White from my perch on the suspended seagull.

When Chooch wasn’t being summoned by the arcades, he was cruising the piers for carnival games to play. This was definitely his scene.

Henry the Tight Wad got a ticket card and put enough money on it to ride the carousel and Great White, what a Dad.

LOVE THIS NEW ADDITION TO OUR CAROUSELFIE WALL!

Runaway Tram!

WATCH THE TRAM CAR PLEASE. I can’t believe it’s the same recording as it was in the 80s. I can’t even be annoyed about it.

This ride was just the absolute cutest! I think it only opened very recently, like in 2019 or 2020. It’s an adorable addition.

Oh god, an SLC (suspended looping coaster), another of my “favorites.”

Another major plus for Morey’s Piers is: THE RIDE ATTENDANTS AND OPERATORS ARE FUCKING AMAZING. Like, Disney-levels of enthusiasm. They smile and wave as every ride starts and you can’t help but feel inspired/obligated to wave back. Well, unless you’re Henry. And they have a program where students from other countries can work there so you get to interact with people from all over the world and it’s just really cool.

It’s been a long time since I went to Indiana Beach, but from what I remember, they have a similar situation  there too. I remember talking to various ride operators with Eastern European-sounding accents and thinking that was so odd and cool since we were in some remote part of Indiana.

But yeah, everyone we encountered from the rides to the pizza parlors seemed genuinely happy to be there.

Even their Wild Mouse is adorably-themed!

OK so as mentioned earlier, I really miss the old dark rides that used to be so synonymous with Morey’s Piers (was it even called that back when I was a kid?!? I can’t remember! I do know that they had more piers back then, that’s for sure). There are three there currently, but two are closed for the season (because of covid/staffing, I assume). Dante’s Dungeon was open though and it was so good! From the creepy ride operator in a pagan-ish robe who whispered, “Are you ready?” before sending our car into the dungeon to the person who jump-scared us from the shadows on  the other side, this was a dark ride that would make any purist happy. And if you remember, dark rides are really where my heart lies, not coasters. So when we find a place that has a good coaster collection and dark rides? Henry, hold my phone. Mama’s going in.

The last coaster we needed was Great White and I was so stoked for this!

I love a good wooden coaster, and this one is an actual delight. Plus, it goes off the boardwalk and onto the beach. What more can you ask for in a wooden coaster? Of course we didn’t wait for Henry so Chooch and I rode without him, leaving him waiting in the station, lol. We were dying because he ended up having a riding companion – some equally-as-old dude who talked to him the whole way up the lift hill and Henry told him about the trip we were on. Henry said, “he’s an enthusiast, too” as he regaled us with the detail of their convo, and Chooch and I were like, “BUT DID WE ASK.”

After this highly anticipated ride that did not disappoint, we walked back to the GOLD CREST NOT THE OLYMPIC BUT THAT’S OK to rest for a bit and then came back for some night action.

God, I love reliving this but it’s also making me mucho sad-o.

But first! Here’s a mirror selfie from the lobby of whatever hotel we stayed at in Williamsburg the night before. I remember it being moderately decent so thank you Henry for considering my standards when booking this place. Also, I look like a crazy person here, probably because of THE LOCH NESS MONSTER run-around from earlier that night, omg just read the previous post if you have no idea what I’m talking about, god!

On Tuesday morning, we had plenty of time for once so we eschewed the complimentary hotel breakfast and had The Mama Steve’s Experience which was quite honestly a BIG HIGHLIGHT of the trip for me. You just never know what obscure feature of an itinerary is going to thoroughly tickle my obsession bone.

After my hyper-exciting Mama Steve’s visit, we began the hour-ish drive to Doswell, Virginia for some King’s Dominion action. We were recently here in 2019 so there are no new creds for Chooch to snag, but this park is too amazing to pass by, especially when we have Cedar Fair passes that give us free parking and entry. I mean, why the hell would you willingly skip a park that has one of the best B&M gigas, and a world-class RMC hybrid coaster?! Literally two of our favorite types of coasters!

We arrived a bit before gates opened, around 11:00am, and it was already a scorcher out there. That’s what I remember the most about waiting in that line:  feeling the rivulets of sweat sluicing down my back, ugh the horror.

Hilariously, once the gates opened and the line started to move, some bitches had the audacity to try to cut in front of us when we were next to go through security. Their excuse was that they had been standing near the front of the line but got out to go to the bathroom and when they came back, the line was moving. I said, “Oh well” and angled my body so they couldn’t squeeze in. I’m just so fucking sick of it. Go stand in line like everyone else! I swear to god we did not experience this bullshit at any amusement park we went to in South Korea or Japan. Maybe if we only went to one or  two parks a year, it wouldn’t make me so angry when you go to as many as we do and you see it happen at each damn place, the entitlement and 눈치 없다 (LACK OF CONSIDERATION) really starts to wear on a person.

Furthermore, yes they were letting us inside the park but only the front section is open and the rest of the pathways are cordoned off until noon, so what the fuck is the damn rush anyway, get to the back of the line. And it clearly didn’t take them that much longer to get inside, because once we walked to the path we needed for Twisted Timbers, they showed up less than 5 minutes after us. P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E.

Anyway!! We did not have to suffer through the National Anthem at 11:58am. Instead,  the security guard manning the gate at the path we were on yelled out a bunch of rules or whatever, and then (slowly!!) opened the gate for us. A handful of people ran but I had already proclaimed that I was not running since it wasn’t even that crowded to begin with, and it turned out we didn’t even need to because only one old Super Coaster Fan and a group of 5 teenaged boys beat us to the entrance of Twisted Timbers, which of course WASN’T EVEN DONE TESTING YET so we had to wait AGAIN.

I was super annoyed because the guy stationed at the entrance of the line sat there like an oaf the entire time, knowing full well that the kids in front of us wouldn’t be able to go through the line because they were wearing fanny packs and some coasters have a new-ish rule where all items larger than phones, wallets and keys have to be stored in a paid locker, and then once you get near the ride station and go through a metal detector, you’re directed off to an area of free complimentary lockers to stow away your small items. I love this new system and hope more parks start using it because it makes the actual ride ops go much smoother since people aren’t having to climb over the seats to put their shit in a bin on the other side of the platform, or worse – they’re trying to smuggle their phones on the ride and then slowing down the process because now they’re being stubborn and arguing with the ride operators. UGH. Just follow the goddamn rules – no one wants to get their teeth knocked out when you lose your grip on your phone because you’re trying to record a TikTok on a rollercoaster.

Honestly!!

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that this employee stared at these kids for the full 20 minutes they were standing there waiting for the line to open up, only to wait until he unchained the entrance to say, “You have to get a locker for those.” If he had said something to them earlier, I would have gladly let them back in line, especially because only one of them would have had to get out of line to do that, and the lockers were right across from us. Also, because they weren’t annoying me and it was kind of endearing because two of them had never ridden Twisted Timbers or anything remotely like it (one even said “what’s that?” when one of the friends mentioned airtime), and I really wanted them to get on this ride and love it!

So now, the older Coaster Enthusiast (who was in the Fast Pass line) was pretty much already at the station, while we were being held up behind a group of boys frantically trying to figure out what to do. Some dad got out of line to come over and tell them to just stash their stuff behind a bush, but surly unsmiling Twisted Timbers line guardian monotoned, “You can’t do that.”

FINALLY one of the guys took one for the team and said, “Here just give me your stuff and ride without me. I’ll get a locker.”

The Ultimate Sacrifice. The Henry of the Group.

What a hero!

By now though, no one else had joined Older Coaster Enthusiast (Henry said, “That guy probably comes here alone every day, rides his faves then leaves.” WHAT A LIFE!) so he got to ride the first train, alone and in the front seat! I WAS SO JEALOUS!!

But we got on the second one. Also taking one for the team was Our Henry who took all of our phones with him through the line and got the free locker, which caused him to fall behind us but he still managed to get on the train right after us and then called us assholes because we never wait for him and your whole group is actually supposed to leave the line together in order to get a locker but we were like BYEEE SUCKER.

Oh shit you guys, I can’t believe that the first time I ever rode this bad boy, I was underwhelmed. It was running SO GOOD on this day, and Chooch and I immediately got right back in line (without Henry lol). If you’ve never ridden an RMC, ya gotta get yourself on one. It will change your whole idea of what a roller coaster can be, IFSTG. Steel Vengeance at Cedar Point is still my favorite, but Twisted Timbers is probably my second. I’m dying to go to Poland and experience Zadra which looks like it COULD be the one to dethrone SteVe, ugh Covid please kindly fuck off.

The rest of the day was spent re-experiencing other faves, like Back Lot Stunt Coaster which might be run down and old at this point, and the effects don’t work anymore, but it’s still a fun time. AND we rode it with this super entertaining group. One of the guys behind us screamed really loud and high-pitched at the end when the train comes tearing out of the building and underneath the ride queue, and it was hilarious. Then he said something about how he hoped he wasn’t going to lose his voice since he had to be on TV the next day, causing Chooch and me to exchange silent “Ooooh?”s with our eyeballs. I bet he’s a news person, he had a news person voice.

As with almost every other park this year, staffing is an issue so tons of food places were closed for the season. The only ice cream place that was opened was a hard-packed ice cream joint and I just wanted soft serve. So that left Rita’s. Which, you know, was fine. Custard is good and their sprinkle mix has purple ones in it! That doesn’t happen often!

Sometimes I think I get soft serve just for the sprinkles. But don’t get it twisted (timbers) – I don’t like just ANY sprinkle. I’ve had some really gross ones before that have ruined the whole experience for me. These ones were pleasant though.

Made them ride the Racer. It was…not as fun as I remember, BUT it was memorable because the one ride attendant was a girl named Ty and she was SO JOYFUL. Henry and I were in the last row and she hung back there and engaged in conversations with every single person, including this one equally-chatty preteen who was telling her some long-winded story and Ty was being so polite that she almost got in trouble because she was supposed to be checking restraints – don’t worry, she checked them! She was just waiting for the girl to finish her story. Lol.

The chatty preteen told me she liked my Marcy tattoo and thank god Chooch was out of earshot because as you know he hates when I receive compliments. SORRY I AM NOT A PLAIN MOM.

I laughed when I saw this because my squirrels make that same pose as Henry sometimes! They sit up and look at me, one paw on their chest, as if they’re saying, “Who, me?” God I missed those kids while we were away! And the cats too obviously but I knew my mom was feeding them and playing with them while we were gone but I worried she wasn’t paying enough attention the squirrels. :/

I still don’t get why people love this ride so much, I truly thought I was going to die on it.

King’s Dominion is so beautiful. I think King’s Island has a SLIGHTLY better coaster collection, but King’s Dominion is the prettier of the two. And everyone there is so nice.

Halfway through the day, we had just gotten off a family ride on Apple Zapple when Chooch started to get real snotty. I can’t even remember what we started arguing about but it had something to do with where we were going to eat there and he just always has to have the last word which doesn’t work in this household because I’m the OG House Member and I am the one who has to have the last word. So then Henry Buttinsky had to get involved and I didn’t like the fact that he was on his OWN side and not defending me so I just fucking lost my shit and screamed, “THANKS FOR RUINING MY DAY. WE’RE LEAVING.” And then I proceeded to storm off without them, all the way back to the car. When they finally caught up with me and Henry unlocked the door, I got in and slammed the door while Chooch was trying to apologize but you know what? BY THIS POINT IT WAS HENRY WHO I HATED so when he opened the driver’s side door I started screaming in his face about how he undermined my parental authority when he’s the one who always says, “If you have a problem with Chooch you need to handle it” like oh OK thanks dad, can you leave the parenting manual behind while you kindly go FUCK YOURSELF STRAIGHT TO HELL.

I don’t know if anyone was around in the parking lot for this but if they had been, they surely got a free show because my temper was making ALL OF MY VEINS pulsate and then I started full-on sobbing which is my body’s Code Red response to anger (we’ve yet to reach the Code Black response yet, which is surely murder). So now Henry had adopted his soothing therapist voice and Chooch was in the backseat profusely apologizing and I was hiccuping, “I hate both of you, you ruined my life!” But then I started laughing, dried off my face, and we all went back into the park where we managed to have a wonderful second half of the day.

Chooch had to pose for every picture I wanted After the Fight.

We rode Intimidator three times. I love this beast so much but holy shit, it is so forceful and rough – I grayed out so bad on one of the rides that I was actually concerned I wasn’t going to come back lol. The last time we rode it, there was a man in front of Henry who was SO EXCITED and he kept screaming about how many times he’d ridden Intimidator that day and how he was going to get right back on it. He was so pure. Be that guy.

I just asked Chooch if he has anything to add before I publish this and he said, “Hot. It was hot.” You can always count on Henry Jr. for scintillating reviews.

But yeah, it was hot. My face was MOIST with sweat puddles all day. It was so hot that we willingly went on Boo Blasters and Flight of Fear just for the A/C.

Love ya, King’s Dominion!

We decided to leave around 7 and get dinner outside of the park and miraculously we found a place about 30 minutes away that had veggie burgers!

Yo, Tito’s.

Yelp said that they were open until 9 and it was 7:45 when we got there BUT GUESS WHAT they actually closed at 8. We asked the waitress and she was like, “Yeah it’s OK though, you’re fine!” but I still felt bad. Luckily there were still people eating by the time we left so we didn’t actually close the place out.

You know we had the Heat Exhaustion when neither Chooch nor I could finish our meals. We ended up taking them to go and Chooch almost immediately started eating it in the car, oh to be a teenaged boy.

No, never mind. I do NOT want to be a teenaged boy.

It’s definitely still bizarre eating in restaurants again but I can tell you that after this trip, we are back to strictly take-out for the time being thanks to all the ANTI-VAXXERS making this pandemic worse for all of us again. It was wild while it lasted, but see ya on the other side, restaurants.

Anyway, after Tito’s we made our way to Baltimore, which is where we were crashing for the night before heading to WILDWOOD on Wednesday morning! Henry got us a room at a shitty LaQuinta because he loves to terrorize me with his cheapness but it turned out to be mostly OK I guess. All I want is to be able to sleep in a room without hearing screaming and (probably paid) fucking.

We knew that at some point on Monday, the sky was going to piss on us. What we didn’t know was just HOW LONG this storm was going to last! About an hour prior to the very first drop of rain, the park started playing an announcement over and over about how some park operations were going to temporarily stop until the inclement weather passed. Then it changed to ALL PARK OPERATIONS. And SEEK SHELTER.

I’m not going to lie, it was pretty exciting. We snagged a bench under some large alcove in the Irish area and it was surprising how few people took refuge here.

We chilled there (lol it was 95 degrees but cool on, Erin) for a good hour and all three of us even fell asleep for parts of that duration too. I mean, not surprising that Henry did. But wow that storm made me drowsy.

We were sitting right next to a door that opened to some SECRET EMPLOYEE room where Camp Busch Gardens kids were hanging out. Every time they opened the door, a glorious sheath of AC wafted over us like a scentless fart from an ice fairy. I dunno what they do at Camp Busch Gardens but everyone seemed to be having fun each time the door opened and I felt left out.

I’d like to also take this moment to PRAISE BE that no one fucking annoying or scream-y was in our shelter spot. It was actually a pleasant, but boring, experience.

After about an hour, the rain mostly stopped so we emerged from hiding and strolled around the nearly empty park. Everything was still shut down but all the shops and opened.

Even soggy and wet, this park is amazing.

I dunno why I took a picture of this. It holds no significance for me.

Listen Linda, I hate drop towers but even I can admit that this Mach Tower is GORGE.

Post-storm Verbolten is sizzlin’ – no really, look at that steam! It was SO HOT that day.

I was obsessed with this snappy German pop song but Chooch ruined the video by acknowledging the video.

OK. This is where things got depressing. We walked down by Loch Ness Monster and you guys, I can’t even remember if this coaster was that great or not, but I do have a vague recollection of liking it and I was sincerely looking forward to riding it on our highly anticipated return to the park. Earlier in the day, I attempted this TWICE but for some reason, the line was long both times and Chooch was being a big entitled bitch about it. OK cool, almost everything else was a walk-on, but I still wanted to ride this thing!!

#CoasterHistory

It’s actually super creepy down in this area. It’s right by the water and I don’t think many people use this as a thoroughfare because it requires you to walk up steps to get back to the main park area. God forbid. We were the only people there, so couple that with the post-storm dreariness and it felt extra desolate. I fucking loved it.

OK I will try not to be super-wordy about this next part but it was A BIG DEAL to me for some reason. It was around 6pm at this point and none of the rides had reopened yet. However, we noticed that there were small lines formed at some rides, so Chooch and I decided to see if anyone was waiting for Loch Ness.

Two guys ended up walking in with us and I said, “I’m not sure if it’s open,” and  the one guy said that some of the smaller rides were testing, so we decided to press our luck. There were a handful of people in the station! Chooch and I claimed the empty last row and we proceeded to eavesdrop on the conversation that some of the people in line were having with one of the (kinda nerdy but adorable) ride attendants. I wish I had gotten his name! Someone in line asked him how long far away the storm has to be before they’re allowed to restart the rides, and he said he wasn’t sure but that was what Dispatch was there for, to watch the storm. He basically kept giving vague answers, insinuating that the rides were not going to run again that night but that the park wasn’t going to officially call it because then they’d have to issue rain checks.

His partner was sitting over at the controls, looking thoroughly bored. Eventually, she said she was going to “take her 45.” I was confused because I thought that the park closed at 7 so why was she taking a 45 minute break after 6:30??

While she was gone, one of the ride operators from  the nearby Finnegan’s Flight came in and took Nerdy Guy’s place, who was now sitting at the control booth thing. New Guy was so awesome!! I think his name was Jhordan?? I can’t remember but it had a cool spelling and he was TOTALLY CUTE and chatty.

But then, THE PHONE RANG. Nerdy Guy answered and we all got so quiet.

He hung up and Jhordan was like, “WELL??” and Nerdy Guy was like, “They said to cycle it.”

It was about 7 at this point so I thought, “Oh, I guess the park is staying open longer to try and get the rides started” but apparently it was always open until 9 and I was just confused as usual!

I turned to the guys who followed us into line and gushed, “I feel like we were really a part of something there!” I LOVE FEELING LIKE THAT! I think because I don’t often feel like I’m part of a group or anything, so whenever I get to experience something that brings strangers close together, it’s exciting to me. (I mean, as long as it’s not a tragedy.)

Anyway, it turned out that Nerdy Guy didn’t actually know how to get the ride started so Jhordan had to call out directions to him from the other side of the platform, so now I was A BIT SCARED.

But they went through the process of pushing down all of the restraints and then Nerdy Guy shakily did his thing at the control desk and they both put their thumbs up. As the train left the station, the whole building erupted in cheers and applause. It felt SO SPECIAL.

While waiting for the train to do its cycle, Jhordan came over and stood by me.

“Did you see that?” he asked me. “I swear I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye.” We both turned and looked out of the station and over to where the Griffon and Alpengeist tracks were.

I did. I saw it. It was definitely lightning, I thought.

While this was happening, Griffon and Alpengeist were cycling test trains too and someone said that the flash of light must have been from the on-ride camera flash. Jhordan did NOT seem to accept this theory though, but still, when the train came back, the restraints came up and the gates opened. Once again, we all cheered as we boarded the train. They had JUST LOCKED OUR RESTRAINTS when the fucking phone rang again.

It was Dispatch reneging on their previous “all clear.”  MOTHERFUCKER. But Jhordan was so relieved. “I knew in my heart that was lightning!” he said. “It did not feel right sending this thing.”

So the restraints came up and we all had to get back on the platform – some people completely exited but at this point, I was invested. All in. Every last egg in this fucking Loch Ness basket. And hilariously, we had now been in line for an hour, so probably longer than we would have waited earlier in the day but noooo, Mr. Impatience wouldn’t do it.

Jhordan taught me about the various color codes that the park implements for storms.  Currently, they were back up to a CODE RED which means no rides can operate. One of the colors means that rides under a certain height can still operate (I think yellow?) and CODE BLACK is basically SHUT ‘ER DOWN AND TAKE COVER, NO ONE CAN LEAVE. He said that actually happened one time accidentally, when it was just drizzling, and it sent everyone into a panic.

Now I really felt like I was part of something special! And it was exciting to see them doing the X with their arms and saying “Cross” every time they had to climb across the track to get to the other side of the platform – even when the rides are down, they follow amusement park law!

Then the phone rang and we all held our breath. When Nerdy Guy hung up, we were like “WELL???” and he said, “Wha—oh, it was nothing important.” My favorite part was when someone squawked over a walkie talkie something that sounded like “code green” and we all froze. Jhordan mouthed, “the fuck???” so Nerdy Guy had to get back on the phone with Dispatch who confirmed that no, it was still very much Code Red. I mean, it wasn’t raining anymore but there was still thunder.

Girl Operator came back from her 45 and we were laughing at how much she missed while she was gone. With her being back, Nerdy Guy got to leave since his work day was technically done.

But all he did was leave and come back in a white t-shirt with headphones around his neck, role-playing as a member of the general public and asking if the rides were going to start back up at all. Jhordan was like, “Naw dude, I highly doubt it, you better just leave” and I felt like all three ride operators at this point where sending us signals so we’d stop wasting our time, because as Jhordan told me earlier, they’re not allowed to flat out tell us to leave the line. But I really felt that this was them taking pity on us.

Our friends in the queue next to us had already left and now hardly anyone was still waiting. Plus, Jhordan was now over at the control desk and Girl Operator was standing next to us but she wasn’t conversational like the other two so it just didn’t feel the same anymore.

At this point, we had been standing for AN HOUR AND A HALF I think. I looked at Chooch and said, “OK, I’m calling it.” So we dejectedly left the Loch Ness Monster station to the tune of sad trombones and thunder.

Meanwhile, Henry was hanging out under a small pavilion with some other people and was like, “OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY ALMOST LET YOU ON THAT WITH ALL THIS LIGHTNING” and then he showed me the following video he took which is actually less bad than the bout of lightning that happened prior to him filming:

This video is super small because Henry’s phone is dumb.

So, that was my Loch Ness odyssey. We walked around the park for a little bit and bought some souvenirs. I bought several postcards but decided to keep this one for myself as reminder of my supreme stubbornness and also the bonding time spent with strangers staring at a parked roller coaster train.

It was 8pm at this point and it seemed like none of the coasters were going to be cleared to run again so I sadly and with major POUTING LIPS said, “Fine let’s just leave.” And of course, as soon as we walked through the parking lot to our car, I turned around just in time to see fucking Griffon running.

Fuccccccckkkkk.

I comforted myself with  the reminder that this place isn’t THAT far away and we will be back again for Pantheon anyway, so I can ride Loch Ness Monster until I require a neck brace.

OMG wait I can’t believe I failed to mention this in my last post! But after the second time we attempted to ride Loch Ness, Chooch wandered over to the nearby lockers after we got out of line. I didn’t really pay much mind to this at first because I was busy bitching to Henry about how he wouldn’t wait in line. But then I was like, “The fuck is he doing?”

Here, one of his friends from a Discord chat group he’s in was at Busch Gardens a few days before us and left him a note hidden behind a wall in those lockers. So he was looking like a common criminal, retrieving drugs probably and not a note from an Internet friend inside a Ziploc bag. Don’t ask him who it’s from exactly, or what it says, hoooo boy, you’ll be sorry. #ChoochsSecretLife

Anyway, I’m coming back for you, Nessie.  You just wait.

Busch Gardens was the second-most anticipated part of the trip! I’ve only been there once before, in 2015–remember the TIMESHARE that we suffered through a presentation for just to get free tickets to Busch Gardens and then we ended up falling prey to the spiel anyway and wound up with a timeshare that we used once and then…

Anyway!! There weren’t very many new coaster credits for Chooch to get here because he was tall enough to ride everything the last time, but they do have a new wooden coaster and apparently a new kiddie coaster (lol).

Let’s just focus on how beautiful this damn park is though, ok? Because I really believe that it’s the prettiest, best-themed park in the US aside from like, I dunno, Universal Studios. So in today’s vacation recap post, we will be enjoying the Euro-themed goodness of Busch Gardens.

I have 100% never skied before in my life (I mean, I just spent 3 minutes fighting with spellcheck because I wanted to spell it “skii” in the worst way) but I love love love the area around Alpengeist, the park’s VISCIOUS B&M invert. Jesus Christ, I forgot how intense this coaster is! You’re meant to be an out-of-control ski lift and yep, B&M nailed it.

This was me, about to ride it for the second time, directly after eating pizza.

It was a really strange day at Busch Gardens because when we first arrived, the parking lot didn’t look too stuffed. But then we got into the park and it seemed pretty crowded. The first ride we went to (Loch Ness Monster) had a really long line and I was like OH GREAT, GOOD JOB HENRY, THANKS because everything that went south on this trip was his fault.

Literally! Our original itinerary didn’t have us going south at all but then he axed Six Flags Great Adventure due to El Toro and Jersey Devil being down, and also deep-sixed Luna Park on Coney Island because you can only buy four-hour blocks of time there right now and he made the unilateral decision to go there another time. So that’s how the southern leg of the trip came into fruition. You know, in case you were wondering.

“You.”

Anyway, we walked to another area of the park and realized that everyone was just congregating over by Loch Ness because it was near the entrance I guess, and everything else was pretty much a station wait or a walk-on! We decided to live it up and waited a bit extra for the front row of Griffon, the park’s dive coaster, and it was only about 15 minutes! If we had opted for any other row, it would have been almost a walk-on.

Plus? Ops at Busch Gardens are AMAZING. These people know how to hustle and safely send trains out of the station.

That bad bitch, Griffon aka Better Than Valravn. Sorry, Cedar Point, but you can’t always be the best at everything! Henry didn’t ride this the last time we visited, probably because he forgot to eat his POWER PRUNES that time and was too scared. So this was actually his first dive coaster, what a lamer.

Verbolten was Chooch’s and my favorite coaster the last time we visited and we talked about it all the time for the rest of the summer  like it was a pet we had to get put to sleep. That is how much we missed it! So we were stoked to stuff our butts on this bitch again! Look at the theming in the queue! It’s so wonderful!

We had to wait about 20 minutes for this one but that’s OK, it’s worth it. And again, ops are great at Busch Gardens and also no one there was annoying us that day either.

We were triggered at the sight of the gnomes because the day before at Carowinds, one of the things we had to do during that Plants v. Zombies ride was find golden gnomes for extra points and again, our team sucked so bad and we were CRUSHED by the Plants team.

YES, TO BE IN THIS STATION AGAIN!! Henry had to ride by himself and at the last minute, a single rider squeezed through just as the gates were closing and plopped down next to him. CHOOCH AND I LOVE WHEN THIS HAPPENS!! WILL THEY ACKNOWLEDGE EACH OTHER? WILL THEY GIGGLE AND SCREAM TOGETHER??

In this case, no. But Henry was annoyed because his seat partner was really quiet until the train left the station and then he started screaming.

Wow. Imagine people….SCREAMING….on a roller coaster. What a barbarian.

#CAROUSELFIE

Fun fact: we did not take a carouselfie at Carowinds because that park made me angry and I don’t want an ANGRY CAROUSELFIE on my wall of happiness.

Oh shit, this ride was pretty good! Busch Garden’s first wooden coaster and it was wild. Henry rode by himself on the train before ours, lol, he doesn’t even bother trying to get on the same ride as us anymore.

Also – new credit for Chooch, since this was built two years after we last visited!

OMG there was DRAMA when we were line for Escape from Pompeii! FIRST, there was several girls in line who were wearing crop tops and the ride operator got on her microphone to announce that shirts must be worn on this ride, and bikini tops or sports bras or shirts that could pass as sports bras ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. The girls in line were like DA FUQ and even I, the Ageing Prude, thought that the girls were appropriately covered. I mean, it’s summer – crop tops and belly shirts are everywhere. They definitely did not look scantily clad to me, nor did their shirts even remotely resemble bikini tops!?

I stopped paying attention so I don’t know what happened after that but I think they must have pled their case because I did not see them leave.

Then the ride operators eased up on the fashion policing because the security footage showed them that someone on one of the in-flight boats HAD STOOD UP INSIDE THE BUILDING AND WAS SWINGING OFF THE BOAT whatever that means?!!?

There is all kinds or pyrotechnics poppin’ off inside the ride building so I can only imagine the dangers that could have befallen them, not to mention they endangered the other people in the boat!

The BOAT IN QUESTION happened to return right when we were boarding ours, so I got to hear one of the ride operators stroll over there in FULL ON BAD COP persona and demand, “So which one of you was it” and they all played dumb. I’m so pissed that we were already boarded and not still standing in the line because I wanted to see how this was going to play out!!

Chooch’s memory of this ride was much richer than what it actually is. I mean, yeah the building part is cool but it’s no Splash Mountain. (Gotta throw Disney a bone every now and then, I’m not a total monster!)

Anyway, that’s us in the backseat. I was super smug because I managed to keep my pink lemonade Vans 100% dry, Mary!

We walked past this ride about 10 minutes later and IT WAS SHUT DOWN. Was it because of the BOAT SWINGER!?!

But then we found this kiddie coaster that wasn’t there the last time because the entire kiddie area is new. Henry said it’s not new but Chooch and I are always right and I definitely do not remember an entire Sesame Street area? Go on and Google it if you want and let me know if I’m a liar, Linda, because I don’t care enough to do it myself.

Anyway, we got yelled at kind of because it was a station wait, but then it looked like there was an open seat on the train  that was being loaded so we shrugged and decided to just take it because who cares about waiting for the front row on a fucking Grovermobile, but as we went to step inside, not one, not two, BUT THREE ride attendants yelled, “NO NO NO” and batted us away. Apparently, the seat was already taken by a parent and little kid who had to step across to the other side of the station in order for the kid to be measured AND GUESS WHAT THEY DIDN’T END  UP RIDING IT ANYWAY, THANKS FOR SCOLDING US FOR NOTHING, ASSHOLES.

Chooch was so angry with me because he had wanted to wait for the front seat anyway and I was the one who was like WE AIN’T GOT TIME FOR THAT SHIT LET’S JUST STEAL THIS SEAT HERE BRO.

Anyway, one of the ride attendants was actually getting trained and we learned here that when an attendant needs to cross the track to the other side of the platform, the have to make an X with their arms and yell CROSS.

I was really excited about this.

Also, the guy who was doing the training looked mean. Well, he DID yell at us, so that may have swayed my opinion.

Um, this ride was supposed to open last year, then this summer, but it’s not even being tested daily so who knows!? But it looks so good and I already can’t wait to go back once it’s open.

The one and only negative thing (aside from the understaffing resulting in a bunch of food places being closed) was the lack of hand sanitizer around the park. I mean, we are still very much in a pandemic and even though many of us are vaccinated, we are not invincible! Hand washing and sanitizer will forever be something I do obsessively now and I was so angry every time I pushed down on ANOTHER empty sanitizer pump. Ughhhhh.

And yeah, the understaffing thing is such a problem at every park, and it is really sad. I am trying to give parks a pass when it’s clear that Covid is directly correlated with me having a bad time at a park, so I cannot dock points from Busch Gardens because I was unable to deep throat an ice cream cone because their ice cream shop was closed for the entire day/probably whole season.

But come on, do better with the sanitization amenities, Busch Gardens, jeez. What do you think this is, 2019??

Then we ate pizza at Festhaus which was a MISTAKE because we all got sick from it. It was so good but way too much. Also, Chooch snuck that $5 pickle log on his tray and then only took two bites.

LOL.

Then a storm rolled through and we had to take cover but I will be back for my post-storm thoughts later because Henry just had the audacity to sneeze without warning me and now my evening is ruined. That motherfucker.

I really hate to start off my roller coaster birthday road trip posts on a bad note, but our first park was not great, Bob.

(Fun fact: I have never watched a single episode of Mad Men* but my friend Sandy would always quote from it when I sat near her in the office.)

(*I have always been interested in watching it though!)

Anyway. As I mentioned in the live blog from Day 1 of this trip, we did pop into Carowinds on Saturday evening after we arrived in the Charlotte-esque area and checked into our hotel.

The first thing you see from the parking lot and as you’re walking through the entrance is Carowinds massive, hulking giga coaster, Fury 325. This is 100% the sole reason we came to this park.

Now, I knew it would be crowded since it was a Saturday night so that is not a thing I will be complaining about here. My issue was that the ride operators and attendants on *most* of the coasters were slow and acted bored, the lines were a fucking mess because people were cutting left and right, the app was worthless as far as wait times go, and the park aesthetically was nothing special to look at.

The line for this piece of shit ride was actually relatively short but no one was checking Fast Lane, the two ride attendants were stuck in “meander mode” took anywhere from 3-6 minutes to get a train ready to send, and the queues in the station were a straight-up cluster fuck. We waited nearly an hour FOR AN ARROW CORKSCREW COASTER.

We came back the next day right before gates opened in an attempt to join the running of the bulls to Fury.

There were many annoying families with humungous strollers, and since we were in THE SOUTH, people were really giving a shit about singing the National Anthem before the security guard opened the gate for us. I think it’s REALLY WEIRD that some amusement parks go through this whole patriotic rigamarole, but I also pretty much hate America, so there’s that. Henry didn’t take his hat off like most of the other ‘MURRICA men did, so that made him kind of attractive to me in that moment, though I’m sure he just forgot to remove it and he wasn’t actually MAKING A STATEMENT.

I will say this: the crew working on Fury 325  that morning WAS EXCELLENT. They were fast and efficient and you could tell they took their jobs seriously. It was the first time since exploring Carowinds that it finally felt like we were at a Cedar Fair park, so that was super nice. If you have ever been to Cedar Point, you know that even when it is insanely crowded and rides are breaking down, the staff there is SO PROFESSIONAL and on top of things.

You can’t have an elite giga coaster at your park and assigning ops to ambivalent teenagers.

ANYWAY. We got a back row ride, after only waiting about 10 minutes (if even!) and I was SO HAPPY. It was just as fierce as I imagined it would be, and I wasn’t underwhelmed at all. I even made the bold statement that it was my new favorite giga – it’s our 4th one! Henry and Chooch wouldn’t commit to this lofty declaration, though they both agreed it was a phenomenal time.

Next, we had to book it on over to the other park’s premier attraction, their newest coaster Copperhead Strike. It has a multi-launch so I was really excited for it because I love launched coasters (well, mostly—am not a fan of strata coasters like Top Thrill Dragster because that launch is just a bit too much for my weakened old lady heart). The line was still pretty short but Henry to pee first; Chooch and I will 100% not wait for him anymore when he pulls this “I have to pee” bullshit so we were like, “Have fun with that” and got in line without him. He did eventually get in line and actually wasn’t too far back. But, we’re not ASSHOLES like it seems most park-goers are so we didn’t frantically and blatantly wave him over to us. I swear to god, people put placeholders in the form of other family members in almost every line we were in, and then like 7 people would do the EXCUSE ME PARDON ME routine until they were practically at the fucking station.

Anyway, Chooch and I got a back row ride. He really liked it. I thought it was just ok. Henry managed to cut off a Fast Lane group at the station just in time to snag on the front row when it was his turn to ride and he ended up really liking it too. Maybe I need to get in more rides, I dunno, but I was just expecting a little more I guess. And the launches were so weak, like why even bother.

It *does* have a Jo Jo Roll right out of the station though and I looooove screaming JO JO ROLL so that was a nice perk.

Cedar Fair parks are doing some weird Grand Carnivale festival thing which we 100% did not care about and made a point of missing the parade, lol. But you can purchase a tasting card and go around to various tents to try food from around the world. South Korea wasn’t one of the places so what did I care.

We got lucky and just happened to be walking past Night Hawk – the park’s flying coaster – right as the line opened so we jumped on that. And good thing too because that line got LONG REAL FAST. I mean, even getting in line that early, we were still behind the people that had already lined up in anticipation of it opening, so we had to wait about 20-30 minutes anyway (plus, ops were slow AF). Chooch and I entertained ourselves by waving to the people on the nearby mine train ride.

When it was finally our turn, we rode in a row with this single rider lady who was SO FRIENDLY and excited that it was our first time on it. Also, she said we were lucky to be riding it right then, because the line had grown so significantly since it opened that it was pushing a 2 hour wait time.

Um, after riding Night Hawk, I can confirm that it would not be worth that wait. But also, I do not like flying coasters, and this one was old and janky. I had NO IDEA what was going on for most of it because I was so fixated on the rattling and trying to remember the words to the Hail Mary.

But yeah, that lady we rode with was so sweet and one of the only highlights of the Carowinds experience.

(I will say that most of the people there were pretty inoffensive. It wasn’t like when you go to Holiday World and all the dads look like middle-aged bloated Jonny Craigs just released from prison.)

I begged Henry and Chooch to ride the mine train after this. I don’t know why, but I get the biggest kick out of mine train coasters! Sadly, this was another ride where some skanky pre-teen saved a spot in line for her younger siblings and frumpy mom who said, “Is it OK if we just squeeze on by.” I mumbled, “Not really,” as she SQUEEZED ON BY and hit me with her ugly-ass quilted mom bag that she probably traded in a diaper bag for.

We all look exactly how we feel on the inside here: overheated, tired, cranky.

Again, the line wasn’t very long but it was still an excessive wait, and then once we got to the station we saw why: THAT GIRL WAS THE SAME RIDE ATTENDANT ON CAROLINA CYCLONE THE NIGHT BEFORE. Ugh. Her name is Adora, by the way. Someone give her an intravenous Red Bull treatment, please.

LOL I love it when Henry has to stand in a line by himself, and also when it looks like his mustache got extensions.

Anyway, this was a fun, cute little mine ride! And it had a surprise tunnel! I LOVE WHEN RIDES HAVE TUNNELS THAT I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT! Chooch does not share this love.

At Carowinds, half the park is in North Carolina, and half is in South Carolina. I think North Carolina got the better rides, ngl.

OK the sleeper hit of the park for me was Afterburn. I say sleeper hit, because I only even hear people jerk off over Fury and Intimidator (and now Copperhead Strike) so I honestly hadn’t heard much about anything else in the coaster line-up. Plus, this bitch is kind of hidden in a weird location – we had to walk through Camp Snoopy to get there (and btw, that was the only area that I thought was pleasant – everything else was like a blacktop hellscape).

Henry opted out of this one, but then seamlessly stepped into the CRINGEY DAD ROLE when he cut all the way through the Fast Lane just to give Chooch a cup of Power Ade, causing everyone in line to stare at us. To be honest, I wasn’t even really paying attention when this happened, but Chooch was like digging himself a grave right there on the spot, he was so mortified.

“NOW EVERYONE IS AWARE OF US,” he kept hoarsely whispering to me.

Anyway, ops were soooooo bad on this. First of all, some jackass in the same row as us waited until the last minute to be like, “EXCUSE ME DO YOU HAVE ANY GREY POUPON” and I mean obviously that’s code for, “hey pal I know you guys just locked the restraints but I JUST NOW REALIZED that I am wearing my glasses and could you be a dear and put them over there on the side for me” and of course the ride attendant was like, “hell no, we can’t touch your shit because if it breaks you’ll try to blame us” SO THEY UNLOCKED EVERYONE’S RESTRAINTS JUST SO FOUR EYES OVER HERE COULD PUT HIS OWN GLASSES IN THE BIN.

Then after everyone got settled for the second time, the ride attendant came BACK TO OUR ROW and said, “Can you  guys take these seats up here instead” and so the two guys next to me took their restraints off AGAIN and got out of their seats and I was like WHAT IS HAPPENING ARE WE SUPPOSED TO MOVE TOO but no one was answering me and then two different guys came to our row and a different attendant was like HELLO PLEASE GIVE YOUR SEAT TO HIM to me and I was like WHAT WHY so Chooch and I had to move over to the now-vacated seats left by those other dumb guys.

Well, this was all a really long story just to say that I was apparently sitting in the oversized seat and some oversized dude needed it way more than me. But it was a lot of musical chairs and shuffling around. I was actually really scared for them to even send the train at this point but after sitting in the station for nearly 10 minutes, our train was finally cleared.

And it ended up being my favorite ride of the day after Fury, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT. And it had surprise tunnels!!

I think that I really, really, really love B&M inverts.

I made Henry stand here because MILITARY AIR CRAFT, ETC.

“The caption should be ‘god bless America,'” Chooch said.

We also did Plants v. Zombies mostly because we wanted to sit an air-conditioned building because it was 95 degrees out there that day.

We were on the Zombie side and got creamed by the Plants because we had almost all children on our side and obviously they suck and should not be allowed to compete in such games.

Meanwhile, I was being POUTY ERIN which was actually my default personality on this trip because I wanted to ride Intimidator, Carowind’s hypercoaster, but Chooch kept saying THAT LINE IS SO FUCKING LONG ARE YOU KIDDING and I kept getting vetoed. But right before we left the park, I shouted, “I AM GOING TO CHECK OUT THAT LINE AGAIN” and it looked about the same but this time Henry had the audacity to cross Chooch by saying, “It actually doesn’t seem that long.” So, with Chooch being all huffy, we got in line and GUESS WHAT YOU GUYS IT ACTUALLY WASN’T THAT LONG.

It was maybe only around 30 minutes. And when all three of us are standing in line together, I don’t mind waiting. It’s when it’s just Chooch and me that I feel like I’m dying slowly in quicksand because most of the time he is too caught up in his stupid Dischord chat group to pay any attention to me and if I dare to speak to him while he’s texting, I get the Teenage Hiss of Fury in response.

It was around this moment in line when IN THE AIR TONIGHT started to play!! Phil Collins to the rescue!

You guys, I thought this was…..pretty good! Chooch and I had a Big Fight because he said that this is the one that people call InTRIMinator because of all of the trim brakes on the tracks but I was adamant that it was Intimidator 305 at King’s Dominion.

Um, anyway, I hate being wrong. Moving on…

Some random single rider rode with Henry and Chooch and I LOVE TO SEE IT. We get the biggest thrill out of seeing Henry riding uncomfortably with a stranger, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY START TALKING TO HIM, which this guy did once we reached the break run and ended up having to sit there for a few minutes while the ride attendants HOSED OFF the train that was in the station because I think someone yakked on it maybe.

We decided to leave for real after this, because the lines for everything were only getting longer as the day went on and it was SO FUCKING HOT. We got most of the coasters checked off the list and Chooch didn’t seem too broken up about skipping the remaining 4 coasters (2 of which were kiddie/family coasters).

And that’ll do it for our time at Carowinds, a park that I would not lose any sleep over if told I could never go back.

Hello from vacation. We were at King’s Dominion all day yesterday and stayed over in Baltimore. Now we’re en route to our next stop so I am updating from the car!

On Monday, we went to Busch Gardens (I keep wanting to add an “e” to the end of Busch for some reason, thankfully auto-correct won’t let me) and I collected some pictures of Henry’s back which I will now share with you and you and ok fine, even you.

The “Gotta Get To the Rolly Coaster Before Everyone Else” shot.

The “Ditched His Old Family, Picked Up a New One, They’re Slow Too & Now He’s Got an Extra Kid” shot.

Bonus shot of Full Frontal Henry. This is the “Even Michael Myers Gets PTO and When He Does, The Mask Comes Off & He Goes to Theme Parks” shot.

The “FOLLOW THE STENCH OF BEER-N-MEAT” shot.

The “Thinking This Park Would Be Better if It Was Called Faygo Gardens & Now Wondering What His FAYGO Friends Are Doing Without Him in the Warehouse” shot.

The “Acknowledging My Family Long Enough To Show Them Turtles in the Water” shot.

The “Waiting Out the Storm, Thank God We’re By a Bathroom” shot.

The “HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU PPL” shot.

The “Someone Dared Scream My Name While I’m Inhaling a Soft Pretzel Which I Still Had Room For Even After Eating My Own Pizza and Then Finishing Off My Family’s Leftovers” shot.

The “If I Hear You Cry About Wanting to Ride the Loch Ness Monster ONE MORE TIME I will GIVE YOU SOMETHING REAL TO CRY ABOUT and It May Or Not Involve Being Bitch-Slapped By My Own Personal Loch Ness Monster” shot.

The “Thinks We’re Leaving But Erin & Chooch Will Foil That Plan By Proceeding to Wait 90 Minutes In Line For a Roller Coaster That Is Not Going to Be Cleared To Resume Operations Because There Is Lightning All Over The Williamsburg Skies But I Guess I Will Find A Bench To Park My Pizza Cheese-Corked Butt Hole and Read Reddit” shot.

***

Ok that’s all for now – we’re 40 minutes from our next destination – WILDWOOD!!

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.

The day before we left for our little 4th of July weekend road trip to the Cincinnati-ish area of Ohio, Henry happened to see in whatever newsfeed he gets on his dumb phone that Stricker’s Grove, a small family-operated amusement park outside of Cinci, was going to open to the public on July 4th – THE DAY WE WOULD BE IN THE AREA. Why does this news require CAPSLOCK, you ask? Because this place is only open 4 times a year (the rest of the time they rent out to corporations for company picnics, etc) so the two wooden coasters inside this small, roadside park next to a fucking cornfield are considered RARE CREDITS.

I did quick math in my head and realized that if we stopped here before hitting up King’s Island, one of those two coasters could be Chooch’s 150th, which would be way cooler than anything at King’s Island, which is easily accessible!

One hiccup though was that we had plans to meet up with Christina and their fiancée Katie before going to King’s Island in the evening. Luckily, they were both on board with the change in plans and we arranged to meet at Stricker’s Grove at noon, when they ALLEGEDLY OPENED.

As previously whined about in my liveblog from Sunday, we quickly learned that while the park was open at noon, the rides were not scheduled to operate until 3pm! Which would have been helpful had they put this info on their website and not just their Facebook page, because hello, not everyone is on Facebook! (Also LOL @ the fact that someone just realized two weeks ago that I’m not on Facebook anymore when it’s been FOUR YEARS (June 2017, baybay) so wow, that was truly a solid friendship.)

Also LOL @ the fact that Christina have literally not seen each other in person (and barely even spoken) since 2012 (2011, even?!) and the very first thing I said to them in lieu of “hello” was “CHRISTINA I DON’T THINK THIS PLACE IS OPEN?! GO ASK!!”

If you are a real one, you know that we ended up leaving and getting lunch at Hyde’s, and then returning at 2:30. And good thing we didn’t wait any longer because while the line to get ride tickets was short at that time (see above!), within an hour the line was practically snaking out into the parking lot which means nothing to you since you have no frame of reference as to the PARK LAYOUT.

Daddy Warbucks purchased enough tickets for Chooch and me to ride both coasters and the carousel. But then we still had to wait for the gate to the ride area to open! I was so pee-jiggy! I sat with Christina and Katie under a pavilion while Chooch played skeeball only to have his tickets thieved by some rural child / future farmhand.

Then I noticed that people were gathering by the gate so we all walked (well, mine was more of a “I WANT TO RUN SO BAD RIGHT NOW BUT I WILL POWER WALK LIKE I’M HEADING TO MY WALLSTREET OFFICE” psycho-gait) over to join the small horde. I was getting angry because people kept passing us but I was trying to be calm and normal for Katie so she shouldn’t be completely turned off by my abrasiveness. Also, she is recovering from a broken fibula (??? some leg bone??) and I was being compassionate and considerate to her slower-pace because yes Henry, I can be a nice person!

However, as soon as the gate opened, Chooch and I were like SEEYA WOULDN’T WANNA BE YA and blew past everyone. Henry was happy to have friends matching his pace this time around.

We decided to ride the smaller of the two woodies first so that #150 would be Tornado, Stricker’s main attraction. We were in line behind a young guy wearing in B&M t-shirt (that’s a coaster manufacturer for you all you non-nerds reading this) and Chooch wanted to ask him what his favorite B&M is but then didn’t because he was afraid he’d ask Chooch the same and Chooch couldn’t decide which one he’d choose.

See also: Chooch never initiates conversations with strangers.

We made it on the second train of the day and I was fully prepared for some back-crunching action, but HOLY SHIT – this little guy was smooth AF! I heard that it had been retracked in like, 2017 or 2018 I think and I’m not sure if they did even more recent work on it but that wood felt and looked fresh, like it just came straight from the roller coaster forest. I mean, the ride itself was a very tame kiddie coaster at best, but the fact that it was running like slippers on silk made it seem exceptional. We could NOT stop gushing about how surprisingly good it was! And they sent us through twice!!

Then we ran over to the Tornado while our FAN CLUB continued to stand in their little huddle, probably talking about Faygo flavors and not acting as the paparazzo that Chooch and I truly deserve. Anyway, here’s a picture in line with a cornfield behind him.  We only had to wait for train and then we made it on the next one! This place ruled! We literally knocked the two coasters out within 10 minutes. THE HUSTLE.

Again – what a fucking smooth-ass ride! Stricker’s props to you for taking premium care of your rides. Again with the fresh track feel, and not only that, but the coaster LOOKS good too. I don’t know what I was expecting – something akin to Blue Streak at Conneaut I guess?! That bitch is a real back-breaker.

Weirdly, Tornado didn’t seem to have any signage, at least not that I could see?! Maybe it was on  the road side? So I had to just deposit Chooch in some random spot in front of it for his commemorative 150th coaster photo op.

This coaster was really quirky and fun. I’m so happy we got this lucky chance!

And here’s the Teddy Bear cutie. <3

After this, it was CAROUSELFIE TIME! Woo! (Remember when people used to say “woot” all the time? I really disliked that. IT RUBBED ME THE WRONG WAY, one might say.) Stupid Henry needed to lean the other way but he’s rude, so this is an accurate portrayal.

I got my foot caught in that pole when the horse was lowering – it was actually scary. Also, Katie said my hair is very thicc and that made me happy. We are keeping Katie.

Not winning.

(Also, Chooch and Katie bonded over Pokemon here. Christina tried really hard to insert themselves into the discussion but Chooch was not impressed. Because he’s my kid.)

So then Christina was like, “OK I will win his love through materialism, just like I did with his mother” except that they failed here too.

We dragged Katie and Christina on Teddy Bear after this because they had enough tickets and I swore on Taemin’s military beret that it was NOT rough and wouldn’t hurt her leg.

Henry’s One Job was to take a picture of us all on this, but aside from a picture of his finger, and a close-up of the people in the front row, this was the only picture he managed to eke out.

Christina and Katie both agreed that it was a smooth operation and even gave Chooch and me the rest of their tickets so we were able to ride the flying dumbo ride even  though we actually wanted to ride some spinny thing but we needed two more tickets and Henry, his mouth twisting around a piece of hay, was all I AIN’T WAITIN’ IN THAT LINE FOR NO MORE TICKETS, RIDE THE DUMBO OR LEAVE.

I texted Henry and told him to take a picture of us, but as usual he ignored me because he was probably trying to act like a big shot in front of a new person (“I DRIVE AROUND ON A PALLET JACK, KATIE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT IS? IT IS A PIECE OF FINE MACHINERY THAT ASSISTS ME IN LIFTING CASES OF JUGGALO JUICE, NOT THAT I NEED ASSISTANCE.“) so then I texted Christina and said, “Henry is ignoring me, take our picture” and .003 seconds later, they turned around snapped this:

Like, wow. The effort is…palpable here.

Anyway, hours later, they were like, “Oh shit, sorry I’m just seeing this text now” so they actually just happened to take that picture of us randomly, at the same time I asked. SO WEIRD.

That cornfield tho.

Chooch really didn’t want to sit together but I made him.

Stricker’s was really popping off by this point! Henry DEFINITELY wasn’t buying any more tickets now.

Stricker’s Crew.

Then we got us some patriotic ice cream. Mmm’erica.

Here’s Chooch with his skeeball ticket trade-ins.

He might’ve had enough for a full hand of digits had he not let some mulleted toddler snatch his tickets!

Then we sat under the pavilion again and chatted and I was trying really hard to not be rude by checking the time constantly but my internal Type A child was screaming, “MUST GO TO KING’S ISLAND. THE BEAST IS CALLING.” So eventually we had to say goodbye which was sad but I know that we will be seeing everyone again because it was such a nice, easy reunion and Katie is a true gem, so I only felt A LITTLE bad saying goodbye.

Tornado from the road! There is literally no fence around it.

This was the best picture I could get of the sign because Henry wouldn’t pull over and made me take it from the car window. The actual worst.

Anyway, what a weird little hidden gem outside of Cincinnati! If you’re a coaster fan, ya gotta try to get out there and get those elusive creds, and then go to Hyde’s for some pie.

Me, my parents, & my brothers went to Cedar Point in August and stayed at the Radisson Inn. We went to the park the two days we were there and my dad & I rode all the rides, including Iron Dragon, Magnum XL 200, Corkscrew, Demon Drop, and of course Disaster Transport. A lot of the time our little “outing” was not all that great. But all in all I got to tell all of my friends about it. It was really kind of an exciting trip. 

That was what I wrote in my vacation journal after I went to Cedar Point for the first time in 1991 and boy don’t you wish I was still that succinct?? Also can we talk about how it was “not all that great” but also “really kind of an exciting trip”? Holy mixed signals. BECAUSE I KNOW MYSELF, I am able to read in between the lines and deduce that my parents probably fought the whole time, my dad and I probably fought the whole time, my brother Ryan and I probably fought the whole time, Corey was a baby and probably did nothing the whole time, and I probably had both parents tell me NO I’M NOT BUYING THAT FOR YOU the whole time.

Well, I will try to be short & sweet while telling you about the second day of our most recent Cedar Point “outing” which actually was ALL GREAT and I would have told all of my friends about it if I had any friends HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAugh.

Since we are Platinum Pass holders (pause for some fingernail blowing), we got up early on Monday so that we could be at the park by 8:30, which is when the parking lot opens. It was actually raining super hard when I woke up and I was straight panicking. Henry went out to get donuts since some hotels are still kind of “ehhhhh” about offering free continental breakfast since we’re still technically not out of the pandemic woods yet. All I wanted was a glazed and a sugar after that fuckarow with the vegan donuts in Maryland. Just keep it simple (stupid), you know? Henry can’t remember the name of the place he went to but it was some local joint and they really delivered. I mean, not actually delivered, he had to go and get them himself.

Chooch tried some of my glazed and declared that it was the best glazed donut he ever did have and I wouldn’t go THAT far but it was very good and satisfied my need for sweet morning carbs.

(Henry just shouted “House of Donuts” from the other room, so now you know in case you are ever in Sandusky and feel like smashing Chooch’s Best Glazed Donut declaration.)

By the time we ate our donuts, the rain stopped and the sky was turning blue! And when we got to the park,  there were only two cars in line in front of us at the parking booth thingies!! AND THEN SOMEHOW WE WERE THE FIRST, LITERALLY THE FIRST, PEOPLE IN THE PARK! They actually let us in a little bit before 9 and it was so exciting! Our game plan this time around was to hit Millie first since we didn’t ride it the day before. Steve (Steel Vengeance) isn’t included in early entry on weekdays so we didn’t even waste our time running there.

Millie!

There were these two little pre-teen girls who ran head of us and Chooch and I were cracking up because there was a third girl who was like, “I am not running” so they kept turning around and screaming, “COME ON KYLIE!!”

Chooch was like, “Dad is our Kylie.”

Oh man, Millie in the Morning. Better than a cup of fucking coffee. And we were on the first train out of the station!! I couldn’t believe how fantastic our day had started off. And, spoiler alert, it stayed that way. Like I said in my last CP post, I learned the hard way that the trick is to go in with low expectations. This park is so quirky because of it’s lakeside location (high winds can force them to shut ‘er down) and it’s called The Coaster Capital of America* for a reason, which draws hoards of people.

*(It is called that, isn’t it? lol.)

I grayed out on Millie!

Next, we ran over to Maverick. It was still testing so they hadn’t even opened the line yet, but a pretty decent one had already formed. However, they opened it up after about five minutes and by the time the line stopped moving, we were inside the main room of switchbacks and only had to wait for about 15 minutes. AND CHOOCH AND I GOT FRONT ROW!!

Also, I forgot to mention that when we were in line for Maverick the day before, Toto’s “Hold the Line” video randomly started playing on the TVs and I never noticed until that moment how much the singer resembles Hot Naybor Chris so I started screaming about it and Henry did that frown/smirk/smile thing he does when he doesn’t want to encourage me and Chooch tried to hold firm to his disapproval of my comparison until he finally couldn’t help it and he started laughing.

“YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE!” I screamed.

God, and then Maverick happened and that ride is just bonkers. As if I wasn’t already giddy!

We ran over to Steve after this. It still wasn’t open yet but a hefty line was starting to form so we hurried up and got in place. I had fun watching the family in front of us play Heads Up while Chooch did Chooch Things on his phone and overall ignored me. Henry actually was about 20 people behind us because he had to go to the bathroom first and I refused to wait for him; however, he was at a point in the line where it had turned back on itself so we were actually facing each other. When the entrance opened and the line started moving, he did something we are FULLY AGAINST and casually line-jumped and tagged along with Chooch and me as we moved past him. It was so obvious but he was pissed because he had witnessed half a family blatantly cut in front of about 50 people to rejoin the other half of the family, so felt like he was owed something I guess, who knows. I don’t think anyone really cared that much, tbh. But now I wished I had screamed LINE JUMPING IS CAUSE FOR REMOVAL OF THE PARK like my friend Christy and I used to at Kennywood when we were kids because we aimed to be the most obnoxious, something I CANNOT RELATE TO AS AN ADULT.

There are free lockers now in the queue and they are so cool! There used to be pouches on the ride where you could put your small items like keys and phones, but I’m sure people were fucking that up so they removed those and installed these super slick lockers and it’s really cool because the line splits – if you have NOTHING AT ALL ON YOUR PERSON, like you can’t even have stuff tucked away securely in a sealed cargo pocket – you can continue through a metal detector. Otherwise, your entire group is directed to the lockers, after which you can reenter the second line and basically I’m explaining this poorly but you barely lose your spot in line at all because they only send so many people past that point at one time.

I just thought it was super efficient and if you have ever been on Steve, you know that having empty pockets is an absolute MUST for safety reasons. This coaster is a fucking force of nature, you guys. I absolutely love it and found myself tearing up while we were in line (which was only about 30 minutes once the ride actually opened, and would have been less if fucking FAST LANE hadn’t opened at the same time, now that early entry was over).

I was getting RULL NERVY though because the sky had darkened and I swear I felt a few raindrops. I have only ridden Steve twice before and BOTH TIMES it broke down while I was in line. So I was like please let’s not make this a threepeat.

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Oh good lord, this ride. It almost makes me want to understand physics and engineering, etc etc numbers and nerds.

Henry and Chooch went on the drop tower thingie which is basically the one ride that I will not ride at any park unless super-pressed because I find them unenjoyable. Besides, I thought it was funny that this was some weird FATHER/SON ride experience because when do they ever.

They were assigned seats and we supposed to sit together in a two-seat grouping but some old dude decided he was going to sit there so they ended up having to split up and Henry was really angry about this for a while even after they got off the dumb ride. I was watching it all unfold and it was pretty dumb. I guess the guy even asked Chooch if he wanted to sit with his dad and Chooch was like “Yeah…” and the guy was like “oh well” and pulled down his restraint lol the audacity.

Oh yeah! Chooch and I rode the antique cars while Henry waited for the Bosco Sticks cart to open. We have been trying to eat a fucking Bosco Stick since 2019 when Carrie was like, “You have to eat a Bosco Stick, they are my favorite things and we can’t be friends anymore if you don’t eat one.” We tried the day before but THEY CLOSED LITERALLY AS WE WERE GETTING INTO LINE. This time, they hadn’t opened yet because the cashier hadn’t showed up. So Chooch and I rode Sky Hawk (their version of Kennywood’s Swing Shot) and then the antique cars.

Here you can see Steve hulking in the distance like a dream boat.

Um, and here’s Henry hulking in the distance like a…nightmare barge.

Henry’s phone takes the worst pictures.

STEVE <3

Anyway we gave up on Bosco Sticks after this because who has time to wait for some mysterious cashier, you know?

Besides, Chooch had an appointment to get bit by a goose.

Literally.

“He didn’t bite me, I was feeding him!” he yelled later when he saw that I had tweeted about it.

“Yeah, feeding him your finger,” I verbally shrugged.

We got Dippin’ Dots instead of Bosco Sticks (we knew we were leaving around 2 and stopping for lunch so we just wanted something snack-ish) and I started dwelling on the fact that Dippin’ Dots are still around. Like, who would have thought their novelty was this long-lasting? It’s fairly incredible.

Back when I was super into writing fake poetry in high school, I even wrote a poem about it called DIP DIP DIPPIN’ DOTS. It was part of my KENNYWOOD SERIES. MAYBE I WILL POST SOME OF THEM ON HERE SOMETIME BECAUSE I STILL HAVE THEM PRINTED OUT IN A BINDER I KNOW YOU ARE SHOCKED.

In line for our beloved Spaghetti Noodle. I want to get one of those shirts made that have like a list of names on it – I don’t know what the origin is behind those, but for instance you might see one that says:

Ross &

Rachel &

Phoebe &

Monica &

Joey &

Chandler

You know what I mean? Those rando shirts? I want to make one that has our Cedar Point roller coaster nicknames on it.

Millie &

Steve &

Spaghetti Noodle &

…Maggie?

I dunno, I just made that last one up because I feel like I would want at least four names on it and we sure do love Magnum.

But yeah Spaghetti Noodle is fantastic and so underrated. This was actually the first time we had to wait in line and it was still only about 10 minutes, if even that. I busted my hand really hard getting into the queue for the front row though. I hit off the clasp (?) of the gate when I spun around while walking to say something to Chooch. The top of my hand hit it real hard and it didn’t break skin but it did something bigly to something underneath, that’s for sure, because I couldn’t make a fist for the rest of the day and it was, some might say, TENDER. I was worried I chipped a bone or something. I mean, I hit that thing so hard that it actually undid the lock and the gate swung open (it was the employee gate to get on the other side of the queues) and it made such a loud bang that I’m shocked no one bothered to even look over to see what the hell my dumb ass had done.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, it still feels kind of TENDER.

That was the last ride we rode that day. Then Chooch wasted money on basketball games and a CP hoodie, and we left. :(

Seriously, this trip completely redeemed CP for me and it’s actually one of my favorite parks now. Everyday I have been whining, “When are we going back to Cedar Point??” and I know we will probably go back at least one more time this season, but hopefully more! It was really nice to have gotten all of the coaster credits out of the way (minus the kiddie ones) and actually slow down the pace a bit, ride some flat rides, and enjoy the scenery!

UNTIL NEXT TIME, CP. I MISS YOU SO MUCH ALREADY.

P.S. The next day at work, I messaged Carrie and told her that I still haven’t been able to stick a fucking Bosco Stick in my mouth and she was like, “Do you mean cheese on a stick?” BECAUSE THAT IS HER FAVE THING TO EAT AT CEDAR POINT NOT BOSCO STICKS. I have no idea how I got it in my head that it was Bosco Sticks, and HILARIOUSLY we were at the cheese on a stick place for a hot second while Chooch was thinking about what snack he wanted.

Then last weekend I was looking at the menu of some restaurant about an hour away and THEY HAVE BOSCO STICKS. I feel attacked.