One Last Thing (x2)

As I alluded to in my last post, there was still one last issue from our summer of issues that was still hanging heavily on my mind.  We still hadn't quite figured out Carter's whole mouth situation.  It seemed like the steroid cream and Aquaphor were the best combo for keeping the corner sores at bay.   The worst spot had finally healed and no longer looked on the brink of cracking, although it's still a little pink, but I think that's essentially scarring and should fade.  The swelling was way down, too.  Maybe not 100% gone but barely noticeable at worst.  I'm still not sure what fixed that--if the loose tooth coming out somehow did it, or the antibiotics worked but recovery took a while, or if finally healing the corner sore slowly let the rest of the inflammation clear.  But the inside of the mouth still had me worried.  It wasn't as bad but it was still a little weird.  When I went to the dentist in mid-August, the hygienist asked me about him (as did the dentist--they've been so sweet through this entire mess) and she said that if it didn't look significantly better by the time of his appointment at the end of the month, they'd probably consider taking a biopsy.  That set me off spiraling for a few days because the mere idea that it looked bad enough that something worse could be happening was concerning.  I kept asking myself, did they just not act on whatever they saw before because there was so much happening with the corner sores and all the swelling and the tissue trauma that they were just too confused to diagnose anything?  So now that things looked better, would it become clearer that some issue remained and something was definitely wrong?  I was very nervous as we approached his routine cleaning.

At the same time I was still trying to figure out how to get him and me to Cedar Point for a last use of our season passes from last year's trip.  We'd been planning to go in the last couple weeks of August since we went last year, but then my work got crazy, we had a couple important appointments pop up, and then we ended up doing our family vacation in my original time slot instead.  It just wasn't looking good--and even if we could go it would probably involve a weekend and lines would be long, defeating the entire purpose of waiting until late August.  Even still, I had a birthday weekend coming up and felt like it was worth a try.  I spent most of the week checking weather and hotel pricing, and working my butt off to try to get through a bunch of projects at work, just in case I could figure it all out.  But the more I thought about it, the more worried about the dentist appointment I got.  I started having flashbacks to the multiple medical emergencies immediately before three trips this summer, and I lost my nerve.  I could not book anything until we had an all-clear, because I was convinced I'd book it and then have some emergency dash to the hospital, or we'd be sent for a bunch of tests that would completely unnerve me and I'd be in no shape to drive for five hours.  Not to mention that if results came back while we were gone and I had to grapple with bad news alone with him five hours from home, that would be a nightmare of its own.  So I just couldn't do it.

I managed to finish my work on Thursday so I took the day off Friday to give myself an extra long weekend.  We went off to the appointment first thing Friday morning.  She took a look at him, inside and out.  She was impressed with how much better the outside looked, and then she poked around a lot inside.  There's still some swelling in there--one cheek is definitely thicker than the other--but she remarked that it was so much better.  She wondered if it was just a blocked salivary gland all that time.  Or maybe it was just a long-lasting viral thing.  No one's quite sure, but it was encouraging it was better.  The dentist agreed, so I guess we're okay for now.  We have no idea what just happened, although I'm going to push for the Celiac test regardless, and obviously I'm still going to keep a watchful eye on him.  He's got 12-year molars starting to come through but half of his baby molars are either out or loose now, so he could have a crazy few months ahead on the dental front regardless.  He might not be chewing much for a bit!  But for this particular issue, clearly their reaction was a huge relief but I can't let go of it completely just yet.  

But for that particular weekend, I felt like we were okay to move forward if I could make it work.  So I came home, talked to Craig, and found one of the cheap hotel deals I'd been eyeing up.  It wasn't the best but I figured it was worth a shot.  I booked it, packed us up in about 30-45 minutes, and we headed out!  It wasn't quite the same adrenaline rush trip as last year, although the circumstances were oddly similar.  We stopped for lunch in Erie and grabbed some Taco Bell to fuel us up for the second half of the trip.  We hit some dark clouds and rain along the way and then some traffic around Cleveland, and I was convinced it was just the beginning of another patience-testing trip like we'd had the previous trip.  I wasn't wrong, but thankfully the traffic never got too bad and the weather was fine past Cleveland, and before we knew it, we were there!  We arrived a little after 4pm, which was a couple hours earlier than last year.

Of course, as soon as we got there my phone decided to lose its mind.  I went to open our passes to get through the parking gate and suddenly my app was just opening up to a black screen.  And the Cedar Point passes that were in my Apple Wallet a month or so earlier (when I mistakenly tapped them instead of our Darien Lake passes) were nowhere to be found.  I was so confused.  Luckily I mentioned we were season passholders and the lady at the gate let us through.  I finally got to WiFi near the gate so the passes worked there.  I eventually figured out I blew through 2GB of data in the prior week because of all the stuff I had to do on our vacation.  I ordered more but oddly it never showed up on my phone.  That meant I didn't have data the whole rest of the trip, which came back to haunt me a bit, but at least in the park there was WiFi everywhere.  My phone's helpline had all sorts of excuses and eventually blamed a data outage, but when my plan autorenewed a couple days later, that data showed up...but the data I bought still hasn't, so I have that battle to fight yet to get my money back or get it loaded.  Anyway...

It was sort of fun because we were a week or so closer than last year to their HalloWeekends coming up, so a lot of the holiday decor was up.  

One of the fun things they do is their Dead Ride Cemetery that includes headstones and actual pieces of old rides.  It was pretty funny to see them all and brought back some good memories.

And of course, there was this.

That big spike was just a few footers with a couple bottom pieces of steel last year.

That big spike is the reason we entertained the idea of coming back this year in the first place--Top Thrill 2 was supposed to be open after a full redo, and we were dying to ride it.  But a couple weeks after it opened this year, something wasn't working as planned, and they closed it.  It was supposed to be temporary, but a couple weeks ago they announced it would remain closed all summer.  Booooo.  At this point I just hope they figure it out, ever.  Same with Steel Curtain at Kennywood, which we loved two years ago and was closed all year with major issues, too.

Couldn't resist!

In addition to wanting the TT2 rush to ease up, the other main reason we put off this trip to the end of August in the first place is because most of Ohio was back in school and I knew lines would be way shorter than the rest of the summer.  Sure enough, we got in and every line was about a half hour or less!  Most were walk-ons!  We immediately walked to the back of the park and got on Maverick, the ride where we waited the longest last time and was the most likely culprit of my COVID infection last year (unless it was Carter, who started sniffling en route).  The half hour wait was much better, and the ride hurt me way less too!  It was actually a lot of fun!  

Beauty shot of Steel Vengeance from the line

Nice view of Maverick from the exit--so many twists!

We also rode Steel Vengeance with a maybe 20 minute wait, which was amazing too.  That ride is so incredible and may have officially overtaken Millennium Force as my favorite! 

So steep!

Speaking of Millennium Force, we went there next for another quick 20 minute wait, but just as we got to the front of the line, they stopped loading people, moved the current passengers back to the platform, and spent about 10-15 minutes running empty trains with a maintenance guy on the phone.  That was frustrating, but we were right there so we just waited it out.  Again, more patience!  Finally they announced they were resuming, and we finally got our ride.  It was a little rougher than I'd hoped, but that drop is still incredible.

The pictures the rest of the day get a little scarce because my phone didn't charge properly on the drive so it was dying rapidly most of the rest of the day--and I needed to get us to the hotel that night!  We focused on getting as many big coasters done as we could.  We did Raptor (the suspended floorless coaster) and Valravn (the dive coaster), both with much shorter waits than last year.  Valravn had a lovely sunset shaping up while we were on it, but that also meant the bugs were coming out!  We were in the second row and still got nailed by a swarm at the end.  I only ate one but was able to fish it out.  Yuck.  What a lovely view, though.  I couldn't pick a favorite, so here you go...

We rode the Wild Mouse and Gate Keeper, which were both fun in their own ways.  There was a teenage boy and his mom in our Wild Mouse car and he was adorably nervous.  We had a fun little ride with them.  Gate Keeper is just a massive rush, and we've yet to do it during the day!  Then we hit up Rougaou (the floorless coaster which I am pretty much done with...ouch) and Iron Dragon (my first Cedar Point favorite, the suspended coaster) as time wound down for the night.  In line for Iron Dragon I snapped this picture, which was in a similar position to one I took of Carter last year when the first pieces of steel for the TT2 spike were in.

We also did a late night ride on the drop side of Power Tower (purple one below), which was fun and momentarily terrifying as always.

Two towers and Corkscrew

With tired feet we hopped on the Sky Ride for one last ride to get closer to the gate.  The views were lovely.
  

I snapped a picture of the lit carousel on our way out, and we called it a night!

We stopped for some food at McDonald's on the way off the peninsula because I didn't really eat dinner and Carter is always hungry.  Carter wanted a McFlurry and I settled on getting a Happy Meal because Carter wanted the fries and I just wanted the burger and the chocolate milk.  Turned out our hotel was really close by, but I missed it on the first pass because the sign was hard to see and it was right at an awkward intersection.  I ended up driving further up the road to find a good spot to turn around, but it turned out it was the same main drag where we ate a few times last year, so we scoped it out for breakfast and other future possibilities.  I got gas at the same moose-themed station (with a Dunkin' inside), and then we headed back to the hotel.  

The hotel was...unimpressive.  Not that I expected much for the price, but the reviews had been good enough.  It was adequate for what we needed, but I was thankful Jacob was not with us because he would have flipped.  It was an old style, outdoor entry motel.  At least the front desk guy was super friendly and we even got free waters!  Our room, however, was the tiniest hotel room I have ever had.  Two double beds, but no wall space next to one and just a little near the window on the other.  The air conditioner was literally hanging on the wall over my bed, and it was incredibly loud.  The bathroom was basically a closet--it had a normal tub but the toilet probably had no more than 18 inches of space in front of it, and the sink was tighter as the wall was at an angle.  I guess there was more room than usual at the foot of the beds, between them and the desk and fridge, because it was more of a square room than usual.  It also had a couple plain cushioned wooden chairs, and that was about it.  It wasn't terrible, just a little beat up.  It wasn't dirty but there was dust on the bedside lights.  It really just needs a coat of paint and some sprucing up, like better hiding of the air conditioner wires, patching up the wall  scuffs a bit, and replacing the tissue box cubby in the bathroom (it was an empty metal hole in the wall).  But for just sleeping it wouldn't have been terrible had the air conditioner not been so darn loud.  There was also this one small fly we could never quite kill.  I got smart on night two and turned the thermostat up so the air only had to run a couple times.  But that first night it kept me up, and it got an assist from a super loud thunderstorm that passed through.

When I woke up on Saturday, I was a year older.  Yes, it was my birthday!  And at least I got to spend it with my favorite ride buddy!  We slept later than would have been ideal, but I was tired and clearly so was he.  We got Dunkin' for breakfast and made our way to the park.

This time I had my parking pass ready to go, and I had to get the money shot at the gate!

Their pass reader must flag birthdays because when we scanned in, I got wished a Happy Birthday!  Felt like a little touch of Disney!  It was sort of a blah morning weather-wise.  It was cloudy for quite a bit and we felt a couple drops, but it started to clear up late morning and just got hot.  We rode Millennium Force again while the line was short-ish, and this ride was much better.  We loved the back car!  We got on Blue Streak after that, which is always a good but bumpy time.

Lines were definitely longer already that day as it was a weekend.  I expected that, and had tried to tell myself that whatever we did over the course of the weekend was just a bonus, but it got a little frustrating when we were crisscrossing the park trying to ride things and find food but getting a bit stuck.  We tackled Cedar Downs, which we always love (Carter won!)...

And then did the antique cars, where I was once again chauffeured.

I don't think we had one rail bump, so he did a good job!

We did the "up" side of Power Tower, then hopped on Gemini.  I still love that they use the old banners there with that classic font and the old symbols Cedar Point used on a few of their marquee rides.  

Oh, and when we got in line, the slingshot next door was stuck in mid-air!  I've sort of always wanted to try one, partly because my father has long been obsessed with the POV videos of riders on the internet, but it scares me to death, and seeing that didn't help!  What a nightmare that would be!  They did start lowering them within maybe 10 minutes.  Gemini was pretty great though, and it felt a little smoother to me than last year.

One of my goals was to ride the Frontier Station leg of the train because there are funny skeleton setups over there and we missed them last time.  I didn't expect to get this gorgeous shot of Millennium Force!

And the skeletons were cute.  Everyone jokes how this guy has been (badly) fighting the fire in the building (zoom to see the fire in the windows) for decades!

We had a few struggles with ride lines and food as the afternoon dragged on, although our eventual chicken fingers and fries were good, but eventually we decided it was time to try the waterpark.  I hadn't been there since my friend Lois and I went back in 2001.  We had fun then, and a lot has been added and changed since, including the name, but I hoped we'd have a good time.

Well...that was not exactly how it went.  First, it was annoying to find a changing room, and then when we went to grab a locker, I realized they were all $22 all day lockers instead of the cheaper short-term ones in the rest of the park.  We were only going to be there for a few hours!  Ugh.  It was bad enough that I had to pay $3 a pop out in the park for lockers on all of the coasters where they don't allow bags into the line at all.  Some have cubbies up on the platform, but I'm convinced the ones that don't are strategically placed all over the park so you can't do two rides per locker rental unless you add time or want to walk a ton.  It's a scam and it's one of the things that pisses me off the most because they're actively trying to screw you over.  But $22 for something that used be a couple quarters each time you opened it just grinds my gears like little else.  Anyway, then we found out a bunch of slides and a lazy river were closed because it's the end of the season and most of their lifeguards went back to college.  The slides that were open were really slow.  We did do the not-so-lazy river, which was an old favorite of mine--it has a lot of water features and even a wave pool section that's really fun--but eventually gave up on the big round raft slide because the line never moved for 10 minutes aside from the people who quit the line.  

We moved over to the other side of the park and did the racing slides, which actually weren't as terrible as I remembered.  I still remember getting splashed in the face pretty good, but this time wasn't bad.  Looking back now at old pictures, I think pretty much every slide has been replaced since I was there, so it probably wasn't the same one anyway!  We tried to ride one where the floor drops out like Darien Lake's Brain Drain, but they said I couldn't wear my watch.  Trust me, it's not going anywhere--I have worn it on all manner of slides and it never moved!  But I was not hauling halfway across the park to put it in the locker, and it was probably just as well because the line was terrible. The other slide in that section looked awesome--a steep tube slide--but there were no tubes available and we only saw a handful of people come down despite watching for a really long time as we waited in line for the slides across the way.  The line never got shorter, even as closing time approached.  We went on the blue and orange ones in the picture below--Carter on orange and me on blue.  They weren't bad, but again, the wait was long.  The rest of the slides in that cluster were closed.
 

One cool thing about the water park is that Magnum runs through it.  We watched repeatedly as people cringed (and laughed) in pain on the last few airtime hills near the end, where it kills your thighs.

We wrapped up the waterpark with another set of tube slides.  Those were actually pretty fun.  But the park closed an hour earlier than Darien's does, and Carter never got to do the kids lily pad walk, not to mention the other ones we got shut out on.  To add insult to injury, we tried another changing room since ours had a line, and that one had no rooms with benches in the bathrooms, just showers.  I can't change without putting things down so I had no choice but to wait endlessly for a family changing room, leaving Carter out waiting on a bench.  That was super frustrating too.  With how good Cedar Point's operations usually are, I was shocked at how bad that waterpark experience was.  I think they don't let people slide until the previous person is completely out of the pool, which is so weird and makes things SO slow.  Six Flags is usually the bad one, and this was light years worse than anything I've ever seen at Darien Lake.

When we came out of the water park, ride lines were long but we needed to grab some food anyway.  We had a quick dinner--corn dogs and fries for Carter, and really good Dole Whip and Carter's extra fries for me--while debating our options.  The line was still oddly long for Magnum, so we figured the best use of our time was one more ride on Steel Vengeance because we know it's always worth it.  I'd much rather wait 45 minutes for a sure winner than one that's going to hurt me.  Of course, the most amazing sunset happened while we were in line, and since no phones are allowed, I missed the best part of it.  But we did have a great view from the top of the stairs near the platform so I tried to take it all in as we stood there.  We also had a gorgeous view from the lift hill with the park lights coming on on one side, and the sunset and the lake on the other.  The ride was incredible, although it was bug time again and I was oddly relieved we were placed in the second row of the first car, and not the front.  Sure enough, the first hill I felt a bug hit my head, and next thing I saw was the front row passengers covering their mouths for most of the rest of the ride!  Yikes!  I did manage to snag this shot when we got off...

And I got the tail-end of the sunset here, too.  It was so pretty!

We eventually gave up on riding Magnum because the line was still inexplicably long.  I swear it was perpetually 15 minutes or less most of our trip last year when everything else was busier, so I have no idea what happened this time.  It was a bummer, but my thighs were grateful.  We also skipped the Cedar Creek Mine Ride as that was not worth the wait, and Corkscrew, which is concussion city for me.  We also missed out on the ferris wheel and Windseeker (the high swings), which was a bit of a bummer, but again, anything we did was really a bonus so I was grateful for the opportunity to ride what we did.

We did one more Gemini ride because the line was short.  Once again, we had the most glorious view from the top of the ride.  The sunset was still there on the horizon, but just in really deep hues.  The clouds were a dark reddish-purple.  The lights of the park and especially Steel Vengeance were amazing.  It was one of the prettiest things I have ever seen, but again...no camera allowed!

We headed back to the boardwalk section of the park for one last sweep. I sort of liked this blurred shot of Corkscrew I got on the way.

I wanted to try to get more fun pics and animations of the ferris wheel and Windseeker like I accidentally did last year, and briefly entertained another ride on Gate Keeper, but by then I was so over the stupid locker policy that we skipped it.  I settled for a few more pictures...

And a couple fun loop videos...

We wrapped up the night with some souvenir shopping.  Carter wanted two different Snoopy Lego-type sets to go with the one he got last year.  In the end I bought one and he was going to pay for the other.  Speaking of which, I still need to get paid!  I was heavily debating whether I was going to get myself a souvenir.  I really wanted a building block version of the front car of Steel Vengeance, but wasn't sure it was really worth it.  But it was sold out online and it was my birthday, darn it, so I got it!  I suppose my birthday was a bit of an understated one.  I guess the whole weekend was a bit of a celebration, but I sort of forgot for half the day that it was my birthday.  A second birthday wish when we scanned into the waterpark reminded me, though!  After four straight birthdays on the road, I might be ready for one at home! 

 

We headed out of the park and back to our little hotel room for the night.  Oh, and by the way, the SyFy channel was showing a Harry Potter marathon all weekend and Carter is now weirdly interested in it.  Maybe I can convince him to read the books!  But if not, I'm sure he'll want to see all the movies and then he'll be ready whenever we make it to Universal Studios!  We got a better night's sleep and slept in a bit the next morning.

We could have gone back to Cedar Point for one more run, but I think we were sort of ridden-out by then, with sore feet and a bit of sun (it was sneaky when the clouds cleared on Saturday and I got a little toasty before I remembered to put on sunscreen).  Had we woken up early I might have considered it more, even just for those last few rides before it got busy, but we also thought about trying to go to the Pirates-Guardians game or the Museum of Illusions since Cleveland has one too, but I would rather do the Guardians stadium as a family and both options were a bit pricey, which I felt bad about after a weekend's expenditures on a hotel room, food, lockers, and souvenirs.  I had also considered stopping in to see my parents, but my dad ended up with COVID so that was out too. 

Ultimately we decided to just go home and get an extra evening there.  We were going to Buffalo on Labor Day for Craig's dad's birthday, so a little extra home time felt badly needed.  I spent most of the morning chatting with customer service about my phone.  I didn't end up with much resolution, so I had no choice but to do my best to plan ahead while I had WiFi at the hotel.  It took so long that we checked out just in time.  We stopped at the Aldi down the road because Ohio Aldis have cheap wine and I wanted to stock up on the ones I'd seen people raving about for months.  Then we had to get just a quick, small breakfast--again at Dunkin'--because we wanted to hit up Raising Cane's on the far side of Cleveland about an hour or so later for lunch.  

Well, everything seemed fine until I realized that the Raising Cane's I had mapped out was not in fact the one I wanted.  I thought I had tapped the farthest one east, but somehow it took me to one that was still on the west side of Cleveland.  I wanted one a bit farther away to break up the drive a bit better, but of course I didn't have data to map out a new one.  We probably just should have sucked it up and stayed there, but no...I drove across the street to the Giant Eagle, very annoyed, and used their WiFi to map out another one.  I opted for the second to last one along our route because it was closer to the highway than the last one.  So off we went again, this time using the old school GPS I had tucked in my glove compartment.  It's not reliable for looking up current businesses, but it works for routes and traffic and turned out to be very helpful.

Interestingly, our route took us a different way than I've ever gone, coming into Cleveland from the west along the lake.  That meant we got a nice view of the football stadium!

We also got a glimpse of the science museum and Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.  We passed by an airport along the lake that was hosting an air show, and I'd like to think we somehow also bypassed a bunch of baseball traffic, too.  Not a bad detour, if we had to take one!  We finally got past the city and headed toward Raising Cane's.  But when we got there it looked oddly empty.  I guess I didn't look closely enough when I grabbed the address because it's brand new and not opening for at least another month!  Noooo...not again.  On the bright side, there was a Burger King next door where I could get WiFi and I knew there was still one more further east, the one we went to last year, so I popped that into the GPS, and off we went again!

Finally, at long last, we arrived at a functional Raising Cane's and executed our plan to split a chicken finger meal and a sandwich, and had a lovely lunch.  It really is good.  Carter wanted me to take a picture of this Snoopy-fied drawing of what I believe is the founder and his dog to show to Craig, the big Peanuts fan.

We headed home and listened to a painful Pirates game en route.  They were no-hit for more than half the game (and ironically did get no-hit a few days later) and the Guardians broadcaster was so annoying.  They lost pretty badly.  We decided to stop in Fredonia for a bathroom break since it was one of the last spots with easy access off the highway for another hour or so, and I had drunk a lot of Dr. Pepper.  I noticed clouds getting really dark along the lake as we got closer.  We decided to go into the Aldi there (I ended up purchasing a couple cheap mums to replace my rapidly dying hanging plants), and while we were in the store, the skies opened up!  We paid and then stood in the doorway for about 10 minutes waiting for it to get at least tolerable enough to run through.  It was really coming down hard and I didn't really want a damp ride home.  We struck up a nice chat with someone else as we stood there and finally, all of a sudden, it just stopped.  With that, we went to the car and started our last leg.  

The only other thing of note from the drive was that I saw something weird as we approached Batavia.  At first I thought it might be fireworks because I could see a flash and some smoke, and it kept moving further over in the sky.  As we got closer I realized it was a plane, and then I realized it was a plane doing stunts.  I didn't find out until later that it was part of an actual air show (I had a friend who attended).  

That killed a few minutes of the drive, though, just trying to figure that out.  

It was a relief to get home and start unpacking.  I did finally get my birthday presents--flowers, a funny pair of socks, and a book called "What Would Velma Do?" since the boys always compare me to Velma from Scooby-Doo.  Apparently Carter and Craig found that at Barnes and Noble while killing time during Jacob's ER visit.  Luckily they found it cheaper on Amazon and were very excited when it arrived the previous week, but I put off opening it until after my birthday so I still had something to look forward to.  

As I mentioned, we went to Buffalo on Monday to celebrate Craig's dad's birthday.  His Aunt Marie hosted (because of the family weirdness) and it was fun because her kids and grandkids were there, so we got some bonus time with them and another aunt and uncle too.  After that we just had one more day left before things got real and it was back to the grind.  But it was nice to get one official last adventure to close out our summer!