If I was a POSER, I would skip the part of Saturday where we came down from the mountain and went to our hotel in Gatlinburg and the sight of it from the parking lot alone made me throw a fit because IT LOOKED SKETCHY so I cried about how the whole weekend was awful and I just wanted to go home and Henry was like NO and I was like YES and Chooch was like *here we go* and then Henry called my bluff and said FINE and started to “drive home” and we made it as far as Pigeon Forge, past the signs for Dollywood, when I screamed, “PULL OVER, I AM GOING TO FIND MY OWN HOTEL” and Henry was like “OK YOU DO THAT” and Chooch was like *this is gonna be good* and I “found a hotel” in Pigeon Forge and Henry was like, “OK LET’S GO CHECK MOM INTO HER HOTEL” and I was like “OK but before I confirm my reservation, can we please eat lunch.”

And that’s how we ended up at Mellow Mushroom, which is tradition (4x makes it so), and then we all had a big laugh over The Fight while shoveling delicious pizza into our mouths.

And then Chooch told me my smile is just as fake as my voice.

I ALWAYS GET THIS ONE, it’s their mushroom pie and it is delectable. The waiter (super friendly chap in a cowboy hat who Henry originally thought was faking his southern twang but I don’t think so) agreed that it’s the best one.

Pretty uneventful (BUT FILLING AND DELICIOSO) lunch, which was actually welcome considering the stressful morning and high-octane temper tantrum of mine. It was nice to just sit in a booth and speak gently to each other. (Gently? Eh, we were still probably being assholes to each other but probably with more good humor and less vitriol.)

Look, so happy and fed! Hanger squashed. Real smiles! People walking by were laughing because we were laughing and this actually happened another time too, according to Henry. “That lady was laughing because she saw you laughing,” he said, slightly concerned.

After lunch, we went to the Old Mill …. something. Somehow, after two trips to this area, we had never known about this! I just happened to see it from the window when I was still sulking on the way to lunch, after the HOTEL HULLABALOO.

Look how beautiful! Once we crossed the bridge, I immediately recognized a bunch of spots from the In The Loop travel vlogs from Pigeon Forge. Legend and Molly are huge Pigeonheads (that sounded good at the time) so it all started to come back to me.

We checked out a soap shop and instead of getting local soap, Chooch got a mass-produced brand name (Duke Cannon) bar of Pumpkin Spice Latte soap. I mean, you do you, Chooch, I guess.

Metal-working. Other people were taking pictures so I felt like I should too, but then I realized they were taking pictures of their family members who were metal-working with the professionals.

Next, I bought some local jams for Xmas gifts at one of the Old Mill shops. Surprisingly, this area wasn’t too outrageous people-wise for a Saturday afternoon, so we had a pretty pleasant time

We stopped in this alleged cat house but there were only THREE CATS TO BE FOUND. And then just a bunch of cat art and people clothes with cats on them. It was disappointing except for the actual cats we got to see.

Some cafe was next door. I had a pretty good apple cider chai.

By now, I was fed *and* caffeinated so I was feeling even better about life.

This picture actually became very useful a few nights later when we were back home in Pittsburgh and I lurched forward on this couch. “WAIT, WHERE ARE MY JAMS?” I exclaimed.

“……………..um,” Henry stammered.

I ran out to the car to check, we checked our luggage, but NO JAM. NO FUCKING JAM!! I started to think it was my fault. I vaguely remembered setting the bag down when Chooch and I were sitting in those adirondack chairs in the cafe.

But then I was going through my pictures and cried out, “A HA!!!! YOU WERE CARRYING THE BAG AFTER THE CAFE!” So we had to have lost it somewhere between that bridge and our car. There were THREE more shops we went to before leaving: a nut place, a candy place, and a gaming place.

But as soon as I showed Henry this picture, he said, “I set it down in that planter behind Chooch when I took your picture.

Fuck.”

I was already mad at him because he took the stupid picture from the wrong angle (the mill was to the left!!!) so this dumb picture ended up costing me $20 in lost goods.

I know, it’s not A LOT of money, but it’s not….NOT a lot. And it sucks, especially because I bought the jam with the intention of tucking them in gift bags for some friends.

AT LEAST HENRY MADE SURE HIS CANDY SAFELY MADE IT BACK TO PITTSBURGH.

And Chooch’s stupid soap! I should have made him carry my jam too!

Anyway, I can’t remember the name of this game store but the guys working there were FANTASTIC. They treated Chooch like a prince and when he asked for suggestions, one of the was like “WALK WITH ME, M’LAD.” I mean, not in so many words. But yeah, I would recommend this place if you’re in the area and looking for a game to play on a rainy night in your hotel, or whatever!

Oh, and the nut place we went to was full of MAGA shit so I did NOT buy a magnet even though their logo was a bad ass squirrel.

Back to the jam! Henry emailed the jam place on a whim to see if anyone turned in the bag.

“No one would have done that!” I scoffed, because my faith in humanity is at an all-time low. I mean, that’s 100% something I would have done – and been super panicked about it too. “WE HAVE TO GET THIS JAM BACK IN THE RIGHT HANDS!” as I’m darting all around Pigeon Forge like Dolly Parton looking for her car in the lot after working 9to5. (Look, that and Steel Magnolias is pretty much as far as my Dolly knowledge goes, but I am sure thankful that she has a theme park!)

“You never know, being the south and all,” Henry reasoned. “It’s worth a shot.”

WOULD YOU BELIEVE that the jam store emailed him and said that they weren’t aware of any misplaced jams being returned, but they would check with the managers of the other stores in the square AND ONE OF THE STORES CAME BACK AND SAID THAT YES, SOMEONE HAD BROUGHT IT TO THEM!

Ugh I’m so pissed that I didn’t realize it was missing while we were still there. BUT they were kind enough to issue me a refund (they also offered the option of shipping it to me but I didn’t feel like dealing with that). Whoever returned this is a true hero.

I mean OK it wasn’t like it was my WEDDING BAND (you can’t lose something you don’t have, lol) or my prosthetic thumb, but it was still a small weight off my shoulders.  I don’t have enough money for “It’s only money” to apply to me.

I did not thank Henry for getting me a refund because this was all his fault in the first place, so…

Anyway, after we left the gaming place, it was time to go back to Gatlinburg and check in.

“Don’t we have to drop Mum off at her hotel first?” Chooch deadpanned from the backseat.

Sigh.

The first time we went to Tennessee was back in 2011, with our good friends Bill and Jessi, who invited us to tag along on their vacation and subsequently causing us to fall in love with the area! The three of us woke up early one morning in an attempt to do some mountain shit. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I think the sole reason was because my beloved Roadside America app had suggested a place called Clingman’s Dome and it sounded super spacey and weird, so I wanted to do it. I mean, it was only an overlook thing that required a mild hike to reach, but it was still something to do.

I just had no idea that Chooch was going to have such an adverse reaction to this area! He was throwing such a huge fit (“My legs hurt!” “I’m tired!” “CARRY ME, WAH!”) that we were sincerely afraid he was going to alert any neighboring bears to our presence (though I imagine they’d probably have fled the opposite direction, take me with you, bears).

I was cruising through my old Flickr album for the 2011 trip last week, to stoke the nostalgia for our upcoming return, and when I saw the below picture, I thought, “Golly, gosh darn, wouldn’t it be a real barrel of laughs to recreate this shot with Chooch who is now 16 and taller than both of us?”

I posted it on Instagram as sort of an interest check but also to put it out there so that Chooch and Henry would have less room to decline my latest demand. I love doing that to them. “BUT I ALREADY TOLD THE INTERNET!”

We went to breakfast first on Monday with the intention of then driving straight up into the Smokies. EXCEPT GUESS WHAT YOU GUYS. The fucking ONLY ROAD that takes you into the mountains was CLOSED. I went into a tailspin over this. Henry immediately pulled into the Smoky Mountain Visitors Center while I basically cried and Chooch sardonically murmured, “Aw, that’s too bad. I was really looking forward to having  my picture taken. Shucks.” Henry was checking the GPS for alternatives but there was NOTHING. The GPS map even showed that the road was blocked off! The day before, there were high winds in the area so Henry guessed that probably a lot of branches and debris were covering the road and needed to be swept off.

I DIDN’T CARE! I JUST WANTED THE STUPID ROAD TO BE OPEN!

“Go inside the info building and ask them when it will open!” I wailed.

“They’re not going to know,” Henry mumbled, looking for something shiny to distract me.

THAT IS LITERALLY THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF AN INFORMATION CENTER, TO HAVE PEOPLE INSIDE THAT ARE PROVIDING INFORMATION!

I was just about to lose my mind when I glanced at the GPS map and noticed that the “ROAD CLOSED” thingie was no longer showing up on the map, so I whipped around to look out the rear window at the actual road and sure enough, the barricades had been removed!

I was screaming! Henry and Chooch were sighing!

The drive to Clingman’s Dome took about 30 minutes or so but it was so nice because hardly anyone was on the road. I think only about 3 cars had made it in front of us when the road opened so it was as nature intended.

What a huge difference from Saturday, that’s for sure. I believe only 2 cars were already in the parking lot of Clingman’s Dome trail as opposed to the 50+ plus the line of traffic going down the mountain that we ran into on Saturday. Has an empty parking lot ever been so beautiful.

Unforch, another big difference was that the weather on Saturday was BEAUTIFUL, sunny and totally hoodie weather. But on this day, it was drizzling/snow-misting, windy AF, and around 30 degrees (but felt like 20 degrees).  Chooch of course was only wearing a hoodie over his t-shirt, AND SHORTS, and Henry and I just had on light jackets. This was 100% hat and gloves conditions, people.

But I wasn’t leaving without the damn picture, so we set off onto the trail at the same as an Indian family. We had only been walking for about 3-5 minutes when we all collectively realized that, “HOLY SHIT, THIS IS THE SPOT.” I mean, it was pretty much exactly the same, even the log was still there. And then I started cracking up because you’d have thought we’d had been legit hiking the side of a rugged mountain for hours the way Chooch was reacting in 2011. But nope – just three minutes!

I pulled out the camera to take the shot, BUT HENRY BROUGHT THE WRONG LENS. So, this time it was me throwing a tantrum and Henry angrily stormed off to retrieve the correct lens. Meanwhile, three of the older members of the Indian family had cried UNCLE and were making their way back. One of them stopped and kindly asked if we needed help and I said, “Oh, no thank you. We’re just waiting for—-” and I blanked, not knowing how to refer to Henry!? “—our friend.”

He nodded and kept walking, but honestly, I’m sure Chooch and I looked like suspish hooligans, loitering on the side of the trail like we had just found a geocache of drugs and gold bars and Elvis’s molar.

Henry came back, jammed the lens into my person, furiously shrugged off his jacket, lifted Chooch up over his shoulder, and hoarsely hissed, “TAKE THE FUCKING PICTURE.”

I mean, it does look like the same spot, right?? I was actually shook that we found it.

Look at Henry so far ahead of us, lol. He was DONEZO after this. It’s been 5 days and he’s still bitching about his back pain. Oops. But, at least we made the memory!? RIGHT HENRY?

Oh shit, the hilarity of the comparison of these two pictures carried me through most of the drive home. I just kept going back and looking at it and cracking the hell up. I want to say that I can’t believe they went through with this, but c’mon.

I knew that they would.

You knew that they would.

They knew that they would.

I was so angry on Saturday. Henry actually got home from work early on Friday and we had discussed leaving earlier and driving all the way through to Gatlinburg, but then he decided to take a nap until fucking 3pm, so he stuck with the OG plan of driving to somewhere in Virginia and then continuing on the next morning. So, by the time we actually got to Gatlinburg, it was 11am on Saturday. I had wanted to get up into the mountains early!

The plan was to go to Clingman’s Dome and recreate a picture of Henry and Chooch from when we were there in 2011. I was looking forward to it because it was a beautiful day for doing mountain walks, you know? Except, it was so incredibly crowded by the time we got there that we couldn’t even find a parking spot. Can you believe it?! It was like trying to park at fucking Disney, I don’t even know. And the worst part was that some BITCH in her pocketed leggings (Henry HATES when women wear these pants lol) got out of a minivan in front of us and ran through the lot which was horseshoe-shaped, when she saw that a spot had opened up on the other side. Literally ran across the grass that was separating the sides of the lot and stood in the empty spot so that none of the FIFTY (probably!!) cars in front of theirs could claim it.

When we passed her on the way out of the lot (after clearly NOT getting a spot), Henry called her a cunt and I yelled across him, “Must feel cool to be such an asshole!”

“Wow,” Chooch murmured from the backseat. Look at us, setting the Good Examples!

That felt good to get that off our chests, but it was still extremely disappointing that it was SO CROWDED up there. This was my first time really experiencing heavy crowds in nature and it was wild.  We were there at the same of the year, also on a Saturday afternoon in 2018 and it wasn’t even close to being this insane. We didn’t go to Clingman’s Dome that time around but the overlooks and parking lots for other trails were not even almost at capacity and when I tell you that there were people creating their own parking spots on Saturday, I’m not being hyperbolic.

Henry thinks it’s because people are still super-motivated to get out and do shit after quarantine, but now that everything is $$$$$$$$$$$ more people are trying to have free fun.

I was really bummed about this (and projected my dissatisfaction onto Henry, as one does) but honestly, even if we had found a parking spot, there was absolutely NO WAY that we would have been able to recreate the picture we wanted without hordes of people being in the background. So, it was for the best, and we planned to get up extra early on Monday and revisit the spot before leaving for home.

But dude, listen. The best part about this failed drive up the mountain was stopping at one of the smaller overlooks on the way back down and befriending the cutest, sweetest crow!!

He was totally chill, you can tell he was very used to people (probably not a great thing) and was like, “Sure, you can sit as close to me as you want. Can I also get into your car and go into town with you? I have some errands to run.”

“OMG I HAVE NEVER SEEN A CROW BEFORE, WOWWEEEE!”

Chooch and I were competing over who could take the best picture of the crow, but Chooch sadly won. Only because he has the new iPhone and I don’t!! I don’t even know what mine is. It was the newest one available in the beginning of 2020, the Covid edition, I guess.

ILYSM!!!!!!

I wanted him to come home with me and chase the fucking hawk away, ugh.

Such a beautiful bird! A huge highlight of the day for me, for sure.

We needed somewhere to eat dinner when we were en route to Tennessee on Friday and of course Henry put the burden on me. I hate that!! I can’t understand maps first of all, so I always end up finding a cool place, getting my heart set on it, only for Henry to say, “THAT IS NOT ON THE EXIT” like I know what that means.

I really hate him sometimes.

There was this cafe that was also a used book shop that had lots of vegan options and sounded like something I would love and I put all my eggs in that basket. Then of course, Henry was like THAT IS IN CHARLESTON, WV AND WE ARE NOT GOING THAT WAY but hello, he’s the one who was like, “Look for Rt. BunchaNumbers on the map and go from there.”  THAT IS WHAT I DID??

Anyway, I found a place in Davidson (? I think ?) WV called The Dish and it seemed appealing because they had housemade veggie burgers as well as brownies made with avocado. This seemed much better than going to a diner and getting stuck with either grilled cheese or a Gardenburger – not knocking either of these, and you know I love that greasy spoon ambiance, but I also wanted something healthy-ish.

Chooch was playing some dumb game on his phone called Bitlife all weekend and it was really embarrassing when he would say things like, “Now my mission is to become a pornographer” and the waitress would be lingering on the periphery. Or, “Great, 7 of my kids have measles and one just died.”

Henry and I are actually broken up but here is one of the last pictures we took together.

I had major regertz after seeing Chooch’s PB&J on a waffle that he ordered from the kid’s menu because he “just wasn’t that hungry” all of a sudden, but then was “starving” by the time we got to the hotel in Virginia an hour later. (I think we stayed in Virginia?? Yes, we did. I just had a flashback of passing the billboard for Dolly’s Diner and then going through the tunnel, and I think then Virginia happens.)

Oh you guys, my veggie burger was delectable. It came on a pita which was a nice departure from a typical bun! (Although the bun on ex-boyfriend Henry’s burger looked bangin’ so I kind of had double-regertz over that one.) There was avocado on this and a nice sauce that I enjoyed immensely. The only downside was that I ordered the veggie of the day – Brussels sprouts, which I love –  after confirming with the server that they weren’t going to be cooked in MEAT since nearly all eating establishments like to sully the sprouts in that way, making us veg-types the most sad. However, they gave me a baby portion! Literally like half of a palmful. I will say that they were cooked nicely and not all butter-logged and soggy. But still. I wanted more!

And then we split a warm brownie made with avocadoes, which Chooch frowned upon because he couldn’t wrap his head around this healthy ingredient substitute, but I thought it was just right.

Anyway, the whole reason I’m even writing this is because one day in the future, someone is going to ask, “What was that restaurant we ate at that one time…” and all I will have to do is check my dumb blog (if it even still exists) and scream out, “THE DISH! I WIN!” And also because I wouldn’t mind returning to this place the next time we’re driving out that way because it was delicious and didn’t make me feel shit afterward!

If you have any restaurant/diner recs that are on the route from Pittsburgh to Gatlinburg, let me know. I hate relying on Yelp, even though this time it worked in my favor!

Leaving Tennessee today! It’s 6:46am and we’re packing up the room which involves us throwing stuff at Henry and saying, “Here put this in here.”

We woke up extra early to get to Crockett’s Breakfast Camp right when they open at 7 because for some reason I have latched on to this place after watching YouTube videos about it but it gets super crowded. We got here at 6:56 and there was already a small group of people waiting.

Chooch and Henry are not impressed yet.

7:45am: Back at the hotel so Henry can “go to the bathroom” before we check out.

What you missed:

• Henry being sulky that I made him order Aretha Frankenstein’s Griddle Cakes which are just thick boi pancakes made in a griddle because I wanted to try them but didn’t want my own order since it was too much for muh belly and also didn’t come with a side of PONE like the egg breakfasts do. I was obsessed with this mythical PONE and it turned out to just be a thimble-sized dollop of a mushy corn bread (almost like ChiChi’s, #rip) with cranberries. It was good but I wish I would have known that’s all it was.
• The pancakes were GÜT!!!!
• Our waitress had an accent and Henry was like IT SOUNDS CAJUN and chooch and I were like, “who were you talking to??” Because it was totally some sort of Eastern Euro I’m betting. Then we saw her name on the bill – JULIYA. So Cajun.
• Had to check out the bathroom as per the uje. The broad in there with me left without washing her hands, ugh.

Last view from our balcony. We stayed at some lame SureStay / Best Western but it ended up being ok even though I threw a huge fit about it on Saturday just based on the parking lot, backside of the building lol oh, me.

9:34am Hoo boy we just had a great excursion to Clingmans Dome in the Smokies. I wanted to recreate a picture from 2011 and we tried to do this on Saturday but the mountains were SO CROWDED that we couldnt get even get a parking spot. So we came back this morning and it was basically snowing, soooo cold, but somehow we only argued once and very briefly??

I’ll post the recreation in a separate blog post because I used the DSLR for it.

11:00am: We’re only just leaving Pigeon Forge now. It took so long to drive out of the mountains and Henry refused to stop anywhere even though I purposely wore a nice sweater to have my picture taken in. But ok. Mm.

Stopped at a gas station in Pigeon Forge that was next to a Bojangles and as we were leaving I saw a sign for sweet potato pies so I made Henry go into Bojangles and get one but he had to wait ten minutes for new ones to be made and I actually hate saying this but it was lowkey worth it. McD’s-esque and the filling was so smooth and warm.

12:36pm: Starting to not be as sulky. Found a place to eat at in some rando’ Virginian town, stay tuned. Hopefully they’re actually open. Just sitting here in the meantime marveling over Renjun’s precious baby voice.

1:16pm: Made it to White Birch!

I haven’t had a golden latte in forever.

Guys. I got the vegan curry and it was…meh, sadly. It had huge chunks of crunchy onions and carrots that were barely cooked, stewed tomatoes (ugh), over rice and quinoa. I had to keep trying to eat around stuff and it didn’t even taste curry-ish, but more like a stew.

Chooch didn’t eat any of his wrap which I tasted and immediately wished I had ordered because it was delicious but Chooch is v. picky. So I guess that’s what I’m having for dinner.

Henry got a chicken salad sandwich or something who cares.

3:45pm: Henry made me drive for a little while and that was annoying.

I’m actually still driving right now while I’m blogging JUST KIDDING I’m not an asshole.

5:44pm: this drive is so boring. I finished a book (Palm Beach Finland). It was ok. We have been listening to NCT this whole time. Chooch is laying in the back being a baby.

7:37pm: We just stopped at a rest area in Pennsylvania and I swear to fucking GOD this is not familiar even though we are on this route very often??

I feel like if it’s not new-new, it is at the very least a renovated rest stop but Henry is arguing that it’s not. I mean it was like sparkling, even the bathroom, and the vending area had an intense number of options and a SITTING AREA.

When we were leaving, I pointed out the numbers along the side of the door and asked if it was in case you wanted to measure your height and Henry said it’s there for when there is a robbery/crime so you know the approx. height of the perp?? I never knew this. I literally thought it was there in case someone felt like checking their height for curiosity purposes.

8:14pm: we should be home in about 24 minutes so I’ll put this live blog out of its misery. Byeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Today is my Pappap’s birthday. He passed away in 1996 and while I miss the HELL out of him every single day, I did eventually reach a point where I was able to stop crying about it at a pin drop and actually enjoy the memories I have.

I acquired a shit ton of photos from whenever we were cleaning out my grandparents house in 2016. I still haven’t hone through everything but I like to rummage through the boxes every now and then. I decided to do that tonight to get some photos of him to post on here and I ended up pulling out a stack from one of our vacations in 1990. I was so wrecked-looking for a long time as a kid and these pictures of me are awfully cringey but it’s time for me to stop caring about that because – well, who cares!

I’m glad this is the stack I drew because I have been thinking a lot lately as we plan our family trip for next summer about how my Pappap (and Aunt Sharon, also featured prominently in the upcoming photos) instilled a strong love of travel into my life. I think he would be happy to know that Chooch is here now and is exactly the same way. I think my Pappap would have been wild about Chooch, honestly.

Anyway, please enjoy this random collection of my brace-faced, knotty-maned, chubby-cheeked adolescent self; my Pappap and Sharon’s disdain for posing for the camera; and a lot of European locations, some that I can’t exactly pinpoint all these years later – sorry!

Get ready for some signature Sharon scowls…

On this trip, we did London, parts of France, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, I believe. Maybe Amsterdam, too. I would have to consult my old vacation journals and they are in a large trunk which is a pain to open. So we’ll just have to pretend that my memory is tight.

To this day, when I think of the Spanish Steps, I think of the fanciest McD’s I’ve ever visited. I wonder if it’s still there/as nice?

!

I look like I’m crying but this was one of my favorite places when I was a kid, except that there were GIANT spiderwebs inside that bridge and that always scared me. I hope that I can go to Switzerland with Chooch (and Henry, I guess, lol) one day!

I guess Sharon must have taken this picture; I love it a lot.

That green was a choice.

I mean, I hate that I’m about to say this, but Shron really should have smiled more. She was so pretty. Also, seeing those coach buses in the background have me stoked for our summer 2023 trip that better fucking happen because we’ve already paid for some of it and I fucking swear to god there better not be another lockdown. It will be our first time as a family traveling with a group and I’m so excited because I love group tours!!

My pappap was probably ranting about how we had to pay for each pat of butter.

My grandma was a difficult person to travel with.

We’re probably walking off yet another ear-beating from my grandma here in Venice.

I wonder what he was talking about! That one lady is like, “NO FUCKING WAY, YA GOTTA BE SHITTIN’ ME!” in response to whatever tale had him gesticulating like so. You know how kids are always like SO BORED to be sitting with a bunch of adults at a dinner table? I was the opposite – I fucking loved sitting with my pappap because he always had interesting things to say, he always ended up being one of the most popular people on all of our trips, and I felt like A FUCKING GROWN-UP sitting there drinking my hot chocolate (which was usually disgusting Ovaltine in these hotel restaurants) with my plump pinky finger extended.

HNNNNGGGG.

Anyway, I’m glad I never burned these pictures in a hobo fire of shame and I think it’s time that some more of these old shots see the light of day. I was lucky to have had the opportunity to make these memories, even though they weren’t always as idyllic as you’d think. At the end of the day, it was time spent with my pappap and I will always treasure, today especially. Happy birthday, Pappap!!

If you’re reading this, would you like to see more vintage photo dumps like this? LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS. Lol.

Not technically a live blog, but I’m still in the car traveling back to PGH and need something to do. So let’s look at the vegan fun that was had today!

As you may know I’m just a run-of-the-mill vegetarian but I always try to seek out vegan joints when we’re out on road trips for a number of reasons: the food is almost always delicious and a nice change from the soggy veggie burger I’d likely be eating at a roadside diner, it’s usually healthier (usually!), I like supporting vegan communities in other cities, it’s a lot easier to find a fully-vegan place than a meat-centric place with a generic Bocaburger on the menu used to placate the token veg that comes in with their carnivorous counterparts.

Good thing Henry isn’t one of those big shot manly men who refuse to put anything plant-based between their lips. He might look like he wakes up and immediately grabs a fistful of Slim Jims off the nightstand for a breakfast pre-game, but he genuinely is so used to faux meat options that he often will cook it for himself at home.

Originally we were going to go to NYC for a partial day trip but honestly, after I found out NCT was already going to be gone, I just didn’t care anymore (the trials and tribs of a forever 16yo) and also one of the places I wanted to eat doesn’t open until 5pm and we were definitely not planning on staying that long since we still had to eventually drive home today. Plus, when I woke up this morning, I was NCT-hungover and didn’t feel like fucking around with the logistics of getting there so I made the executive decision to just come home. Henry was like, “WOW ARE YOU SRS?” with a thank god quietly queefing past his lips.

However!! I had a plan B, and that was to go to Vegan Treats in Bethlehem PA because wait a minute it’s been a minute since we were last there. And then I wanted to swing by Harrisburg to have lunch at The Vegetable Hunter, a vegan spot I’ve been following for a bit on Instagram and also I’ve never actually been to Harrisburg for the dozens upon dozens of times we’ve driven past it to better locations (or…Newark).

The last time we went there, it was also in October and all the creepy Halloween treats were on display.

(Just an FYI as I’m writing this, we’re now home – blogging in the car wasn’t happening because I kept wanting to stop and rehash last night’s NCT concert lololol.)

OMG, we got the purple and black ice cream cone one up there, the Frankensteing, the green eyeball monster, the red&white red velvet one over there, all to take home to share with Chooch. Then Henry threw in a brownie, and pumpkin soft serve to eat for breakfast since it was like 10am and our hotel breakfast was…well, hotel breakfast.

I would like to state for the record that we almost didn’t get soft serve because when Henry asked for today’s flavors, he then turned and repeated them to me as if I wasn’t standing right there, as if the Vegan Treats employee was speaking in a special language that only people familiar with ovens could understand. I opened my mouth to say that I would like to try the pumpkin, but literally .00000003 seconds after Henry translated the utterly confusing big people language to me, he turned back around and said, “That’ll be it” and handed over the credit card.

Now, because I’m me, I quietly stewed about this until we got outside when I unleashed my vitriol. Henry somehow was very calm about this and said, “I’ll go back in and get it” and then told me to go for a walk, which was a good plan because I am currently in a workweek hustle competition on FitBit and some  broad named Marisol is REALLY testing my patience. So I walked around a random street of Bethlehem while Henry accidently entered the bakery through the wrong door and found himself in the kitchen with the bakers.

Then we stopped in Harrisburg for lunch at The Vegetable Hunter! I will say that while the food was great, the people at the counter were not very welcoming. No one else was in there but they didn’t even bother to greet us, show us the menu, ask if we’ve been there before, etc. We didn’t even know it was the type of place where you order at the counter  – I had to ask.

We were the only diners so that was nice. You never know what sort of clientele a vegan joint will bring! (Well, you do, actually, and that’s why you get happy when no one else is there, lol.)

I ordered pulled pork for Henry and immediately wished I had the whole sandwich for myself instead of just the half he shared with me.

I got a ranch chicken and bacon sandwich and it was DELICIOUS – the chicken was made with tofu and perfectly seasoned (what do I know about seasoning though) but it was pretty small. I would have been super hungry still if Henry hadn’t shared his pulled pork with me. My kale salad had peppercorn in it which I was not a fan of.

But overall, I thought the food was nice and would stop back again. They also have a location in Hershey so you never know!

Before we could enjoy our lunch, I made Henry walk near the river so I could catch up to MARISOL who apparently wasn’t stuck in a car all day and could just walk around whenever she fucking wanted. Henry was like, “When you get home, you will walk all night and win, calm down.”

I knew I shouldn’t have accepted this week’s challenge! I somehow managed to get my step goal yesterday before the concert started so that helped, but I had been consistently going over my goal all week and getting more 20,000+ each day since I was off and could take long, leisurely walks at my discretion.

We parked in front of this cutie building.

These are trash but I was wearing my NCT127 concert shirt today and I wanted it memorialized, haha.

I dunno what this building is, but I liked the roof

After we ate, I was like, “SAY, CAN WE TAKE A QUICK STROLL OVER TO THE STATE CAPITOL FOR DIGESTIVE PURPOSES” and Henry was like, “Sure” and then realized I was in a frenzy FitBit refresh sesh, trying to see how many more steps MARISOL had racked up while I was sitting on MY FAT ASS, EATING LUNCH.

This was a really great idea, actually. It was interesting to see all the … things.

I know this was pink for breast cancer awareness, but it was shocking at first glance! I loved it.

I had some thoughts on this.

Anyway, what a nice pitstop on our drive home! Of course, I realized too late that I should have asked Megan to ask her bf Eric if he had any recommendations, but we also didn’t want to spend too much additional time off the road. We were there for about two hours, but driving out, I was spotting some cute shops, etc that I would have liked to check out! And there was a cafe called Amps (which looked like “Pimps” to me from afar because the font was weird) that we were parked near but I was so full after that lunch that the thought of adding a latte to the mix kind of made me burp.

So that was our drive home, in a nutshell! We didn’t do any other stops aside from rest areas, where Henry would get gas, pee, stock up on energy drinks, while I walked in circles in the parking lots. And we talked about NCT127 pretty much ALL DAY.

I forgot that we brought “the good camera” to Florida with us last April because literally time it was used was the last day when we went to the Fountain of Youth. I was being lazy and didn’t feel like carrying it so Henry ended up sort of using it. Here are some pictures he took, which I didn’t know existed until I was using the camera on Sunday at the pie party and saw them when I was scrolling through the pictures. I know it was forever ago that we were there, but I wanted to post some anyway because it was such a fun trip and I still think about it a lot. Traveling with Henry and Chooch keeps getting better the older we all get even though we still HAVE OUR MOMENTS of cattiness, ha.

Speaking of getting older, one thing that I appreciate so much more now that I’m nearly middle-aged (am I already middle-aged??) is plants! I never would have given a shit about Florida’s vegetation back in the day but now that I’m a houseplant hoe bag, I had to run my fingers along every plant that I passed. I loved these ones and I have several similar plants in my house! Of course, they’re tough for me to keep happy since they’re tropical-y.  I was happy when I discovered these pictures on the camera and saw that  Henry took one of these!

There were all kind of crab-things in that water and it was creeping me out, bigly.

That bruise on my calf! What a temporary memento of all the insane coasters we rode on this trip.

The fact that we paid like $20pp or something to enter this sulfur water tourist trap and spent most of the time fucking around with the peacocks, pigeons, and squirrels is very on brand with the Appledale clan.

WHOA. AMAZING. 5 STARS.

***

We don’t have any road trips set in stone until Thanksgiving, so I will be occupying my mind with haunted house-hopping and counting down to  the NCT127 show in Newark (doesn’t count as a “fun road trip” because the drive to Newark, and Newark itself, is never fun).

I love fall so so so much but a bitch is depressed that summer is over, sitting here shivering in leggings and a hoodie. :( I was just going to whine about how I haven’t ridden a rolleroaster in x-amount of time, but then I realized it was literally less than a week ago, lol. STILL.

(As I was writing this I had no idea that St Augustine was affected by Hurricane Ian. I hope everyone is ok!)

Hello from the second half of our ultra fun day Great America! It was just Labor Day Weekend but they were already setting up for their haunt. I made Henry stand in this tunnel thing so I could photograph him like one of my french bitches.

I think he’s actually opening his little packet of aspirin in these pictures, lol. Can’t ride more than two coasters without it.

For Snack Time, I had this Dole Whip swirl. It was mango and strawberry. It was fine but like, why so much hype for Dole Whip though? Henry got a pretzel for his Snack Time and I had regertz so I gave him the rest of my Dole Whip in exchange for like 3/4 of said pretzel.

In line for the Flash – Henry dislikes Intamin Impulse coasters but I super-love them and he was my riding buddy on this day so SUCK IT UP BUTTERCUP.

I always get extremely nervous waiting for the launch but guess what?? It was actually really weak. So weak that I thought they were having an issue but no, it was nervous I guess. Nowhere near as thrilling as my beloved Wicked Twister (RIP baby).

I always enjoy a good fling on the Batman clones! This one looked like it had a really long line but it wasn’t long at all. Really none of the lines were bad all day except for Joker (low capacity) and MaxxForce (this is just problematic and I feel like the line would be long no matter what).

I didn’t get anything from here but thought it was cute, OK.

At some point in the day, Chooch rode his 250th coaster and actually had one of his friends take a picture because I told him MAKE SURE YOU GET A PICTURE because you know me and my obsessive need to document every little moment of his life for the future MOMMY LOVES YOU scrapbook that I’ll be sure to present to him in front of a crowd someday.

OK, I was extremely excited to ride American Eagle! It was Intamin’s first foray into a wooden coaster and all I knew from coaster vlogs is that it is a legit HIKE through this queue, and boy they weren’t wrong. You just keep walking and walking, up and down and up and down, across a ROAD, until you finally reach the station. If that entire queue is ever actually filled, I would be horrified.

Halfway through our leisurely Sunday stroll through the American Eagle queue.

The line didn’t even actually begin until we reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the station. Then we played musical rows because I couldn’t settle on one – we started in the middle row because the only way Henry would agree to ride any of the wooden coasters was if I agreed to sit in the middle and not my beloved back row. But in the end, I had maneuvered my way to the front row and that’s where we stayed. It was right next to the ride op’s room and there were various rubber ducks lining the edges of it which was entertaining to look at it while waiting for the slow AF ops – it’s supposed to be a racing coaster but they were only running one train on one side, which was annoying  but I swear this seems to be the new norm anymore – King’s Dominion, Cedar Point – maybe King’s Island but I can’t remember now? – were all running one side only on their racing coasters the last few times we were there.

Our thoughts on American Eagle:

Henry – it wasn’t that bad, I’ve ridden worse wooden coasters.

Me – I FUCKING LOVED IT. It made me laugh my effing ugly face off so hard, it was ridiculous. Not nearly as rough as it looks like it would be, and the HELIX, YO. THE HELIX. Do not skip this if you go to Great America.

HERE IS A PICTURE OF US EXITING THE RIDE.

WHIZZER!!! Holy shit, Great America – you got a super weirdly-rounded coaster collection! This Schwartzkopf (I am NOT looking up the spelling, sorry imaginary journalism degree) oddity was so unique and felt like something the Brady Bunch would have ridden together and Alice would have been screaming into a kerchief while Marsha was making eyes at the muttonchopped ride op.

It’s a toboggan-style coaster where two people sit front to back on one long seat so I would have had to try and sit between Henry’s legs without jamming my knees into the seat in front of me.  I was super worried that Henry and I wouldn’t fit in one car together so we had to ride separately because I wanted to spare us from the trauma of being fat-shamed.  This was definitely made for two children or a parent and child and I noticed other adult couples were also riding stag so that is what we did too, sorry Henry, I know you were looking forward to squeezing your thighs against my saddle bags. Much erotic.

After this, we passed Chooch and his SQUAD GIRLS! The girls happily waved hello to us like normal functioning humans while Chooch looked like he wanted the earth to open up and engulf him whole. I can’t remember where Henry and I were headed, but we ended up changing our minds and going back to finally face the MaxxForce line which was hovering between 60-90 minutes all day.

GUESS WHO HAD THE SAME IDEA??? Chooch and his squad girls! WOO!! So much to Chooch’s chagrin, he ended up having to live the waking nightmare of standing in the same line with his PARENTS and GIRL FRIENDS for NINETY MINUTES. Yeah, I didn’t even realize we were in for 90 minutes until Chooch was bitching about it later and I was like “There is no way we were in that line for that long?” but he argued that we were, so I checked my phone for receipts because I texted Corey the moment we got in line with them and then I took that picture down there of Chooch right when we were next in line, and yep.

Ninety fucking minutes.

The big TO DO of this line was the fact that Chooch was wearing the same shirt as that guy behind us. His girl friends (Anna and Lexi) were dying over this and I said, “That’s his Dad Shirt” and that made them lose it all over again and Chooch kept making INSANE ORCHESTRAL CONDUCTOR hands motions next to his head like he was willing to swallow a stick a dynamite in order to escape the pain of his Mexico world colliding with MOMMY.

I was super engrossed in what they were talking about, too, but Henry kept gently pulling me back by my shoulders and making a subtle, “Give them space” eye blinks.

UGH.

They were totally talking about CIEE people and I wanted to know!!

At one point, Chooch made eye contact with Anna and then turned and made eye contact with me, and screamed, “STOP LOOKING AT ME!!” and the anguish on his face you guys, the wet glint of agony in his eyes. It was hilarious. Anna was laughing so hard and squealed, “Why do you get so upset when people look at you?!”

Oh, the trials and tribs of Riley J.

(Speaking of, we were very good about calling him RILEY in front of his friends although Anna found my Insta and knows about “Chooch” now so he was like, “And I would like to thank you for that.” LOL.)

THAT FACE THO.

We did not ride Little Dipper for absolutely no good reason. Apparently, Chooch didn’t either and he was pretty salty about it because it’s all about the COASTER CREDS. Guess we’ll just have to go back!?

Somewhere after MaxxForce, we rode Superman and it was excellent (Henry hates flying coasters but admitted it was OK) and whatever their indoor wild mouse is. Gotham something. It was about a 25 minute wait and also the only time all day that I got mad at Henry because I was trying to tell him a really important story and he kept looking past me and I HATE THAT because it makes me feel like he’s not listening to me so then I gave him the silent treatment and he cried and begged me to be his friend again.

Then on the ride, he caught the hat of the guy in front of us and it was probably the most heroic he’s felt since he was IN THE SERVICE.

That ride was actually good too! I think Great Adventure is where we rode the clone and I don’t remember thinking that one was any good because the theming was shit, but this one was SO GOOD. The theming was there and the ride itself was actually really intense and I nearly got whiplash.

Then I demanded Henry buy me a Six Flags sweatshirt because I was legit freezing in a t-shirt and shorts all day. So now I have red Six Flags sweatshirt which was actually a hassle to buy because some asshole family was hogging the whole rack and then I had to ask an employee if they had Mediums and she had to forage “in the back” for one. At that point, I was locked in. Had to buy it.

I have to say though, while Six Flags can generally be so hit or miss (they have major issues, I’m not even exaggerating, basically the Walmart of theme park chains at this point) their gift shop employees have always been EXCEPTIONALLY FRIENDLY AND HELPFUL. Literally every single park.

Anyway, this sweatshirt was a game-changer. Or, mood-changer really. Because I was really getting cranky but now that I was warm and cozy, I felt like I was given a do-over and was ready to get back out there and have fun again.

Got a late night black bean burger at some place in the Raging Bull area of the park. It was OK but they apparently didn’t have the sauce that was supposed to come with it and I get really mad about stuff like that because I LOVE ME SOME CONDIMENTS. The waffle fries were surprisingly good, but the pretzel bun was very dry and didn’t really do much for me. I would have preferred whatever bun Henry had on his meat sandwich.

Running back to try and get one last ride on Goliath before park closed. I LOVE the feeling of being in a park when it’s nearly ready to close. It’s like, romantic or something, I dunno.

We made it in line for Goliath and GUESS WHO ELSE DID TOO? LOL. They were behind us a bit. I let Chooch know we were aware of his location by texting him a picture I took of him from my spot in line, because I read the Creepy Mom Handbook when I was pregnant and it’s gotten me this far without causing a complete and utter relationship severance, so why stop now.

They ended up getting on the train right after us and I tried to get a picture of them coming onto the brake run but I stupidly moved before it was done so it was just one big blur. :(

We talked to them for a little bit after they got off Goliath, while watching the fireworks. Chooch was sure to point out that his night ride was better than my night ride because the fireworks started when they went up the lift hill.

“I don’t know if you guys realized this about him, but he is VERY competitive,” I said to Lexi and Anna, rolling my eyes, and they cracked up because OF COURSE THEY KNOW THIS. Everyone who spends even a few minutes with my kid knows this.

I TRULY DON’T KNOW WHERE HE GETS THIS TRAIT.

Oh also so that ride up there? Fiddler’s Fling? HENRY WOULDN’T RIDE IT WITH ME. Actually, HENRY WOULDN’T RIDE ANY FLAT RIDES. And this park actually had a pretty unique flat ride collection so I was super sad. I definitely need to go back – with someone else!!

The (weak) Flash.

Oh yeah! We rode this earlier too. It was Henry’s first ever 4d Free Spin and he didn’t hate it as much as he anticipated. I was scream-yelling the whole time. I hated this ride the first time I rode it in New Jersey, acquired a newfound appreciation for it in Massachusetts, and changed our status to IN A RELATIONSHIP in Illinois. You and me, Joker. 4 lyfe.

Oh look another ride he wouldn’t ride with me.

Literally one of the most beautiful amusement park landmarks.

Before we left, I blurted out, “CAN I TAKE A PICTURE OF YOU GUYS” and the girls said ABSOLUTELY while Chooch was quickly looking for a vampire to turn him so he wouldn’t appear in the picture.

I don’t know what else to say – I loved this day so much. I loved the whole weekend. It was weird not being with Chooch all day but I also so happy that we were able to arrange this reunion for him and ugh, sometimes I really am such a mom! See?? I do have the maternal stuffs in me. It’s just sometimes buried by my Forever 16 personality traits.

Yoooo, there was no way I was leaving this Great America without a carouselfie on their majestic double-decker carousel! Originally, I had wanted to get one of us PLUS Chooch and his SQUAD GIRLS but he was like, “We are never ever ever ever ever doing that together and if you don’t stop asking, I’m going to start singing that in the tune of Taylor Swift.”

He did not actually say that because he’s NOT AS FUNNY AS ME, THIS WAS ALL ME, I MADE THAT UP.

He did say something similar not in so many words, probably something like, “Nah, I’m good.” I’m honestly still sizzling about this though because the Friday before we left for this Labor Day trip, Chooch texted me at 6:30AM on a morning that I was planning on “going for a walk later” rather than at the exact moment I wake up inside of the 6AM hour. But nope, here comes  Chooch, foiling mommy’s plans AS USUAL.

He wanted me to walk to the Potomac trolley station to see if his wallet was there because he suddenly didn’t have it when he was on the T. He said he was almost certain it fell out of his pockets on the shorts that Henry bought him that don’t fit right so this, in case you were wondering how he was going to work it, was how he was able to twist it into being someone else’s fault.

Anyway, I angry-stomped my way to the station and there was his stupid Pokemon wallet, laying face down on the platform under the bench. No one even tried to steal it or turn it into the fare booth guy.

That motherfucker is so lucky because, while he only had a dollar in there (lol, that unemployed life), all of his amusement park membership cards / season passes are in there in spite of the fact that Henry keeps trying to confiscate them. Well, the confiscation was successful this time!

Yeah so I told him that for my reward, I wanted a group carouselfie and I feel like a GOOD BOY would have obliged but no, I got stuck with this bullheaded jerk.

So it was just Henry and me, and ew why does he look so sleazy?!

Quick carousel review: for as lovely and bitchin’ as this merry-go-round is on the outside, the actual ride was very lackluster. In lieu of traditional calliope tunes, some ride operator was up on the top deck, screaming Six Flags trivia questions over a speaker and it was just very disconcerting. Bro, I don’t play games, I want to believe I’m living in Mary Poppins times with a whimsical rabbit squeezed between my thighs.

Um, OK, unclear what sort of vibe he’s going for here but I feel violated somehow.

I think it’s weird when some carousels require you to actual fasten the seatbelt. Like, for what reason? In case it needs to brake real hard?

This was my feeble attempt to get a mirror carouselfie.

Well, that’s my account of our 5 minutes on the carousel. We’re actually in the process of redoing the carouselfie wall (it’s done, we just have to rehang the pictures and haven’t had time because this week is all Pie Party Prep, All the Time) and I’m really excited to include one of these. The exclamatory nature of that last sentence is implied.

Hi guys! It’s me checking in from yet another amusement park. I tried to get Henry to guest-blog in order to mix things up but nope.

You’re stuck with me.

Six Flags Great America is located in Gurnee, Illinois, which is not Chicago, but kind of close to Chicago? I don’t know my Illinois geography AT ALL aside from where Chicago is located on a map and that’s only from flying in and out from there when we went to Korea.

As I mentioned previously, some other day in a different post, two of Chooch’s Mexico Squad friends live about an hour away from the park so they were game to meet up! Of course, Henry and I didn’t tag along, no matter how badly I wanted to, but we stayed with Chooch inside the entrance until they arrived, and he let me take one (1) selfie with him before they arrive. Everyone says that Chooch and I don’t look alike but LOOK AT OUR FORCED SMILES. They are carbon copies of fake affection.

Um, can I just say I love that he became friends with these kids?  The two girls who met him there were so cute and seem just, I dunno, good. One of them asked to take a picture of them with her phone and I was like GLADLY while Chooch squirmed uncomfortably, lol.

I won’t post the stalker-mom TMZ shot of Chooch and his pals through some shrubbery after we left them to it but you can believe that I immediately texted this to a laundry list of peeps who had been following along with the CIEE Yucatan Instagram posts, trying to figure out if THERE WAS A LOVE CONNECTION between Chooch and anyone there.

I had seen this carousel / pool set-up so many times in YouTube videos but it was really extra magnificent in person. I mean, Six Flags is not really known for its landscaping and aesthetic appeal. Granted, the rest of the park was questionable – lots of weeds and asphalt – but I will always associate it with this gorgeous entrance eye candy.

You guys, Henry and I were riding partners for the whole entire day! I was so nervous about this because he’s such a cock when it comes to:

1. old woodies
2. 4d free spins
3. almost all flat rides
4. Arrow loopers

So I anticipated that I would be skipping a lot or riding alone. But he was actually a good sport! Except for the flat rides. He was still a motherfucker about those.

We hit up the B&M hyper, Raging Bull,  immediately and it was a station wait! It was still pretty early – we got there about 30 minutes after the park opened – and the day was super dreary so we didn’t encounter very long lines until later in the afternoon, but even then the wait times were in flux. The only ride that was consistently LONG AF all day was MaxxForce but that’s because it’s right by the entrance, it’s still pretty new and novel, it runs one train ops, and it breaks down a lot.

Usually these hypers are guaranteed to be my faves in any park but this one was just OK. I kept saying I wanted to go back later and get some re-rides on it but every time I checked the wait time, it had gone up to around 45 minutes, and when it was a walk-on, we were on the other side of the park.

We never did get our bearings! The layout was confusing.

Then we rode Viper, a woodie that looked like it was going to be a spine-fucker, but it was actually not bad at all! Henry disagreed and immediately had a headache, but I experienced no jack-hammering and I thought it had a decent layout on top of that.

Later, Chooch texted me after he and PARTIAL SQUAD rode it: “RMC Viper.”

That’s something enthusiasts say after riding a real janky woodie that they think would be a good candidate for the RMC treatment.

It was not that bad!

Besides…

Great America already has an RMC…

…and it ain’t Demon, lol.

HOWEVER, to Henry’s actual disgust, Demon was my favorite ride. Before the ride started, a recording asked, “Are you ready to conquer the demon?” and Henry mumbled, “I do that every day” whatever that means. Then afterward, I yelled, “OMG I LOVED THAT DID YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING” and he somberly said, “Yes Erin. You were right next to me and we were practically the only people on it.” 😂 👹

Later, he told Chooch to guess what my favorite ride was and Chooch named every single ride in the park BUT Demon, then said, “Oh. I forgot that one even existed.” WOW JUST WOW.

It just had all the things I love: A TUNNEL, FOG, LIGHTS, A COOL SIGN, IT’S NOT WIDELY POPULAR (even with coasters, I’m a hipster).

I EVEN BOUGHT A DEMON MAGNET.

I swear I had heard that there is even a heavy metal theme song that plays but if this is a thing, they had the stereo turned off that day, unless I’m confusing it with another coaster!

Oh, it was a total fucking walk-on too.

Oh shit, X-Flight was amazing!! I’m generally not that impressed by wing coasters, but this one was FUN and really forceful. (I am not great at using actual physic-y descriptors like true enthusiasts do. I’m just not that nerdy I guess. LOL OK fine I am, but just in other areas.)

The X-Flight crew was really energetic and funny too, I should note – this was actually an ongoing theme throughout the day and I’ll tell you what, you stick some personable people on a ride crew, and it’s going to elevate the guest experience FOR SURE.

I just asked Chooch if he agrees with and he said “Sure” before I even finished my question and left the house.

It definitely counted for something because even though this was a station wait, it still took a short while to get on the ride because of fast pass or the people with the handicapped paper, I couldn’t tell who it was that they were letting steal the backrow seats.

Well, after X-Flight, the time had finally come: we had made it to GOLIATH, my TENTH RMC!!! We didn’t run straight to this because everyone knows that RMCs need some time to warm up, le duh.

The wait for this was only 25 minutes – FOR AN RMC. Do you know how many hours of my life I have spent in line for Steel Vengeance?!

Well, it’s a lot.

Seats were being assigned but I was like CAN WE HAVE THE BACK ROW IF POSSIBLE and did my puppy-dog lip/eye combo which ALWAYS WORKS ON RIDE ATTENDANTS ESPECIALLY BOY ONES. It embarrasses Chooch but Henry is like, “That’s fine, they’re not going to be sway by my grizzled visage.”

Obviously he said that in more simpler terms, but you get it.

OK, Goliath – I see you! Not the best RMC out there but still so fun and this one goes through a small underpass twice, and there’s fog!! The second time it goes through there, it is fucking CRUISING. If you are reading this and you have not ridden an RMC (Rocky Mountain Construction), please do yourself a solid and google WHERE IS THE NEAREST RMC HYBRID and then GET YOURSELF THERE ASAP.

I mean, 9 other RMCs have preceded this one in my life, and even still I was SCREAMING! LIKE, FUCKING HOLLERING as if my RMC cherry was being popped. Just laughing myself into a coughing fit, it was truly a goddamn delight. RMC just HITS DIFFERENT. (I said that out loud for the first time ever yesterday and immediately felt like such an herb lol.)

If you’ve been on an RMC before, please tell me which one! And if you are an RMC fangirl like me, tell me your RMC bucket list coaster! I have two: Zadra and Wildfire, the latter is one I might get to ride next summer GOD WILLING.

(I will turn religious if it gets me closer to international RMCs, bet.)

I’m going to end this installment here because true to form, I’m only 1/4 of the way into the day and I’m already over 1,000 words which is just stupid. Tomorrow, I’ll continue to beg and whine until I get Henry to contribute something.

The rest of the evening in the Dells was spent doing spooky stuff. Well, some might find the word “hokey” to be more accurate lol. Shockingly, the Dells is kind of like the dollar store knock off of a tourist trap town so while places like Pigeon Forge and ugh shit what is that main drag called in Niagara Falls? You know the one. CLIFTON HILL! While places like that gouge your wallet and practically start in on your organs, the Dells had a lot of really stupid attractions that were only $5! So since we had time to kill, we bit.

First, we went to the Haunted Mansion on the main drag. It was….a place. No live actors, nothing super memorable. When we came out, there was a group of people standing on the sidewalk, contemplating. “Was it any good?” they asked. I hesitated MAJORLY and I think that was all they needed, because I could see them glance at other but then I added, “I mean, there aren’t any scare actors in there or anything,” and they all collectively made a FUCK THAT air expulsion and walked away.

We made a quick stop to this river walk thing but didn’t go very far because Chooch was whining about wanting to go back to the room to charge his phone because god forbid he might some amazing message in the MEXICO SQUAD group chat, so we turned around just in time for some man to ask me, and I do mean me because he only locked eyes with me,  “Does this go down to the river?”

I shrugged stupidly and said I didn’t know, then mumbled, “WTF do I look like, the Wisconsin Dells docent??”

Oh I know what happened next – the big fight about ice cream. LOL.

Our hotel had coupons for $2 off this Ghost Outpost thing so we grabbed some and headed on over. I had seen this mentioned on various WHAT TO DO IN THE DELLS YouTube videos and had hoped it would be cool like the one in Gatlinburg.

NO! IT WAS SO STUPID! JUST LIKE THE LAST PLACE! The only good thing is that it ended up being only $3 a person with our SUPER 8 coupons lol.

I dunno what got into Henry but he was like, “Let’s do this one too” and so we walked over to the Lost Temple which…I have no idea wat the point was but it was dumb too. Super low quality but then suddenly, singing tree:

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A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

I just honestly have nothing else to say about these two places. Avoid them? There. Two word review!

Finally, it was time to check in for our 8:40 reservation on the GHOST BOAT! I can’t believe I got Henry to sign on to this because he usually like YOU TWO CAN DO IT, I’LL DROP YOU OFF. He really hates spending money on things like, Tight Wads Gonna Wad Tight, you know? But when we were at Mt. Olympus earlier that day, he was like OK FINE and this was like HOURS after I had originally suggested it, and not like right after one of my nagging sessions, so this tells me that it was on his mind of his own accord and that he secretly really must have wanted to do this.

Please note: this wasn’t like one of those $5 haunts – this was an actual river boat ride at night, with a haunted walk. I think it was around $40/pp so this was more of a splurge but when in Wisconsin Dells, amirite?!

First off, once we went inside the Ghost Boat waiting area, they took pictures of each group so I was really stoked because we don’t have many family pictures that aren’t selfies. There were long pew-like benches set up in a serpentine manner inside the room and we were told to go all the way down as far as we could and take a seat. I really liked this set-up because it was ORGANIZED and assured that you were going to get to board in order of arrival. Frequent visitors to this dumping ground of the Internet will note that I am notoriously high-strung when it comes to standing in line, getting good spots, losing my spot, dealing with line-jumpers, etc. So props to the Ghost Boat people for doing the Lord’s work on this one.

HOWEVER!! There was OF COURSE that ONE group who decided that they were going to just waltz right up to the front when it was time to stand up and have our tickets scanned so that we could then walk down to the loading area. They completely skipped past all of the benches and tried to cut through along the side but the ticket scanner, AKA MY HERO, was like “no can do, back of the line for you” and I actually did a fist bump out in the open because I feel like more often than not, people in that position just roll over for line-jumpers! This was a fairly big group too – I feel like there were 8 or so, some extended family sitch, I dunno.

I was happy because not only were we far enough ahead in line to sit on top of the boat, we also snagged the last row of three seats in the very back. I’m a back of the boat/bus/coaster type of bitch, as you know.

The boat ride portion was really fun! Well, for everyone else. For me, I was too busy obsessing over the semi-big spider that was on the move RIGHT NEXT TO ME. I couldn’t lean back and relax like everyone else – I had to sit twisted at an angle, with my back up against Henry’s side, never taking my eyes off the railing. Some spooky recording was playing, relaying the ghostly story of the lake or whatever, but I legit missed the whole thing, my arachnid focus was *that* intense.

However, I was aware of the part of the boat ride where the engine was cut off so that we could glide between a cavern thing which Henry just told me was basically THE DELLS. It was really cool yet incredibly eerie at night. The water sloshing against  the rock walls just added to the vibe, like we were in a live action horror film, at the point where something was going to go terribly awry. To be honest, this part alone was worth the price of the Ghost Boat.

I took this picture earlier that evening when we returned to the river walk and walked the whole way down (I can now go back in time and tell that man that no, it does not actually take you all the way down next to the water). The boat went all the way straight back into the trees and then the dell stuff happened. Henry said he looked at pictures of it online, daytime pictures, and the part where the boat slipped through was “actually really cool, we should do it during the day next time.”

HE SAID NEXT TIME. WE’RE GOING BACK, Y’ALL.

Anyway, the next part of the excursion had us docking and walking up a slight hill where we all gathered outside of a restroom. This bathroom break took FOREVER. It was so annoying. I also got stuck standing near the Line-Jumpers and that was annoying. They thought they were going to be FIRST but guess what? Where they were standing wasn’t actually the starting point of the trail –  it was off to the left and we had to walk down steps. So since I had been standing to the left of them, I got to go before them HA IT’S WHAT YOU DESERVE, ASSHOLES! While we were standing there talking to the guide, someone pointed out that there was a spider on some man’s back. He swept it off and then the guide STEPPED ON IT and I immediately panicked.

“What if that was my spider,” I hissed at Henry, who mumbled, “That was not your spider, wait, I thought you hated that spider?”

“I mean, yeah, but I also spent the whole boat ride trying to make sure it didn’t die and I feel horrible if I did all that just for some bitch to boot-stomp him!” I wailed.

“It wasn’t the same spider,” Henry sighed.

You guys, the actual haunted trail wasn’t exactly “scary” because our group had like 80 people, I swear to god, and the scare actors were fine and all but how scared can you really get when you’re in a group that large? We were toward the front of the group at least so that was good. Literally had no idea what was going on because it was dark, foggy, creepy blue lights were blinding us at every turn…but at some point we entered what literally felt like a cavern and I was seriously concerned about bashing my head off the side of a rock formation.

Henry was very concerned about the safety measurements of the walking portion of the Ghost Boat, as in, were there any?

“How long have they been doing these tours? It doesn’t seem very safe. I could easily see people getting seriously injured out there,” Henry said the next day in the car en route to the next destination. I mean, he’s not wrong. The couple in front of me didn’t realize there was a ramp to walk on and kept walking next to it, ground-level, which appeared to have some sort of drop-off next to it. They realized they were going the wrong way before they turned into lemmings walking off a ledge into a gorge.

I got singled out at one point as usual – no matter how big the crowd, they will always single me out. The person asked the little girl behind us if she knew me and Chooch’s names, and she said, “Um, Dylan and Elenor” and then when the ghost person asked Henry what they were, he said, “Dylan and Elenor” and the little girl was like, “OMG I WAS RIGHT??” and from that moment on, I became acutely aware of her presence and the fact that she never shut the fuck up. Lowkey hated her, especially because she kind of looked like RUTHIE from 7th Heaven.

UGH.

RUTHIE was so fucking annoying!

That who show was so fucking annoying!

We had to walk back the same way we came, which meant going through the weird cavern part again. Chooch said one of the scare actors hit her head on the rock and THE WAY THAT I AM NOT SUPRISED YO.

Of course it ended with a chainsaw guy, possibly the only chainsaw guy in the history of chainsaw guys that ever failed to scare me. Probably because before he went back and grabbed his chainsaw, he was casually walking along with the front of our group, talking to everyone. Of course RUTHIE turned on the dramatics though and screamed shrilly while pushing her way through all of us.

Ugh.

Back on the boat. It was a different boat so I had no way of checking for my spider. This time, the very last row of seats was just a two-seater, so we had to sit in the row directly in front of that. In hindsight, I wish Chooch and I had just grabbed that last row and made Henry sit somewhere else because TWO PEOPLE FROM THE LINE-JUMPER GANG sat there and they were so very utterly annoying. Definitely in their late teens/early 20s, and part of that generation that talks just to talk. Nothing either one of them said had any weight or meaning to it. Just lots of, “Yeah”s and “Same”s and at one point, the girl part of the duo talked about her sleeping preferences while the guy interjected grunts of agreement here and there. And they both had REALLY STUPID VOICES. Like, the voices of stupid people. Sorry if you think that’s mean BUT THIS BLOG IS A SAFE SPACE FOR ME TO PLUNK OUT MY HONEST THOUGHTS. These kids were fucking STUPID. Especially when they were trying to act like astrologists and the guy was like, “I watch <some science show> and am basically a scientist now.” SIGH.

These poor stars. They had so much to say about them.

Anyway, that was the whole boat ride back, trying so hard to not listen to their basic conversations but being unable to get away from it since they were talking at a volume 5x what was appropriate for a nighttime boat ride with strangers.

Then I made Henry pay $28 for a portrait package so now we have like 12 copies of this photo. Guess some lucky people will get one tucked inside this year’s Christmas card.

I do really like this picture even though we look like 3 strangers picked at random to stand in front of the Ghost Boat backdrop. AFFECTION? WHAT IS AFFECTION? I’m actually surprised that Chooch as least smiled but Henry looks like he’s our warden, ready to break out the taser the moment one of us tries to flee. Look at that balled-up fist!

The only glitch to our entire day in Wisconsin Dells was after the rootbeer museum when I had expressed a desire for ice cream. You would think that Henry and Chooch would know by now that my demands, especially ones that involve SCREAMS FOR ICE CREAM.

I had seen a sign for GELATO at one of the ice cream places on the main strip of the Dells, and had wanted to walk back and find it but CHOOCH was being a pain in the ass and peer-pressured me into going into a different ice cream place that was closer and it turns out it was just because he didn’t want to walk past this lady street performer again because she was making him uncomfortable (she was one of those statue people but didn’t do a very good job staying in character). The ice cream place was also a cafe and sandwich shop? I couldn’t tell what was going on there, but they had regular ice cream that you could get anywhere – like Hersheys or something – and then Henry said he didn’t want any and Chooch had just had a root beer float – I didn’t want to eat ice cream alone! So I left in dramatic fashion and speed-walked all the way to the parking lot. To be fair, the plan was already to go back to the hotel to rest because the next thing on our agenda didn’t start until 8:40 and we had two hours to kill.

I acted like a big crybaby on the way back to the hotel though because gotta stay on brand.

Anyway, we ended up going back out a bit earlier because there was a stupid haunted house I wanted to go to (MORE ON THIS SEPARATELY) and Henry was like, “Hey look, you can get your gelato afterward” because the same candy shop that I originally wanted to go to had another location right across the street from the dumb haunted house!

Chooch opted to wait in the car, probably was chatting with his Mexico Squad, so Henry and I went inside like we were impersonating a COUPLE ON A DATE. I guess Henry learned his lesson because he came prepared to place his own order so that I wouldn’t have to eat my cold treat alone like the true loser that I am.

So…I knew from first sight of the case that this was not going to be anything even close to traditional gelato. But nothing could have prepared me for the truly bizarre taste of my birthday cake and…what was my other flavor? Butter pecan maybe? gelato scoops.

It was truly alarming. The texture was like moist, frozen playdoh and the taste was SUGAR. And ARTIFICIAL. And FREEZER BURN. It was all of these things with a suggestion of whatever the flavors were supposed to me. Recommended to enjoy while thinking of your chosen flavor.

Tastes best with power of suggestion.

Somehow, it started to grow on me. I mean, I would never in my life go back there for a replay, but it wasn’t so grotesque that I couldn’t eat it. Henry had similar feelings with his choices, which I can’t remember now what they were. He had originally asked to try the banana but immediately wrote it off after realizing that it tasted like “cold nothing.” I’m glad he didn’t choose it too because the way it looked in the display case, it was wet and oozy like a pile of melted yellow popsicles. Totally unappealing.

“I mean I knew it wasn’t going to taste like real gelato because WISCONSIN but this also doesn’t taste like ice cream,” I said, holding a spoonful up to the light like my tastebuds had phoned my eyeballs for help decoding this gelato mystery.

For every scoop this place sells of fake gelato, an old man in Italy crashes a Moped.

Meanwhile, I was sitting in front of GREEN M&M and that was the third time in two days that she had come up in my life! WHAT DOES IT MEAN. One of the times was because one of the characters in a book I had just read admitted to thinking she was hot.

I guess I can see it….

On the way out, there were new suckers perusing the gelato case and I heard the scooper say, “It’s more like frozen yogurt.”

OK, that’s a very generous comparison.

Right after this, we went back to the main Dells area to prepare for our RESERVATION and when we walked past this REALLY COOL ICE CREAM SHOP that I somehow missed earlier, Chooch suddenly was ready for Ice Cream Part 2 and went in for a cone.

Dude, I was so pissed! I would have much preferred an ice cream cone from this place!!!

What an asshole.

Of course he ended up with ice cream on his shirt too right before our RESERVATION (I dunno why I’m acting like there is going to be some reveal, it was just a boat ride / haunted walk thing).

OK, this has been an ice cream interlude.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me but every time I sit down to recap Labor Day weekend, I start getting all wet-eyeballed and weirdly sentimental for something that JUST HAPPENED. Like, it’s barely even a memory yet?! I think time/age is really starting to terrorize me and I am hyper-aware of the fact that Chooch will soon be in college and definitely not trying to hop aboard the Oh Honestly Road Trip Express anymore. So I’m just trying to live my best life & do the most while we’re still a trio.

And sure, that means spraying dolla dolla bills into the mouths of some of the most questionable tourist traps in Wisconsin Dells! But first, food.

I sincerely don’t know what’s going on in this picture. We had just parked in a (shockingly free!) lot and had to cross over a busy street on a crosswalk with no traffic light – one of those HONOR SYSTEM pedestrian death traps where you’re supposed to step right out into oncoming traffic with all the confidence of someone who is not in a position to be pancaked onto the asphalt. I think I was probably yelling at Chooch here for not waiting for me. I HATE CROSSING STREETS!

Me: I want to kick this and break the glass.

Henry, somberly: You’d probably end up doing more time than he ever will.

Just like every other touristy town we’ve been to lately, Wisconsin Dells was chockful of disgusting Trump merch in all of the souvenir shops. So grotesque.

The first thing on our agenda was DINNER. Henry chose a bar called Monk’s because it had NOT JUST A VEGGIE BURGER, but a black bean burger as well. Hold me back.

We (and Chooch is not included in that collective, so you can hang up with CPS now thanks) rarely drink when we’re out but I felt inspired to get something so I chose this local blueberry beer and selected something that was banana-flavored for Henry even though it wasn’t what he wanted. I’m glad I chose the blueberry for myself because his tasted too beer-y. I mean, mine did too and I should have stuck with cider like I generally do but I felt like trying a BEER. It took me the whole entire meal to finish it and also I kept pouring it into the glass without angling it so the foam was overflowing and it was making Henry so uncomfortable, haha.

Chooch, meanwhile, was bitching because all he wanted a grilled cheese but they didn’t have it. C’mon, Monk’s – THIS IS WISCONSIN and you can’t make a kid a fucking grilled cheese?

So he got the veggie burger and I got the black bean burger which came on a pretzel bun and had a tortilla chip layered in it. It was pretty good. The waffle fries were good too. It was all good. Except for the asshole kids who belonged to the table next to us but instead sat at the arcade games situated IMMEDIATELY behind Henry and me. They kept pounding on the buttons and making this terrible music play and I was really pissed off. Their lazy asshole mother just sat at their booth staring off into space, periodically picking up the SIPPY CUP that the BABY BROTHER kept pelting onto the floor.

I was getting loudly passive aggressive about my dislike of this situation until the mom finally caught on and called the idiot kids back to the table. God they were so annoying. Thankfully they left before our food came but still – it was enough to put me on edge.

Chooch was mad because the parents left a really small tip too.

Oh! And the waitress had to run outside and try to catch them because of course they left the SIPPY CUP on the floor despite all the times MOM and what appeared to be GRANDPA hollered to the older boys to PICK UP YOUR BROTHER’S SIPPY CUP.

They always bond over claw machines for some reason. Chooch can be deep in the bowels of Teenaged Surly Town when suddenly he’s presented with a crisp dollar to lose in a claw machine and it’s like someone pressed a button in the nape of his neck to reanimate him.

They did not win anything.

Monk’s Bathroom Selfie.

Calling his mommy.

We went out the back exit and I was oddly excited about this.

Then we stumbled upon this little courtyard which reminded me a bit of Gatlinburg, TN crossed with Sugarcreek, OH. The cuckoo clock was telling the story of the pied piper!!

Then we went to the root beer museum! Well, we didn’t actually go into the museum portion because THERE WAS AN ADMISSION FEE god forbid and none of us cared that much but I’m certain my dad would have forked over the cash for it (it was only around $5 I think) because he is OBSESSED with pop. He always had glass bottles of Barq’s stocked in a vintage soda machine when I was growing up. He probably still does!

We got a flight to share and they were all wonderful – I rarely drink soda/pop/sugary bevs but I do love me some root beer. I admittedly could not tell the difference between any of these until the SODA JERK (is that what soda jerks are!?) described them to us and when he said that one of them had honey in it, I could suddenly taste the honey.

I’m real easy like that. My mind is a whore ready to be finessed and wooed by any ol’ John.

Chooch, meanwhile, opted for a root beer float except that he doesn’t like root beer? So every time he’d get down to where there was just ice cream left, the SODA JERK would snatch his cup and refill it. Chooch was not immediately OK with this but then he went with it and kept trying to get the guy to give him a different root beer but the SODA JERK got real weirded out by this request and muttered about not usually mixing root beer.

I mean, it’s root beer, not chemicals in a beaker, but OK my guy.

Then he and Henry bonded bigly over the Amish farm in Lancaster, PA that sells really gross homemade root beer in unmarked jugs from their barn. I vaguely remember buying a small jug of this years ago and thinking it was totally poisonous.

So that was a fun pitstop! I still like root beer just the regular amount though. It wasn’t life-changing for me. I haven’t enrolled in any Dad’s secret societies or anything.

Yet.

Can you believe that Henry didn’t humblebrag about moving around pallets of FAYGO ROOT BEER as his OCCUPATION?

Total missed op.

Henry gave Chooch a dollar to put in the stupid animatronic outhouse next to the TRUMP fortune teller thing. It was a total waste of money and I know you just slapped your knee and screamed in disbelief.

Stop back for PART 2 when I tell you about the haunted shit we did next. Henry was super amenable on this day for some reason and let us actually do stuff.

Late Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, we made it to one of my bucket list parks (lol so stupid), Mt. Olympus in Wisconsin! I have watched enough vlogs on this place to know that I needed to proceed with caution, that it’s truly a ride-at-your-own-risk park. But it’s home to four wooden coasters, one of them being the notorious Hades 360 which was the first wooden coaster to feature an inversion (although this revamping of the original Hades coaster debuted with the inversion in tandem with Silver Dollar City unveiling the RMC masterpiece, Outlaw Run, which was *also* taking the title for FIRST WOODIE WITH INVERSION. So Silver Dollar City modified their claim to “multiple inversions,” lol. Coaster drama.

So right off the bat, you get a true taste of how sketchy this park is as you’re walking down the entrance and can LITERALLY reach out and touch the track of Zeus. You could slap hands with people riding it, there is NOTHING STOPPING YOU from losing a hand or climbing all the way onto the track and losing your whole damn life. Presumably, this is what they’re waiting for being putting up actual safety measures.

We didn’t spent too much time here so hopefully I can give you a succinct recap with a minimal amount of typos. Let’s goooo.

The entrance to Zeus is the first thing you run into once you get your wristband and enter the park through the gift shop. We got in line for this immediately and started doing neck rotations and windmills in order to lubricate the ol’ spine-a-roo before an afternoon of body beatings. Everything here was one-train-ops, and Zeus only had one young girl operating the ride AND checking restraints, but we still somehow only had to wait for about 20 minutes. I think that most people come to Mt, Olympus for the water park (it’s like, world renown I guess, but not a water park specialist so I can’t confirm) and it was honestly pretty chilly that day (I think it only got up to 70 at one point but felt more like low-60s) so the park wasn’t very crowded.

Um, OK Zeus! Your trains are old and busted but this was a really enjoyable wooden coaster! Not too terribly rough and it had me laughing SO HARD that I was giving myself coughing fits, which was basically the theme of the whole weekend. Janky coaster-inducing coughing fits.

Oh! When Chooch and I were getting into the back seat, there was a phone and lighter sitting there, left behind by the guy who was riding before us. Luckily, he was very distinguishable because he was wearing a bright yellow hoodie, so Chooch put the lost items in the bin with our stuff, figuring the guy would probably be lingering near Zeus once he realized he left his stuff behind. BUT HE WASN’T. So now Chooch was the keeper of the lost items and refused to give up and turn them over to lost and found, determined to find the guy himself.

Thank god the park is very small, but we still walked around aimlessly for 30 minutes, looking for the damn guy. Henry kept saying that he saw him and we were like, “Bro, that’s not even close to what the dude looks like, do you even know who you’re looking for??”

Just as Chooch was about to make his concession speech, we ran into the guy who was finally heading back toward Zeus. Chooch strode right up to him and said, “Did you lose your phone?”

The guy was, “YES” and Chooch handed it over (and the lighter, lol) and dude was like, “THANK YOU!”

And that was that. No back-claps, no promise of being penpals, no “Are you on TikTok?”s.

Super anti-climatic.

But now that we got that over with, it was Hades360 time!

The line looked a lot longer than it was, but it was still the longest wait we had all day and that was still only about 30 minutes. It’s actually good that there were some people in the park because I heard that some of the coasters won’t/can’t be sent unless the train is full or almost full. So on dead days, some coasters there won’t even open.

Also, Hades360 allegedly breaks down quite often so I just wanted to get on this at least once.

Gum tree.

This picture sucks because Henry took it with his shitty broken phone, but here we are, about to ride Hades360 for the first time!

Henry was mad because when the ride attendant asked how many we had, we said two so Chooch and I were able to snag the back row while Henry had to wait for the next cycle, lololol.

OK um…I don’t even know how to explain Hades360 but if you ever want to feel like you’re having a near-collision with death, ride this. Drive yourself to Wisconsin and wedge your ass in a seat on this carriage to Hell and you will understand. It was out of control, relentless, forceful, ROUGH, and that’s before it even gets to the absolutely terrifying PITCH BLACK tunnel UNDER THE PARKING LOT. And then you have to go back through the tunnel on the way back and there is a surround-sound ROARING throughout the underground portion that literally sounds like Satan himself is telling you to SLOW DOWN.

There are signs that tell you not to put your hands up and you better believe I obeyed those signs because that was one terrifying experience, yet TOTALLY EXHILARATING. Chooch, who was being a moody teenager most of the day up to this point, dropped the facade long enough to casually admit that this is now on his Top 10 wooden coaster list. Honestly, I was waiting for him to say something totally disparaging and shit-eating, like, “That was overrated” or “Cool mm.”

I hate “cool mm” btw. It’s his response to EVERYTHING I text him.

Anyway, here is Henry riding it in the backseat after us! As soon you leave the station, you go down that first drop and then it just gets scarier and scarier from there.

Here also is a super underrated Reel I made of Henry riding this and I don’t usually care about this stuff but I do feel like it IS VERY FUNNY and no one cared, lol poor me but seriously this was the best use of an NCT song:

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A post shared by Erin Appledale (@ohhonestlyerin)

We also rode Cyclops which was a fine smaller wooden coaster, actually not painful as I had anticipated, but there are no pictures because Henry is the worst Coaster Dad and sat on a bench with his back toward us the whole time instead of capturing our smiling faces on “film.”

Second to Hades360, I was most looking forward to Pegasus, which is the smallest coaster of the four BUT it has the notorious “yeet turn” as it comes onto the brake run.

I actually this was NOT  that bad of a ride?! Only because it was so odd. Like, it felt like it had legit corners. Such a weirdly engineered woodie! Chooch was like “That’s a no for me” but I honestly was pleasantly surprised when I didn’t walk away with contusions or at the very least, a bruised tailbone.

Where’s Henry.

Back to being a sullen teenager.

Henry actually came through and took a picture of us on Pegasus!

LOL, I tagged Mt Olympus and they liked it.

Henry was not amused.

I was hoping they would have a good Hades shirt but no luck. I just got a magnet for my collection and that was fine. Also, by “Shops” at Mt. Olympus, they mean the same shop over and over again.

Weird family photo, in line for Zeus, part 2.

Tricked Chooch into smiling.

Henry wasn’t falling for it.

Also, Henry has to take his hat off on coasters and being hatless makes him look mean(er). I don’t like it. Maybe he needs bangs. That might soften his look.

I’ll suggest it.

I think we only spent about 3 hours there in total. We didn’t eat anything (Henry and Chooch both had Starbucks and complained about it and I was like, “THAT’S WHY I JUST SAY NO TO STARBUCKS.” God, follow my lead already. I didn’t even pee the whole time we were there so I can’t give you a bathroom review, but aside from that, I found Mt. Olympus to be a clean park and the staff was pretty personable. I wish that Hades at least was more than one train ops, but I thought the line still moved moderately fast. It must have broken down right around the time we left though because we waited for a good 10 minutes in the parking lot to get a video of it coming down the hill and into the tunnel, but then one finally came so we got the damn video and then left to check into our hotel.

(A Super 8 but it was actually really decent?!)

If you’re interested in more Mt. Olympus content, Coaster Idiots has a really good and funny vlog about their day there last summer!