One Day Vacations 2004
Well, dear readers, Monday (July 27th) was the day this year for the Jenkins/Modesitt One Day Vacation to Kings Island in Ohio! Whoo-Hoo!
First, the sad part. Amanda and Brian couldn’t be with us this year. Seems they have this BABY responsibility. (OK, so at 4 months, Chloe couldn’t ride much.) Secondly, Weird Al wasn’t in concert this year. (Bummer)
We decided to go over on Sunday evening to save driving both ways in one day and to maximize our time in the park. The three grown children decided that they were unwilling to ride shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, etc. in the backseat of Mark’s Crown Vic, so Sarah’s Jeep Grand Cherokee was pressed into service as well. But wait! All of a sudden, Andrew isn’t feeling well.
OK, so here’s the story on Andrew. Andrew doesn’t like amusement parks. Never has. Hasn’t stopped us from dragging him to them though. (As a matter of fact, we all have fond memories of Mark hoisting him into a log on the log ride when he was just a boy of around 7 or so. He hooked his legs around the posts on the ride and had to be pryed off and then dumped kicking and screaming into the log with his other family members. C’mon Andrew, this is a family vacation!) So much for our parenting skills. So…. the sudden onset of his illness was - to say the least - somewhat suspect. I was willing to let him stay at home this year. Frankly, paying a small fortune to get him into the park when he had gone to such lengths to avoid the trip didn’t seem like a great idea to me. I called Amanda and Brian and told them that they wouldn’t have to come let Sophie Dog out after all.
Looks like we will only need one car after all.
Wait. Never, I mean NEVER underestimate the power of a nagging Sister! Sarah is world class. She wheedled, she cajoled, she…well she kept at Andrew till he finally gave up and gave in. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in the car waiting to begin our fun trip. Out of the car, call Amanda and Brian again. Ask them to take care of the dog. Tell them where we are going to leave the key. Use the bathroom again, and get Andrew’s stuff into the car.
Back to two cars once again.
We finally got on the road and I breathed a sigh of relief. The trip itself was pretty much uneventful except for the obviously drunk driver that we encountered all over the road on I-74. I found myself praying not only for our safety, but for his as well. Finally arrived at the Comfort Suites Kings Island at around 11:00pm local time.
Five adult Jenkins’ is critical mass in one hotel room. Two queen beds and a pull-out. (Andrew always gets the pull-out or the deluxe floor bed. Hmmm, maybe that explains why he is hesitant to go on vacation.) Now, I get a bit slap happy late at night, and after lights off, I got the giggles. Sarah is not one to let you giggle alone, so she joined in with her pattented “Muttley” laugh, and we were all goners. We were thinking about what the worship leader at the Cube we attended that morning had said about worshiping under the glow-in-the dark stars on his son’s bedroom ceiling. All we had was the green glow of the smoke detector. Giggle, giggle. Oh, and the glow of the Shell station lights. Andrew and Mark decided to block the light by stuffing a blanket on top of the curtain rod, risking life and limb to do so. More laughter.
Things finally started to settle down sometime after midnight, and silence engulfed the room. Until a sudden forceful expulsion of gas shattered the silence. Laughter/Tears/Groans.
All this fun, and we haven’t started yet.
Monday morning arrived early (I got up at 5:10am to shower, but I convinced my brain that it was really 6:10 since we were in Ohio.) The day was cool, damp, and overcast. Perfect weather for keeping the crowds down at Kings Island. After a modest breakfast and much bathroom rangling, we headed for the park to meet the Modesitt family at the Eiffel Tower at 10:00.
Not wishing to have a repeat of last year’s security breach, I quizzed Andrew about the number of pocket knives he was carrying. He was clean. Mark, on the other hand, was still “carrying”, so he slipped the pocket knife into my purse between the one dollar bills, and we slipped it in unnoticed.
I’m not sure I feel safe anymore.
Highlights of the Day:
Traditional Running of the Photographers - avoiding having a family picture taken just inside the front gate
Viking Fury - an oldie, but a goodie
The Racer - been a number of years since this bod fit into the seats!
Bumper cars - road rage at its best
SpongeBob in 3-D - except for the girl seating us who called Alex a “doofus” for asking to have all of us in one row
Dance, Dance Revolution - who knew Alex could get his “groove” on?
Delirium - 2x’s for Mark - I respectfully declined this one - I know my limits
Wild Thornberry’s - formely known as the log ride - seeing Andrew get on of his own freewill - seeing Alex get completely soaked
Adventure Express - Andrew and Stephen rode this one 15 times!
Being able to ride/walk/keep up all day - PRICELESS!
The day ended much like last year - we were all wet from the rain. It was a good day. A very good day as far as I was concerned. A day to forget about responsibilities and just PLAY! Everyone needs that. I needed that.
The trip back home was late, but God granted saftey, and I thank Him for that and for my weird, wacky family.
Take time this summer to play. I intend to do it again soon and often.
August 2nd, 2004 at 11:34 am
Okay, so here’s what I remember…
Since Sarah nagged Andrew into coming, he got to ride in her car (with the in-dash CD player) in the front seat (no less). He graciously offered to “let” me ride in the backseat with my legs hoisted up onto the other half of the seat (since there was a lot of crap on the floor). I declined and went to Dad’s car.
We listened to the radio for a while (until Dad was headed for the AM dial), then I handed Mom my “Best of the 90’s” CD (Thank you, Target). She fussed with the thing for a little while; I reminded her how to turn it on (you have to hold the play button for a REALLY long time), and Dad kept checking to make sure the FM transmitter was working (Dad’s car doesn’t like fake cassette tapes, it can taste the cord coming out of the slot). Turns out the thing must have gotten bumped in the glove box (poor design), so the battery was dead. …So no tunes except what we can find on the radio… which means constant flipping… Hm… Are we there yet? (Actually, Mom had me doing a sort of karaoke/name-that-tune thing with my CD; I sang bits of each song so that she would recognize what they were. That was fun for the 5 minutes it lasted.)
Besides late-night hysterics in the hotel room (which, by the way: Sarah’s laughing is mostly contagious because she makes the bed shake trying to contain it!), I remember the disappointing continental breakfast. Striking the options of 3 varieties of bland fiber in a bowl (also known as Rice Krispies, Raisin Bran, and original Cheerios), I went with warm fruit cocktail,
and OJ with a surprisingly good blueberry muffin. (Found out later that they saved better stuff for the late-comers: namely, microwavable sausage biscuits! MEAT!)
We arrived at the park and paid our (outrageous) $9 for parking, and while walking to the front, Dad reminded us that we were parked in, “Front to Back 44″. *laughter* “You mean, FACE/OFF 44?” Sarah says. Dad can tell this is a joke that is going to linger.
Security was better this year (for me anyway); they actually checked all THREE pockets of my hipbag, instead of the ONE they checked last year. And while waiting for the rest of the fam to come through the scanning line (they were held up by some teens who were being fingerprinted
), Andrew and I took a lovely survey (that’s new). Then, as Mom said, there was the obligatory first ride on the Porcelain Train (or the Swirly; which do you think is a better name?), as well as the “Scatter!” approach to photo avoidance. (Though we discussed later that it might have been more fun to let them take our picture and begin screaming, “They took my SOUL!” …hee hee) 
One of the first rides, which Mom failed to mention was Scooby-Doo’s Haunted Mansion. Since my miserable performance in ghost hunting last year, I was dreading another pathetic ride-through. My score did not disappoint: 360 (and that was the combined score with TWO “guns”). Compare that to the others’ scores, which leaned into the 1200-1300+ range.
I got a second shot at it later in the day and discovered that *shock of shocks* you’re not supposed to point AT the target! You’re supposed to aim like a little kid and shoot underneath it (so that you can keep the target in view while shooting)! *sigh* Outsmarted by a kiddie ride.
I got to ride everything that I wanted to ride that day (except for the “Antique Cars” - as they’re now calling them, but I did get to ride a few things twice: Drop Zone and Viking Fury). The Son of Beast was rough as ever. I think the reason it seems so much worse than many other roller coasters is that the bouncing is more up-and-down. My brain is used to the side-to-side bangs of other roller coasters, but it has no defense cushioning built up for the up-and-down!!!
Speaking of roller coasters (and being rattled in them), we skipped Outer Limits (awesome take-off, but it’s punishment the rest of the ride, so I didn’t miss it much). I rode the backwards Racer, which I don’t think I rode last year. (Ladies can ask me about the adventure on that one, as well as a Son of Beast tidbit that I left out.) Vortex was standard rough (perhaps even gentler than usual?); Adventure Express was rougher (still fun). And The Beast (celebrating 25 years of terror) was FLYING!!! It may have been because of the rain, but WOAH! I tucked my arms in beside me to soften the blows we were taking! Coming out of that first tunnel in the helix, I was jostled so much and laughing so hard I could barely breathe! (ROCK! heh heh)
Dance, Dance Revolution in the Festhaus was a fun diversion (especially watching one guy go at it after we were done - he obviously has no life). But who comes to King’s Island to play a game they can play at Circle Center (or at home on their PlayStation)? So on we went!
Drop Zone is my absolute favorite ride (and it was actually running consistently this year)! I wish I had a replica in my backyard; I could ride it for hours.
I’m not terribly fond of heights, but I can’t get enough of that drop! Where else can you safely “fall” from WAAAAAY high up without the risk of death? (Or with only a MINIMAL risk…)
I know you must be thinking, who would want to ride a water ride when it’s been raining all day? Well, we would, I guess.
Alex, Amber, and I piled in the front of a Wild Thornberries boat with Brian (Amber’s boyfriend) and Andrew in the back. I was predicting a good lot of soaking from that arrangement, and I wasn’t disappointed. Alex was completely soaked, and I was wet mostly on my legs. (I looked like I was wearing chaps!) I still don’t know how I managed to cram my legs into that boat, but… It was fun. 
We rode Congo Falls later (when it finally got up and running again). Sarah, Bubbs, Amber, Brian, and Alex rode it multiple times (in a row; there was no line!), and I got on with them once. Dad daringly took a picture from the bridge as we came down the hill, then went running and cowering to the back of it to avoid the colossal spray that threatened to drench him worse than if he were on the ride.
Fuel: La Rosa’s pizza (what a strange pizza sauce), Mozzarella sticks, and Mello Yello for lunch, Peanut Butter M&Ms after SpongeBob, Potato Works fry shrapnel after The Beast (come to think of it, Tomb Raider was shorter than I remembered it…), and a twist cone (not from the Sweet Tooth)
at the end of the evening.
You know, we didn’t even really watch the fireworks? They weren’t shot off around the Eiffel Tower! They were hidden behind some trees (from where we were standing, near Oktoberfest), like they were back in the Coney Mall! Oh well, we were really shopping anyway. I was looking for a hoodie that wasn’t big enough to sleep 4; no success. So I just bought a couple postcards to send to Aiko and Kazuko (two of my roommates from college, both from Japan).
For the ride home, I changed into my pajama shirt (my other shirt was covered in glitter that I didn’t want to get all over everything in the car). We stopped by McDonald’s where I waited in the car for my cheeseburger, which I ate, then I quickly fell asleep and didn’t wake up until the police chase once we were back on the westside.
…Scared ya with that one, didn’t I? ;-D Well, you’ll have to ask Mom for that one.
August 4th, 2004 at 11:25 pm
You goof, not going on Delirium. It’s relaxing. I fell asleep. If you ever go back to Kings Island, you MUST try it to see if you like it. You went on scarier rides than that. What are these “limits”?
I’d like to know if you rode a similar ride somewhere and got sick or something. It’s one
thing if you already tried a ride like that and couldn’t handle it, but if not you need to at least try it.