Spent the last couple of days in Sandusky, OH.
Met some friends at Castaway Bay resort and water park.
Spent a day at Cedar Point, and the rest of the time at the water park.
It was great fun, and I ended up feeling like one of those guys in the commercials; the ones where the dad comes away feeling more connected with his family than he was before they went.
And I already felt connected, before leaving. My daughter's a trooper and a half, and my wife's a great traveling companion.
Anyhow...
I think the last time I was at Cedar Point was…. 1987. I might have gone with my buddy, Dave Burke. Not even sure about that.
I just remember getting chastised by my bandmates, because I was going to miss one whole rehearsal, the week before our first (we only ended up playing two) gigs.
In a band that was, by design, only going to last until school started up for everyone in the fall.
I was young in 1987. Standing in long lines to get on rides that simulated car accidents was an awesome time. And did I worry about stuff like dehydration and sunscreen when I was 19 years old?
Puh-leaze!
So 43 year old me got to go with my wife and nearly 4 year old daughter. And hydration and sunscreen were much bigger deal. And standing in line was a much bigger deal.
And we had a fantastic time together, mostly hanging in the three different kiddy areas, with occasional forays to rides we could all go on together. We were all riding in a Model A Ford, when the sky opened up and poured rain down upon us, for instance, and all three of us thought that was pretty darn fun.
I hit three roller coasters in quick succession upon entering the park, with the other husband/dad. I described the third one we were on, The Maverick, as akin to ”Riding a bull, whilst getting punched in the face”.
Repeatedly.
Later in the evening, we went back to the park and got on a couple more. I found that, unlike when I was 19, I spent most of the time just holding on real tight and hoping for the best.
While I will continue to go on them, I’m pretty sure that roller coasters used to be more fun.
My daughter’s obsessed on hearing stories from our childhood. I’m not sure she’s actually listening, nor filing them away, but she has an unlimited desire to hear more and more.
I made some up.
Told her about how grandma and grandpa used to keep me in a cage when I was little.
Told her I was joking afterwards.
Last night we took my mom to dinner on the way home from Sandusky, and she told grandma she didn’t think I was joking, when I told her about the cage.
Uh…. Check please.
All the way home, she kept asking for more. I realized, fairly early on, that I didn’t have a lot of stories that I remembered from my own childhood, that she would find interesting.
I’d tell her a story, she’d want to know what toys I had during that story, if there was a pet involved, etc. I'd tell her about riding my bike to the park to fish in the creek with my buddy Rick, and she'd add people to my story, to the point where there were.. 5 of us fishing in the creek, including my brother, and also my brother-in-law, who I would not meet until I was in my 20's.
Or I’d finish a story, and she’d ask “Is that story over?”
Yep, it’s over.
Hey, if I’m boring you, we could listen to music for awhile, or drive in companionable silence…. “Tell me another story!”
Alrighty.
I forget, since I don’t do it very often, that driving on the OH turnpike…sucks. A lot.
Driving anywhere in OH can be interesting, as many of the folks there did not ever embrace the change of speed limit from 55 to 65 or 70 on the interstates. It’s like they still think it’s a trick, to hand out more speeding tickets. And given the reputation of the OH state police, they have every right to be cautious about it…
But the OH turnpike… extra primo bad.
The service plazas are, largely, dumps.
“Hey, this one says they have a Uno’s, an Einstein Bagel and a hot dog joint!”
And you pull in, get out of the car, and find that it has a convenience store, with a microwave, and that microwave is the Uno’s, the Einstein Bagel and the hot dog joint.
On the plus side, over 50% the toilets are NOT either bagged up or clogged. I like those odds!
But at least the actual driving part is terrifying and frustrating as well.
One person’s doing 60 in the left lane, the next person’s weaving back and forth across the center line, and 5 minutes later an emergency vehicle passes us on the shoulder, and keeps on driving up the shoulder, because noone will get over for it.
A greyhound bus literally ignores the lights and sirens and keeps it from passing and getting to… what ends up being a really bad accident.
There’s a van that looks like it was dropped from the sky blocking a lane, which angers truckers, apparently, because one of THEM in turn ran me off the goddamn highway moments later, because… he wanted to change lanes RIGHT NOW, and the fact that I happened to be in it…. Not his problem.
It’s the same guy who had just leaned on his horn and sped forward at the accident site, making sure that noone could get over in front of him to go around the van and emergency vehicles.
Of course he ignored me as I leaned on my horn as he steered me off the road, doing 60 mph. I had to gun it to pass him on the shoulder to keep from going into a ditch, and got the bird for my troubles.
So to sum up: crappy facilities, bad driving, psychotic truck drivers… oh yeah and multiple construction zones.
And you pay for the privilege.
Last time I drove this stretch, I watched the car in front of me veer off the otherwise empty highway, smack against a guard rail, bounce back onto the highway and keep on going like nothing happened.
It takes a special kind of driving experience to make me look forward to crossing the border and entering Indiana.
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