Megan Hart

All righty. Well, we spent most of the week at Cedar Point and it was a lot of fun. It’s about a six hour drive from my house (supposedly!) but it really took closer to eight, what with the stops and all. That was okay. The kids were all set up with their DVD players and there was no vomiting (thank god!) and I worked on my Alfie.

You see how tired I look? It’s because we got up at the butt crack of dawn to get on the road.

We drove. And drove. And drove. Then we got there, hurray! We checked into our hotel, at the Sandcastle Suites. And shall I say we were pretty much underwhelmed? I mean, for the price and all I’d have expected something a teensy bit nicer, but whatever. It was fine. It wasn’t the Ritz (as we are fond of saying around my house. Not that we’ve ever stayed there, you understand. We just like saying it.) but we are simple people with simple needs.

We had some twilight passes and since we got there before five pm (courtesy of the getting up at the buttcrack of dawn) we decided to go!

And I got to ride my second favorite ride!!

DISASTER TRANSPORT!!!!

You can see how excited I am!

We rode some other rides, too, including my OMGALLTIMEFAVORITE ride, PADDLEWHEEL EXCURSIONS!!!!!!!!

See? See my glee?

A bit of history, here. I loved that ride not for its corny jokes or tranquil path through murky green waters while watching somewhat creepy animated figures. Oh, no.

It was the Captains.

Ahhhh…in the good old days the captains wore actual Riverboat Captain outfits. (and they were…guh!)

So…wait for it. Wait for it, I said!

THEY DO NOT DRESS LIKE CAPTAINS!!!! They wear…polo shirts and…shorts…

*DIES*

Oh, Captain Alex, why didn’t you warn me? Did you know of this travesty? Did you? DID YOU!??

*weeps and gnashes teeth*

On the upside, we had a girl captain. *rock fingers* I would’ve been a great Paddlewheel Captain. That maroon vest would’ve looked hot on me, too, way back when.

But I digress.

Yeah, I was super sad but I guess this way my previous Paddlewheel experience remains untainted.

Eventually we went back to the room. It was about midnight. Everyone was tired. And the leak began. Torrents of water pouring from the light fixture in the bathroom, obviously coming from the shower in the room above.

There was a bit of a kerfluffle about it with maintenance but it was midnight. We were tired. We put towels beneath it and went to sleep. The next day they gave us a new, “remodeled” room and all I can say is this:

This was our old room:

and this was the new:

Yeah.

I won’t get into it but we won’t be going back to that hotel…for the price the service was pretty bad and really, I’d rather save some cash if we have to stay in a room that’s worn and torn.

Tuesday the weather was bad so we went to the movies and to the Sandusky Mall, which looked a lot different than I remember it, but we checked out the bookstore…

Wheee!

The upside to staying onsite is you get in an hour early to ride a certain few rides — which was great. On Wednesday We got to ride The Maverick which WAS FREAKING AWESOME! and The Skyhawk which holy crap…watch the videos on the site. Oh, man. My necklace was flying up off my neck and just hovering. I was really scared, not just thrilled.

We rode it three times. :)

We went on most of the rides, missing only a few. The lines weren’t bad and the weather was really great. On Thursday we went to the beach and the pool in between thunderstorms and Friday we hung out at Soak City all day long. Good times were had by all.

Look at the beautiful sky:

Oh, I have other pictures but they’re of me in a bathing suit and you know, not for public consumption.

The other negative thing about the trip was the food experiences…every single on-site restaurant we ate in was terrible. Food was expensive, service was absolutely TERRIBLE!!! We waited 45 minutes for our food at TGI Friday’s and then another ten minutes for the meat for our fajitas. And we’re pretty mild mannered people, so when we get all up in arms about waiting and complain about not getting our butts kissed enough, it’s pretty bad. We at at Famous Dave’s barbecue one night…bad! BAD BAD! Had a cute emo boy waiter who was very apologetic, but “sorry ’bout that” doesn’t make my chili hotter or the beer colder when it’s been sitting on the bar instead of in front of us. It was all around awful every place we went. Slow, slow, slow service and overworked staff.

Famous Dave’s where I had wings (not that great, either!) and a salad and cold chili. I could’ve sent it back but whatever, by that time we were starving.

NACHOS in the park!

We had one great food experience, OFF SITE!!! At the East of Chicago pizza buffet.

The Wrath of the Gorgon…snakes will soon to fly out of my head…

All in all? The parks both rocked, the hotel wasn’t worth the price and the food was bad, but we had a great time. I was ready to come home, though. As always. I love my family but sharing a room with three other people for a week –and a bathroom!!! — wears me down. I was ready to come home and sleep in my own bed, pee in my own toilet and eat some food that didn’t cost too much and taste too bad.

Came home to find out my final edits for Tempted had been delivered whilst we were gone. The neighbor picked up the package and I got it last night. Started on those. Finished Gilt and Midnight on the trip, have to polish it up and submit that. It’s going to be a busy week.

And, today is the day that twelve glorious years ago I bound my life to that man I live with.

Now, I really don’t like most of the professional pictures we had taken (if I were to do it again I’d hire Scott Church) but this is one I like and have hanging on my wall.

And in a strange twist of fate, I’m actually wearing those boxers today.

So there it is, my vacation story and a picture of me in my pajamas. Does life get any better than that?

M

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