Coaster Odyssey II - Holiday World

After the trip to Timbersfest at MiA, I had a few days to regroup, rest up and pack for the second and third legs of the trip.

TheRealCP (aka Catherine) arrived at the house on Wednesday evening for the next leg of our coaster odyssey. I settled her into the spare bedroom and she followed me about while I was finishing up packing Ian’s and my things for the trip. We spent the remainder of the evening chatting and watching the Freedom Festival Fireworks on TV while munching on chips, popcorn and pretzels.

The next morning, we picked up Ian's GF, Donna, and were on the road by 10:30 am. I expected the normal construction woes, so the first orange signs of impending construction were expected. A couple miles later, the signs indicated the right lane was closed and drivers should prepare to merge. Sure enough, there was a truck with a blinking arrow pointing to the left…but off the side of the road and no barrels to be seen. I laughed and told Catherine “this is just a test”.

We met with several areas of construction in Ohio, but except for signs indicating “no edge lines” and a couple traffic shifts, driving through was a breeze. This was my fourth trip through Dayton, so I’ve pretty much figured out the lane shifts to stay on 75 down to 71. We made a stop for gas, but didn’t stop again until we were in Kentucky where we gave up looking for Cracker Barrel and settled for Taco Hell. We could tell we were in Kentucky by the country music playing in the restaurant. Of course, one exit later was a Cracker Barrel. Duh!

We arrived in Dale, about 7 miles past the Holiday World exit, around 5-ish Indiana time, and wondered what we could do to occupy ourselves until time to settle down for the night. Ian suggested bowling, so I asked at the front desk if there were any bowling allies nearby. I was directed to a place about 6 miles north in Huntingburg ("well, y'all turn right out there and drive north about three lights until you see Buehlers Buy-Low..."), but the 10-lane alley was just filling up with leagues. We drove further north into Jasper, a much larger town. Catherine’s sharp eyes found a mini-golf/go cart/batting cage place just off the main drag.

We pulled into Fuzzy’s and I sprung for 18 holes of mini-golf for the four of us. It was a much easier course than the one at Michigan’s Adventure, although we had a few stray balls land in some of the water hazards. On the whole, we did much better (yours truly won again!), but Catherine put us all to shame by making a bullseye shot on the 19th hole to win a free mini-golf game or go cart ride. She opted for the go carts and we watched her tool around the track.

Back to Dale, we parked the car and walked to the Denny’s next door for a late dinner and climbed into bed for an early rise for breakfast. We were a little later getting out than planned, but made it to Holiday World a little past opening. It was while I was making the turnaround into the parking lot Ian and I immediately noticed a noise coming from my steering column. We opted not to worry about it…yet.

My Coasterbuzz discount, along with the Pepsi can discount for the others, saved us a bit of money. We dumped our bathing attire and towels into a locker, and caught our first ride on The Raven. It somehow didn’t seem as fast as last year, and after our ride on The Legend, which also wasn’t what I remembered, I chalked it up to early morning wood.

We rode several rides we didn’t do last year, including Frightful Falls, the Eagle’s Flight (which don’t go fast enough to gain enough air for “snapping”), and the Rough Riders dodgem. I didn’t realize the cars were buffalo and horse themed! After some convincing, Ian agreed to do Liberty Launch. Admittedly, it’s no Power Tower, but I still think that double shot is load of fun, even if Ian doesn’t think it’s worth the 45 minute wait. I don't recall if it was him or Catherine that likened it to an adult frog hopper.

I spent as much time snapping pictures for the scrapbook as possible, much to Ian’s irritation, before we decided to grab a bite to eat at Kringle’s Café. Best park pizza I’ve had. Then it was off to Splashin’ Safari.

Catherine isn’t much of a waterpark fan, and has said as much several times, but she was a good sport about it after she realized before the trip she could enjoy the waterpark in shorts and a t-shirt and not have to sport a bathing suit. Agreeing to break her in slowly, we rode Watube first, a raft ride that the four of us climbed into. Unfortunately, she went down backwards, but she alternated between screams and nervous laughter, and afterwards was ready to try the larger Zoombabwe. We rode in a raft separate from Ian and Donna, and she did much better, likely because it was dark and she couldn’t tell whether she was backwards or not.

We made our way to the wave pool, and I was surprised to see her slowly making her way to deeper water. Except for a scrape on the top of her foot, she survived that well and was brave enough to try Zinga. Again, with just the two of us in the raft, she ended up riding backwards, and we slipped high up onto both sides of the funnel with lots of splashing water. I think that might have been a bit much for her, but she was pretty proud for making the “plunge” so to speak.

We got ourselves dressed again, dumped our wet towels and bathing attire back into a locker and made our way back to the coasters, then over to Virginia Reel (Tilt-a-Whirl) for a quick, spinning ride before pigging out on deep fried oreos. Yum!

I was about ready to call it a day considering we had a three hour drive back to Cincinnati, but Donna and Ian wanted a few more rides on The Raven and The Legend which were warmed up and running as well as they did at SRM last year. The on-ride photo of Catherine and I on our last ride on Legend was a keeper, so I bought one.

We stayed until closing at 8 pm and were back on the road toward Cincy by 8:30 pm. It was on the drive through darkness we discovered that lightning bugs that get squished onto the windshield continue to glow for a good two minutes. I pushed the pedal to the metal to make it to the Cracker Barrel in Kentucky before they closed, making the restaurant at 10:40 pm and feeling a bit guilty about ordering dinner, but we left a nice large tip to make up for keeping our waitress there past 11 pm. After a stop at a well-lit gas station to check the power steering fluid and determining it was okay, we got back on 71 for the final leg of the trip.

We made the Comfort Inn just down the street from Kings Island by 1 am and climbed, dead tired, into bed.

Part three - PKI/Beastbuzz to follow

AND, if anyone can remind me how to link to pictures, I'll come back and edit to include some.

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CPLady said:
Early morning wood.

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Uhhhhhh... you said wood. ;)

Seriously, Linda, why don't you rub it in a little more while you're at it. Sheesh! :)

Glad your trip is tearing you up, as you know full and well that all that fun pays a price on the ol' bod. Glad you're having a great time, though. You're the kind of person that deserves the BEST time. Sounds like Catherine got the "come on, you wuss" treatment on Zinga, too.... like you did me on MF last year. LOL!

Fun little TR!

Awesome Linda!

I am glad to hear Ian and Donna had so much fun at HW and PKI and it was a pleasure meeting them at Beastbuzz, and catching up with you and Catherine.

Splashin Safari is even a favorite among traditional "non-waterpark" people. It's THAT good. ;-)

-Tina

Nasai, I love woodies, always have, always will ;)

Who doesn't?

Size DOESN'T matter you know....;-) I value quality over quantity any day.

Give me a woody that knows how to please rather than one who is all looks and doesn't know what the hell it's doing. ;-)

-Tina

Um, Tina...we talk about COASTERS on this site!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. :-D

Ahem. Anyway, yeah. Splashin' Safari was great. Next year - or at the next waterpark I go to - I'm getting aqua shoes though. My feet were killing me, going barefoot! I'm such a wuss.

Moosh, be quiet! She's talking about me here! ;)

Rob - who just can't shut up

You're not even that good looking Rob. :P *** Edited 7/2/2004 5:45:11 AM UTC by ApolloAndy***

Linda, aqua shoes rock! I don't like going barefoot either.

Hey now, Rob IS good looking in my book. ;-)

Moosh, why do you always think my mind is in the gutter? ;-) I was merely talking about wooden coasters. Heh.

-Tina

I still have to get out to Nasai's neck of the woods to ride his woodie.

LOL! I would too but he's married, so the coasters will have to do. :-D

-Tina

Oohhhhh man. :)

The line forms behind me, girls ;)

So would this be a WID?

It would be, were it not for my GID! ;)

I'm going to Holiday World in a few weeks for the first time with a few friends. It'd be nice to save some money on our trip. How close to Holiday World do you have to be to pick up discount cans? We'll be coming in from the West, starting at Centralia, IL.

Thanks for cleaning up the thread! :)

Any empty Pepsi can will do...any Pepsi product, for that matter. I doesn't need to have a coupon on it.

And if you're a CoasterBuzz Club member, you'll save even more.

Enjoy your visit! Paula