Thoughts from Quarantine

Quarantine has been an odd experience.  I guess it's interesting to be on this end after five rounds of it (well, actually four since we didn't do full-on quarantine for Jacob's Christmas infection) on the other side, but yeah, it's not great.

I mean, on the bright side, I haven't had to cook since Tuesday, I found time to update my family reunion family tree, and I've watched far more movies than I have ever seen in a three-day span.  It came in a little handy since there were some movies I was supposed to watch leading up to Disney, and I did well blowing through them: Tron, Tron 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, Encanto, Moana.  I've thrown in a couple fun ones, too.  I'd been waiting to watch Ticket to Paradise for a while and finally got that one, and I hadn't seen Invincible or 10 Things I Hate About You in a while.  What else is there to do in my room for hours on end, right?  It was nice at times, sure, because a lot of these had been on my list for a while and I never slow down enough to focus for that long.  But in reality, there were other things I would have preferred to be doing after a while.

In theory it was nice to have a free pass to not do all the things I'm usually responsible for.  But even for a mom who rarely gets to do things like this alone, it gets old.  I'm sort of annoyed we're spending so much money on eating out, and I'm getting a little sick of it...which isn't good since we have another whole week of that ahead of us.  The boys have insisted they're keeping the house running downstairs and yet every time I go down there I notice crumbs on the counter or table, dishes stacked high in the sink, and things left untouched.  We got a new fridge delivered yesterday, which ended up being a huge debacle.  Between getting ice and putting everything into every cooler we owned, to cleaning out the fridge (admittedly, it was gross), to the whole process of disconnecting the old one and realizing there was an issue connecting the new one, getting in an emergency plumber, removing all the shrink wrap and taped-in shelves, and finally restocking the fridge and managing emptying of the coolers, it was such a process, and I ended up doing a lot of it myself, partly for safety and partly because I was the only one with the attention to detail to do it.  And when I came down the next morning, Craig had taken care of most of the coolers and ice, but there was still all the papers and stuff all over the counter.  The boys would get annoyed with me every time I came down for something, but usually I needed to and each time there was something I felt compelled to clean up.  It's not that they weren't doing anything, I'm sure, but what they were doing barely scratched the surface of the things they're used to me doing and probably didn't even think about having to do.  It was a weird week so I can't entirely blame them, but clearly we need to work on seeing an issue and doing something about it.  Anyway, I tried to chip away whenever I went downstairs.  Otherwise I'd have a million things to do Sunday when I'm released from isolation.  

Speaking of which, packing is extremely hard and is going to end up very last minute.  I got my clothes together and I have lists ready to go, but there is so much I need to do out in the house (and maybe out in public).  I ended up going outside today so I could unmask for a bit and do trimming around the yard that needed to be done before we left, and even take a walk to just be a little more active.  But there's still more that I need to do last minute.  Plant watering (and maybe setting up some extra watering, just in case), dish washing, maybe some last minute laundry for Carter, wash sheets so our bed is clean for both of us when we get back, and just run freely around the house to gather up all the randomness that needs to come with us, like our fans, charging cables, cooling towels, band-aids, etc.  It's going to be a lot.

As a whole this experience has been more mentally challenging than physically challenging.  I only had about 24 hours of more intense sickness, and even that was just "bad cold" level...or even more just "normal cold and bad headache".  It's improved relatively quickly and I'm hopeful that will be it.  But this whole time it's been in the back of my mind--from the rib/lung pain I had the first night until now--whether something more serious could come out of this.  I've known too many people with lasting effects of COVID and it's been my biggest fear all along.  From fatigue to heart stuff to the taste thing (obviously smell is already a done deal) to brain fog, any of it has worried me in some way.  I keep waiting for something to happen, and thankfully it has not yet so I'm hoping I'm in the clear.  But it's still a worry.  And in the meantime I've had to worry about the rest of my family getting sick, which thankfully hasn't happened and hopefully won't.  Of course, then I read about how school districts are already closing less than a month into the school year due to absences from respiratory illnesses like COVID, RSV, and flu, so clearly things are circulating.

It's been hard being isolated from everyone and unable to talk about the trip or just communicate at length about almost everything.  I'm looked at accusingly whenever I come downstairs for any reason.  I know why, but it's still not fun.  It's just not realistic for me to stay in a room for five days.  Maybe they were closer to being able to do that when they were isolating, but again, there are too many things around the house that I need to sort of be involved with.  And I wasn't exactly being waited on hand and foot so I still needed to bring back dishes or refill water.  We also didn't have the smoothest initial discussion on how I would isolate, which led to all sorts of weirdness and spaces switching purposes midweek.  Like, I couldn't go into my bedroom entirely because work station was downstairs, and I couldn't use the basement for work or the bathroom because they wanted that space, but later they had second thoughts and sent me down there to use the bathroom and work, which made that space off-limits for them even though I was only using the parts of it with closed doors.  It's all just been odd and awkward.  The release from isolation will be helpful, but it will only bring a bit more relief if I can test negative and worry less about masking.

None of this is how I wanted to lead into this trip.  I wanted this to be a fun week and it was clearly not.  I wanted to be organized and ahead of the game, and I'm not.  I wanted to be excited, and between COVID and the weather, I'm definitely not.  We put a lot of eggs in this basket and it's not looking promising at the moment.  I want to be all laid back and just go with the flow, but that's not how Disney vacations are for me because I'm not spending thousands to sit in a hotel room, or even by a pool, and hang out.  I can do that for a lot less elsewhere.  This just isn't what I wanted and it all just feels a little doomed right now.  On the other hand, I had a realization on my walk tonight.  I was sort of pondering with God what on earth I'm supposed to be learning from this situation.  I'm still annoyed that my leap of faith was squashed so forcefully and I'm just frustrated at the thought that my lesson is to not do fun things when you have the chance, or to always err on the side of caution.  That's already such a battle for me so I don't know why that would be reinforced.  But I had the thought that maybe God is telling me that a) there's no sense worrying about things so much ahead because they're either going to happen or not, and since you don't have that much control, there's no sense wasting the worry until it happens (which, obviously COVID did); and b) you can have this terrible thing pop up that stands to ruin everything and actually have it not ruin everything.  Whether that is actually the case remains to be seen with both COVID and the weather.  Maybe a weather situation would actually be a fun experience, and I need to try to find the positives in something like that if it happens, but I still worry there will be a sense of loss either way.  I hope I can hop on here in a week or so and be like, "it was the best ever", but I can't say I'm confident right now.  Hopefully the magic takes over and it's all good...but we'll see.  Praying for a negative test in the morning and a smooth trip to follow...

About Tuesday...

At the end of my last post I lamented Tuesday.  Why?  Well...during the day it became apparent that the cold I assumed I caught from Carter was sticking in there.  I felt mostly fine, but just had congestion and a runny nose, just like he had.  My stomach was a little off, but that can happen with me from time to time, though it doesn't usually last all day like it did.  But as a whole I felt fine and it seemed to be following what Carter was dealing with over the weekend, albeit with a rumbly stomach and a couple bathroom trips around each meal.  We went to Carter's baseball night and my parents actually came in to see him play.  They were going to come in last week when they were south of Rochester at their friends' lake cottage, but they were a bit tired after a hike at Stony Brook so they went home.  But Tuesday was a lovely night so they made the drive out on the more scenic northern route to see him play.  It was nice to see them and catch up, and Carter had a couple good plays, so they enjoyed it.

I was getting a little more tired by the end of the game, and my nose was running a bit more (again, just like Carter where it would spontaneously run out of the blue).  Jacob had training so he and Craig left separately, and Carter and I went home.  As I sat in my chair, all of a sudden I started getting chills.  It wasn't quite teeth-chattering bad, but it was uncomfortable and lasted a while.  I didn't have a fever, though.  I texted Craig and pondered whether I should send him for a COVID test on their way home.  In the end he grabbed a few and I headed toward bed early and took a test with me.  Much to my agony, the test line showed up almost immediately, even quicker and darker than the control line.  Noooooooooo.  Why now?!  I avoided COVID (for the most part) for three and a half years and I get it now, a week ahead of our trip to Disney?  Seriously?!  

Of course this set off some panic throughout the house, from wondering what this meant for the trip and also how we were going to keep me quarantined.  Jacob was beside himself, and I felt soooo guilty.  I can't even describe the feeling of sadness and anger and dread.  It took me forever to go to sleep and my heart rate was elevated all night--nothing dangerous, but something akin to what my walking heart rate normally is, but it happened while I was trying to lay down and relax.  I wasn't sure if it was stress or COVID.  Plus I had this strange pain under my left ribs that hurt most when I tried to take a deep breath.  I was irrationally worried it was a blood clot in my lung (because COVID does weird stuff), or maybe a COVID lung issue in general.  Fortunately that went away by morning, but it tortured me most of the night.  I woke up from what little sleep I had around 5:30am with a splitting headache, so I took some medicine and tried to go back to sleep.  I maybe got in a little more rest after that, but had to get up and do some work in the morning because I had a lot to wrap up before vacation and I didn't really have the choice to not do it.  So as long as I could feel functional, I needed to work.  I made it through about half the morning and took a nap, and then worked again after lunch until about 3:30 when I was almost done with the biggest thing I needed to do, and felt like I needed another nap, which lasted until about 5pm.  I just felt generally crappy.  The headache was really hard to work through.  I was a little achy and tired, and still congested.  

I spent the night in my room and watched a couple movies (including one I needed to see before Disney), and actually finally got a decent night of sleep.  I think I slept until about 7:30 without more than some rollover wakeups.  But when I woke up the headache had retreated to just a bit below the surface.  My energy level felt better, and even the congestion wasn't as bad.  I think my drainage has moved into my throat a little because I have little coughing fits and more throat clearing right now.  But as a whole I felt a lot better today.  I had a little return of the congestion, but that seemed to lay off again too.  I'm hoping the progress continues, but COVID isn't always a linear recovery, so we'll see.  I think I can be functional by the time we go, but whether I will have "Disney energy" remains to be seen.  Adrenaline will help, but I may have to be a bit more careful and selective about what we do.  At least it might keep me closer to my family's energy level, which I think was sort of the case when Craig and I went when I was pregnant--I was just down enough energy that I didn't run him as ragged as I normally would have, which likely kept us both on the same page more easily.  

As a whole, I hate feeling like I'm poisonous to my family.  The thought that my breath or touch could get them sick is hard.  I usually get the evil eye every time I come out of whatever room I'm quarantining in, even though everyone is masked.  I'm the last one in the family to have to go through this, and in some ways it's easier and in some ways it's harder.  I never liked seeing them suffer, so being the one in this position now just feels like it was my turn.  On the other hand, I guess I don't mind some solo, guilt-free down time.  The fact I watched two movies two nights in a row is a little mind-blowing and pretty much something I can't remember ever doing.  But I hate that this is happening now.  How did I avoid it for so long and end up with this extra-crappy timing?  

So, the main fear right now is whether anyone else is going to get it.  We have the odd record here of no one ever catching it within our house, five times running.  Every time someone has been sick, no one else has caught it even though there was ample opportunity each time.  I worry so much that this will be the time that's not the case, and probably JUST in time to mess up our trip even more.  We tested Carter immediately that first night and he was negative.  But he was with me in the car twice that night, I slept next to Craig Monday night, and I sat at the dinner table with everyone Tuesday, so it's possible everyone could have been exposed.  I guess we'll probably know by Saturday or so if anyone's going to get it.  At that point we'd probably have to cancel our trip, but we're hoping that's not the case.  Everyone has been masking around the house since I got my positive test, even though I'm masking and we're keeping distance for the most part.  It's hard in our house since we only have one full bath and just a half downstairs.  But we determined it was easier for me to sleep in our room and use the downstairs bathroom.  For whatever reason the boys all slept in the basement the first night as everyone was decompressing from the bad news, and in the living room the next night.  I don't know why the kids aren't sleeping in their rooms, but whatever--I guess everyone is a little discombobulated.  Working has been a challenge as my workspace is in the dining room and I had work that needed my big screen.  I did work those few hours in the afternoon there yesterday, about 15-20 feet away from everyone else, but the boys decided they should give up the basement so I could move down to my desk in the basement office for the rest of the week because they felt safer that way.  It's still hard to have me be the quarantined one because I'm the main cook and house manager, and no one is serving me quite like I served everyone else when they were quarantined.  I have to go to the kitchen because no one is picking up my dishes or bringing me snacks.  We ordered out dinner the last two nights.  I'd probably have felt good enough to cook today but the boys are pretty skittish about me being around or touching anything, so I guess we'll keep eating out.

My other personal fear, assuming we go, is that I'm dreading having to wear a mask in Florida.  It wouldn't be the whole time, as my 10 days will end mid-trip, but with the heat there (and possibly being a bit lower energy as it is), I'm just not sure how I will do it.  I sit and sweat in my 75 degree room wearing a mask, so 100 is going to be much harder.  I'm actually hoping I can test negative before we go so I can be a bit more selective about when I mask.  I was going to wear one on the plane anyway, but sharing and sleeping in essentially one big space is not ideal (around a larger corner, but still), and I'd feel better about that if I'm testing negative.  The heat will be horrible so hopefully outside I can mostly be unmasked, but inside I will probably need to do it for a bit, especially if a space is too tight.  It's super frustrating but I suppose it's a small price to pay for still being able to go.  

I'm still pondering how I got it.  Obviously in retrospect the Cedar Point trip seems stupid now.  If I could go back in time I'd probably buy the passes and try to go in September.  I'm mad at myself.  But we went to Darien Lake a bunch this summer and nothing happened, so why should this really have been any different?  Yet it's odd to me that I got it and Carter didn't since we spent the entire weekend together.  We were in the same lines and spaces, so why me and not him?  He last had COVID in October so maybe he had enough just antibodies left that it helped him?  The other theory is that he actually had it first but was barely affected and then gave it to me.  That would make sense that our colds were similar, but it's amazing to me that he would have already tested negative Tuesday, so soon after.  But I don't know where he would have gotten it since he wasn't that out and about last week.  We thought he actually caught a slight cold that Jacob had, so maybe Jacob had COVID from basketball stuff?  If that was the case, it's possible he wasn't too affected because he last had it in March and would have still had decent antibodies.  But if he had it, Craig would have likely caught it.  He had sniffles last week, too, but nothing along these lines.  So, who knows.  We may never know.

Psychologically, this has been a frustrating experience for me.  I was nervous about going on the Cedar Point trip, but I felt like that was more my anxiety talking than anything.  My brain often goes to the worst case scenario, and then I need to walk it back a bit and figure out what's actually logical.  We'd been to Darien Lake three times this summer and nothing like this happened.  Most of the trip would be outdoors.  I felt like Craig and Jacob actually had more of a risk given they'd be inside and with a lot of people all weekend in Canada.  Heck, we sat in dozens of basketball games all winter, Jacob and I toured the midwest in the spring, and we went to Disney last year when COVID was still a thing (ha, the irony) and barely took precautions but didn't get it.  Why should this trip be any different?  I prayed about it and eventually decided to just trust God that he would protect us.  So, to say I am disappointed would be an understatement.  It's not often that I get mad at God.  Disappointed, confused, frustrated, yes...but mad doesn't happen very often.  But I'll be honest, I did feel a little anger that He let this happen.  Maybe that's unfair, but it just felt like a complete betrayal.  I know that's not what it is, but it was a little soul-crushing to have this happen when I purposely tried to not live in fear.  I felt like I was stepping out in faith to keep a promise to my kid and give him a great experience.  Then the exact one big fear I had came to be almost immediately.  It's not great for my anxiety or my mental state to live with that, because it will only reinforce those hesitations next time and, again, that's not how I want to live.  I don't want to let fear drive everything because I always have to work so hard against it anyway.  I just can't understand why this happened this way.  Part of me is like, if we don't end up going, is God saving us from something else?  I did see there could be a tropical disturbance headed toward Florida next week (though hopefully more along the west coast/panhandle area), so maybe if we end up not going it was for a bigger reason.  I don't know.  I overthink things.  But it was disheartening that I tried to get out of my anxious, fearful hesitancy and initially it seemed perfect...until it wasn't and it totally bit me in the butt.

The problem is, in the meantime I'm too scared to pack anything.  I don't want to get ahead of myself only to do that sad unpacking that comes with a disappointing last-minute change in plans.  Maybe by Saturday I'll feel confident enough to do it, but I just can't yet.  I probably need to get my lists all organized in the meantime so when I try to do it, I'm ready.  I really wanted to try to get a new backpack to wear in the parks to spare my shoulders the agony of my drawstrings, but I can't do it until Sunday so that may not happen.  I never did have a chance to figure out if Jacob needs any school supplies, nor have I been able to get him to try on any of his new pants.  I'm just all out of sorts now and clearly not willing to tempt fate again by packing early.  Oh, and we're getting a new fridge tomorrow and supposedly I'm not allowed to help with emptying it or being around for the delivery.  I might need to call our plumber, too, because the delivery people may not be able to hook up the water line, so that's going to be a little challenging as well when I'm literally quarantined and bringing him into a COVID house.  That might have to wait until we're home.  This is just a mess of epic proportions right now.  And it's all my fault.  Sigh.  What was supposed to be a fun week of anticipation (even if it was stressful) is just awful, and our trip may follow right along.  WHY?!

We did what?! - Cedar Point, Part 2

When I left off, it was mid-afternoon on Saturday and we were running out of things to ride that didn't involve an hour wait.  After we rode Blue Streak, we needed to figure out how to kill time until dinner, when lines would start decreasing ever so gradually.  We decided to head to Cedar Downs, which is one of my all-time favorite non-coaster rides.  It's like a merry-go-round but it's fast and is more like a horse race!  The horses move back and forth on tracks so each group of four horses are constantly trying to move ahead of each other.  There's even the audio of a horse race in the background.  It's so much better than a typical carousel!  It's such a sweet, classic ride.

 

 

 
We did some preliminary shopping at the awesome Peanuts store across the way, which definitely got us thinking about souvenirs.  We missed out on one at Kennywood and we didn't get much at Disney either, so I didn't feel as bad getting something at Cedar Point.  All I had room for at the moment was a little baseball Snoopy from a Lego-ish knock-off company for Craig, and a set of five pins all featuring Snoopy playing a sport.  They were trading pins (small round button-style) that were five for $6 and we couldn't resist - we got soccer, basketball, baseball, hockey, and even lacrosse!  They're adorable.  Bigger things would wait for when we were walking to the car!

We ventured over to the Boardwalk after that.  It's a brand new section that's been evolving in recent years but just got a full makeover.  It is, appropriately, right up against the beach.

 

The area has definitely evolved over the years.  I remember there being an old bobsled coaster (later enclosed with a futuristic theme) and the Space Spiral observation tower once upon a time, and then later they moved the ferris wheel there and added another coaster, which I never got to ride (that's okay, I've been on a similar one).  That came down a couple years ago to make room for this whole new concept - a very old school midway of fun flat rides, the ferris wheel, and a wild mouse coaster.  It's so happy and colorful and just beautifully done.

We wandered through to consider our options, also taking a detour into another Snoopy-themed kiddie section.

We decided to go on the ferris wheel so I could get some daytime pictures, and then we'd go eat some dinner, so back to the Boardwalk we went.

This is reminiscent of an old Cedar Point entrance sign that is still beloved.

It was a bit of a hot wait, especially because it's a giant wheel and it takes forever to load all the cars, but the line moved consistently and the views from the ferris wheel were amazing.

GateKeeper is the one that goes over the front entrance.  We were excited to ride it later!

So much color!

The view above the whole park never disappoints.  Coasters and fun as far as the eye can see!

 The lake was gorgeous, too.  I tried to take a video, although we weren't high enough to get the full effect:

We took a little walk around the new Grand Pavilion which has some fancy food options, and then walked back out to the main midway to find dinner food.  We ended up having walking tacos because I had just told Carter about them not too long ago and he had been wanting one.  It was a pretty perfect meal, actually--just filling enough.  We walked to the back of the park to check on Maverick again, but discovered that the line for Steel Vengeance was shorter again.  Still 30-45 minutes, but better than the 60-90 it had been most of the day.  We definitely wanted another ride, so we hopped back in line!  This time we were further back on the train, but it was still so much fun (getting pulled down the hill is so much faster!) and we were thrilled to get another ride.  At that point we decided we had no choice but to hop in line for Maverick.  It was one of our last couple big ones and we figured that even the full hour line would leave us plenty of time for late-night riding again like the previous night.  The line seemed pretty endless, and most of it was within an open air wooden structure, which was just a little less comfortable in the COVID era than I would have liked.  Carter already had a little cold that started sometime on Friday (he was a trooper), which I seemed to have acquired by Monday, but I was pretty sure his wasn't COVID because he didn't really go anywhere last week and he was more likely to have caught the sniffles that Jacob already had.  It was definitely a little over an hour, but slowly but surely we made it up to the platform.  

Maverick (the red coaster I had a picture of in my last post) is relatively newer.  It's a launched coaster that's fast, twisty, and generally crazy.  I had no idea what to expect, and while it was worth the wait, I feel like I probably need to ride it again in daylight.  Night is tough when you can't see what's coming and brace yourself.  It had a lot of direction changes that felt a bit whippy, but it sure was exciting!  It launched up the lift hill quite quickly, and also had another launch near the end where the train came into an area under the station and unexpectedly shot back out.  It was pretty crazy but Carter loved it.  My sore legs from Magnum did not appreciate how the restraint was hitting me, so that was a little unpleasant, but I'm so happy we got to ride it.  This was a view from near the end of the queue, looking toward Steel Vengeance.

See all those people in the bottom left?  They had a solid hour wait ahead of them.

We swung back around en route to the Boardwalk and got another walk-on ride on Gemini...and won this time!  Carter was thrilled!  Everything else we needed to ride was on the Boardwalk, so we headed toward Wild Mouse and GateKeeper to see which one was most feasible.  We also wanted to ride WindSeeker, the high swings that are actually higher than Darien Lake's!  

 

We got to ride GateKeeper pretty quickly, which was amazing.  I've never been on a wing coaster before, where you sit to the side of the track, but it was so smooth and swoopy!  I'm so glad we got to ride it because it was down for most of the day on Sunday--in fact, we only saw it running when we walked out of the park!  We went over to Wild Mouse to knock that one off the list, but it was down so we went over to WindSeeker and rode that.  What a gorgeous view!  I had some fun playing around with my phone camera to capture some of the pretty lights in that area.  WindSeeker looked so cool, as did the ferris wheel.  These are just the stills, but I played around with long exposure and boomerang-type effects, which was sort of fun!

 

We made one last stop at Wild Mouse on the way out as they were testing and it looked like it was going to reopen.  Just as we got there, the entrance attendant got a call that they were reopening ONLY for the people who were already in line, the ones that stayed there during the entire down period.  Boo.  Well, I guess that confirmed we had to come back the next day!  And at least we knew our first target, without a doubt.

We had a relatively uneventful night after that--other than that one alarm (fire door?) going off again right before we went to bed.  I slept much better, though.  We decided that we were going to skip the hotel breakfast in the morning because it wasn't that great and we did see a super fun looking Dunkin' en route--it had a giant moose on top!

 

 

It was connected to a gas station where they had a "Mickey Moose" mascot. 

We got an absolutely picture-perfect donut (I literally took a picture but will spare you) and ate our breakfast on the way.  We made our way right to the Wild Mouse.  Once again, it was down.  Ugh.  It's notoriously bad with reliability, which is unfortunate for a brand new ride.  For the record, I spent most of the weekend feeling a little like we were in a game of Roller Coaster Tycoon.  With the park's app showing wait times and when coasters were down, it reminded me of the game.  We even came across puke in one ride queue, which is something that always happens in the game and necessitates a handyman to clean it up.  At one point on Sunday there were a ton of rides down and all I could picture was all the mechanics being dispatched and trying to fix everything!  Luckily, just a few minutes after we got there, the ride reopened and we got in a very short line!  We hit it perfectly.  

Most of the cars are mice and one is the cheese they're chasing.  We got to sit in the cheese car!  The ride was pretty "wild" but it was a lot of fun.  I probably prefer a similar spinning wild mouse at Seabreeze because it has bigger hills, but this was a great ride!

We once again found ourselves in this odd spot where all the lines were getting longer, and it was made worse by all the breakdowns I mentioned earlier.  At one point, GateKeeper, Millennium Force, Wild Mouse, Snake River Falls, Raptor, and a few smaller rides were all down at the same time.  It was incredibly frustrating because we wanted another ride on Millennium Force and would have loved another on GateKeeper, and Carter really wanted to ride Snake River Falls, but they just weren't opening.  In the meantime, we did Cedar Downs again and then did the Cadillac Cars, where Carter was my chauffeur!  The ride was cute because they had a bunch of old-style billboards for car stuff that made punny references to various rides, right down to their format or manufacturer name.  For example, one that referenced Steel Vengeance mentioned that it didn't have a "Mean Streak", which was its former name, or the Valravn one mentions something about Immelman, which is the official name of a type of dive loop element of the coaster.  It was really cute!

We were getting pretty frustrated by this point and started setting a deadline for when we needed to give up and leave.  I decided we should ride the train back to the rear of the park to get us closer to Snake River Falls, the big drop water ride, in the event it reopened soon.

View of Maverick's drop from the train

The train was a nice little ride and I sort of wished we would have done the full loop because one section has some funny skeleton scenery, but this was where we needed to be!  Luckily, right around the time we happened to check Snake River Falls, the line was reopening!  We changed into our suits quickly and got in line.  I was actually wearing my new Disney "wet" sandals that day (my feet needed a sneaker break) and Carter changed into his, and it turned out they performed wonderfully as we both wore them for the last couple hours we were there!  That was nice to test them out.  I feel a lot better about that aspect of our Disney trip now, although I will say that the rest of the weekend was a stark reminder of what we're heading into, between the tired feet, battle against sunburn, the pain of my backpack straps, and the heat (which was only really bad on Sunday, but nowhere near Florida).  I'm a little nervous but hopefully adrenaline gets us through again!  Anyway, Snake River Falls got us SO wet.  I didn't want to pay for yet another locker so I did what I could to keep our bag dry.  I didn't actually succeed with the bag itself, but the stuff was only moderately damp, so it wasn't a complete fail.  There was just a dump of water at the end that completely drenched us!  We changed back out of our suits right away, and when we came out of the changing rooms, I checked my phone and by some miracle, Millennium Force had just reopened and the wait was only about a half hour!  We booked it, though I did grab this pic along the way...how could I not?

Once again, I think the line was longer than advertised, but that was fine.  It was the last thing we were doing and we knew it was worth it.  It was a hot wait at times, as lines are usually only about half to two-thirds shaded, but it went quickly enough.  I wanted to catch a couple pictures and some video while we were there in daylight to capture how close the train comes to the queue and how fast it is when it passes. 

Sometimes it feels a little "blink and you missed it" so here's the photo.

It was a great ride to go out on.  It's so neat in daylight to see the water and whole park from there.  Since our photos after ride #1 were dark, we grabbed a new one.

We wrapped up with some shopping--Carter got a fun Snoopy building set and a keychain, and I got this neat metal model of the park skyline that I will have to very carefully put together one of these days.  We ordered lunch from Steak 'n' Shake, a place Carter has never eaten, and set off to pick that up and get on the road.  We had a five hour drive ahead of us, after all.  Oh, and we stopped at an Aldi quick because they have cheap wine in the Ohio stores and I wanted to try some of it!  The ride was long and pretty cloudy once we hit PA, but overall it still strikes me as better than five hours the other way on the Thruway, for some reason.  We got home around 9:30 after a Mighty Taco dinner stop, and that was it.  Time to unpack and prepare for a busy week ahead!

It really felt like a miracle trip.  We accomplished so much and had such a fantastic time.  It would have been perfect, if only the Tuesday after didn't have to happen...

We did what?! - Cedar Point, Part 1

As I had mentioned, I desperately wanted to get Carter to a good amusement park this summer.  We had a few different thoughts, from Cedar Point to Hersheypark to Canada's Wonderland to other Six Flags parks.  We discounted the Cedar Point idea because their new (refurbished, upgraded) coaster would be ready next year and we preferred to go when that was an option.  The original plan had been to go around the last couple weeks of summer when most schools were back in session, but then that became the Disney timeframe.  We had one last weekend to figure something out, and it just so happened that Craig and Jacob would be gone, so of course a Carter-mom trip sounded ideal!  My first thought was to do a combo of Hersheypark and Knoebel's (which I have never been to but have heard is great) and swing through Binghamton to see my godson and his mama!  But in order to make it work, we'd need to leave late Thursday after Carter's baseball night to get close to Hershey the next morning and have all day Friday there, then swing to Knoebel's Saturday and Binghamton Sunday.  But it also happened to be the Little League World Series so every hotel in the area I could feasibly drive to in 2-3 hours was booked or super expensive.  Ugh.  Then I thought maybe we could tag along with Craig and Jacob up to Canada where Craig had to work, but I started realizing one day would never be enough to get through the crazy lines at Canada's Wonderland, so we'd end up disappointed not being able to ride everything.  I considered going to Six Flags New England and/or Six Flags Great Escape, both of which we could go to free with our Darien Lake passes.  But that seemed like a lot of driving for only a few decent coasters.  I will say I'm now a little sad Great Escape didn't work because one of two coasters I wanted to ride there is going away after this season.  Boo.  Anyway, I felt stumped.  As I was thinking about the five-hour drive to Massachusetts, I realized that I wouldn't care so much about a five-hour drive if I knew that what was at the end was worth it...which was the exact scenario that we'd have with Cedar Point.  Hmmmmm.  I looked at their site again and noticed that their season pass sale was going, and it was similar to what I had taken advantage of with Darien Lake last year--buy the pass and go the rest of this year plus all next summer, for the cost of only two park days, which we'd likely need for one trip anyway.  And if we were going to go there next year anyway...wouldn't it just make sense to buy it now?  And if we bought it now, we might as well get another use out of it now, right?  But we still needed a hotel and still needed to decide if this was wise with Disney looming in another week.  God forbid we got sick or hurt or whatever, but with things being pretty much entirely outside and purposely avoiding the presumably-more-accident-prone water park, what were the odds of something happening?  I agonized for days, and time was running out.  Heck, I was so torn and asking God for a little sign that I even wondered if a rainbow on Thursday was my sign to go!  By Friday morning I decided I needed to take the day off anyway to get a few things in order, primarily going to Lowe's to check out a new fridge since ours seems to be going a bit (new noise and softer ice cream, on top of the long-broken ice and water dispensers).  I got that looked at and ordered, and I was running out of time to decide anything for the trip.  On one hand I was nervous, and on the other I was worried about missing out on the experience of a lifetime.  

I don't know what clicked (maybe Craig's encouragement), but I finally couldn't resist and booked it.  I grabbed a cheap but decent-looking hotel and bought the passes.  I packed us up in about 20 minutes, made us a quick lunch, and we headed out around 1pm!  That was a quick turnaround!  The trip actually went pretty smoothly.  A stop for gas/bathrooms, dinner at Raising Cane's outside Cleveland (yum), and we got to Cedar Point by about 7pm!  The cutest thing is that Carter remembered that we had talked about playing this one song en route, whenever we finally got to go to Cedar Point.  It's by a band called Relient K and it has a bunch of Ohio references in it.  I played it for him on our Kennywood trip, telling him we needed it for Cedar Point because there's a line in the song saying, "Sandusky summertime is 45 minutes away!"  He reminded me to bring the CD, and when we were 45 minutes away, we absolutely played it!  It felt poetic when we finally got to the road to the park and another song on the same CD played and had this upbeat, almost ethereal line that said, "Nothing but the sun in your eyes," and this was our view at that moment:

Nothing but the sun...and a whole lot of coasters!

I mean...it felt like something out of a movie.  I was just so happy in that moment, like everything had just come together and we were on the cusp of the time of our lives!  That skyline is one of the greatest ever--so many coasters, so much potential!  It was surreal and amazing, and we were SO excited!  Since I hadn't been to Cedar Point in 22 years, there was so much new stuff, but I was excited about the old stuff too!  Not to mention that the park is full of Peanuts stuff, which is always so much fun for us.  Heck, that's the only way I got Craig to go to Knott's Berry Farm on our honeymoon!  Look at the cuties that greeted us upon arrival!

One of the new coasters was GateKeeper, which goes right over the entry plaza!

We got in so smoothly--the season pass made the parking and entry so quick and easy.  We waltzed right in and it was immediately so beautiful.

The sun was also starting to set, so it was rapidly becoming the golden hour, which made every picture prettier than the last.

Corkscrew and Power Tower

Our first coaster was Iron Dragon, which was one of my absolute favorites as a kid.  It was the first suspended coaster I was ever on, and Carter loved how it swung out!

While we were in line I took this picture.  Next time we're there, those gray supports will be holding up a giant spike for Top Thrill 2, which is the new version of the original coaster, which was the tallest and fastest in the park.  It had an incident and has been closed for a couple years, but is being reworked and will reopen even better next year.  

Next up was Rougarou, which used to be a stand-up coaster but was reworked to be a floorless coaster.  This was our view looking toward my beloved Millennium Force as the sun set.

Rougarou was maybe a little rougher than I expected but still super fun.  But even with that, right away Carter understood the difference between all that we've dealt with at Darien Lake with rough coasters, and how much better coasters can be!  We decided to hit up Millennium Force after that, just to make sure we got on it.  The line was only about 45 minutes so we figured that was reasonable.  This is the big one, 300 feet tall and over 90mph!  I fell in love 22 years ago and it has reigned supreme in my mind ever since.  The wait was long, maybe even an hour, but we chatted with a sweet family of three with a kid about Carter's age as we waited.  We finally got up to the station and had our first ride in the dark, which was a little crazy in its own right, let alone on a coaster like this.  Carter was nervous but very excited!  This is how I looked after my first ride...

...and here we after after Carter's!

We loved it so much!  It was so fun and fast!

Looking up at that first hill!

We wandered through the rest of the park trying to figure out what else we could ride in the hour or so before the night was over.  A couple big ones in the back still had long lines and we didn't want to waste all of our short line time waiting on those, so we wandered back around the bend.  We snuck a glimpse of the future Top Thrill 2, which has a more-than-400 foot-tall hill.  The new ride will launch halfway up, roll back then launch backward at around 90mph up a spike, and then launch forward at 120mph to get over this hill.  I never got to ride the original, but I can tell it's going to be incredible.  I appreciated that they left it lit despite being closed to remind us of what's coming.

We hopped on Gemini, which is one of my old favorites.  It's a wooden coaster with metal tracks, which I have always been convinced is the best of both worlds.  It's still lots of airtime and feels like it's going to chop off your head on the supports, but it's smoother than a real wood coaster.  And Gemini is a twin racing coaster, which is even more fun.  Carter loves the race concept!  We walked right on and had a great ride but sadly lost the race!  Next up was Magnum XL-200, which is the first coaster to ever top 200 feet.  Magnum has always been a bit on the rougher side, and we had been warned it got worse.  Riding in the dark is also an experience because it goes out toward the lake, which is just black and very dark at night so it's hard to see what's coming.  As fun as the big hill is and the fun little airtime hills used to be at the end, this one was rough.  Those little humps jolted you and crashed your legs into the lap restraint really hard.  It was super uncomfortable and at that point most of the train wass laughing while saying some form of "ouch!" for that whole series of hills.  It's really too bad because that was such a fun part of the ride.  I still prefer that to getting my head rocked, so I'll deal with it, but it was a bummer.

There was nearly no line for Power Tower, so we decided to hop on and do both options back to back.  One part shoots you up fast, and the other one takes you up slower and lets you freefall.  I still remember riding this with my mom in 1998 when it was pretty new and thinking it was the coolest thing ever because it was so smooth (unlike Demon Drop, its freefall predecessor).  My mom was so nervous but we ended up loving it!  Carter has been slowly working up to this.  He rode the one at the Jersey Shore, then Darien Lake's was about half its height taller, and this one was about half Darien's height taller.  We loved both versions.  The drop was crazy long, and the shot up was so fast.  Both had amazing views, too!

We also rode Corkscrew, which is probably my least favorite in the park.  It's like a crappy version of the Viper--short hill and just a bunch of head-banging inversions.  It looks cool in the park but is actually pretty rough and rather boring.  Carter was amused, though, because the ride op made some weird, haunting noises that came through the speaker at the top of the lift hill, which felt particularly creepy in the dark.

We seemed to have time for one more ride on our way out, and it looked like Valravn, another newer one, would be it.  That was a dive coaster, which holds you at the top of the straight-down hill for an agonizing few seconds before letting you go.  It's also eight seats across in three rows, which was different.  The dive was pretty insane, but I was a little surprised how rough it was.  There were a couple spots that just rocked me a bit, and I was definitely cringing during the on-ride photo.  That was a bummer (but don't worry, that's not the end of the story for this ride!).  That was it for the night.  It was 11pm so we needed to get to the hotel to rest up for day two, but we had already accomplished a lot!

The hotel was about 20 minutes away.  It wasn't the best place, but the price was right and the approval rating was fine.  Not as high as I would usually get if Jacob was with us, but I knew Carter was less picky, and we'd barely be there anyway.  Everything would have been fine except that a few minutes after we got in to the room, Carter said he brushed a bug off his leg.  I was worried about bed bugs or something, but instead, I realized there was a swarm of tiny ants all over the floor between the beds.  I had seen one earlier but figured it was just a fluke, but then I noticed a bunch.  The call to the front desk was initially unhelpful (literally the guy that answered was like, "So what do you want me to do?") before the woman took the phone, changed our room to next door, and took some Raid into the other room.  Oy.  I don't really hold it against them--I know things can happen and if there's one missed spill or crumb, it's not hard to end up with that.  Ants are probably the least creepy bug you can find, I suppose.  Our new room was fine but it was so late by then, and for whatever reason I had a heck of a time sleeping.  I just sort of laid there comfortable and resting but awake for what seemed like half the night.  I heard the ice machine and loud people and doors, and then at 3am there was some sort of alarm for about five seconds.  I realized it might be a fire alarm, but then it stopped and no announcement came and no mad rush began, so I just assumed it was a fire door or something like that.  It was not ideal and I knew I'd be tired, but eventually I did get a little light sleep.  My watch thought I slept, but I'm not sure I really did.  Thank the Lord for adrenaline, though.  We had a little slower start as a result, but we grabbed a quick but uninspiring breakfast at the hotel and were off for day two!

Here was the Snoopy topiary outside the gates:

We decided to ride Raptor first because I had talked it up to Carter as so much better than the Mind Eraser.  It's the same sort of suspended floorless style, but four across and a much better manufacturer who created a much smoother ride.  The wait turned out to be a lot longer than the app said it was, but it ended up being better than it was most of the day, so I guess we chose well.  We both loved it so much and wished Mind Eraser could get its act together!  After that we hopped on the Sky Ride to get some nice views of the park.  It brought back memories of our Skyliner experience at Disney, for sure, but Carter was a little thrown off by the open air cars!  I just think they're so happy-looking going along the main midway.

The new Boardwalk section that got totally redone over the winter looked amazing, and we were excited to get over there at some point to check it out.

Midday was a bit of a blur.  Lines were starting to get a little long so we did a lot of wandering trying to figure out what to do.  The app was helpful for understanding wait times, even though it wasn't always accurate.  But it usually gave us an idea of our options in any given area.  We stopped for a quick pretzel lunch and caught this view of Magnum from our table.  I think it was right before this that we rode it a second time, against my better judgement.  Despite the pain, I did want Carter to ride it in daylight, since the lake view is amazing.  The line was short, so I relented.  That was likely a bit of a mistake on my part (though one I guess I had to make) because the repeat battering of my legs on the restraint actually seemed to injure them this time.  One of my quads in particular felt like it had a bit of a charley horse the rest of the day.  I was constantly trying to rub the soreness out, and I have to say, by the end of the night I could barely walk between tired feet and super sore quads.  I have no idea what happened, but owwww.  It definitely gave me a Disney flashback!

After we ate, we walked around Camp Snoopy, which is one of three kiddie sections of the park.  All the rides are Peanuts themed, which was super cute.

I had seen this one before, but it's one of the best!

We decided to ride Woodstock Express, which is a smaller family coaster.  Yeah, it was in the kiddie section, but it looked pretty fun and swirly, and the first hill was decently high.  It was a quick ride and I think Carter was a little bored by this point because he wanted other bigger rides, but it wasn't a bad way to kill some time until we figured out what to do during the peak of the day.  

Across from the ride was Lucy's booth, so of course we needed a picture!

We wandered past Gemini in hopes we could ride, but it had a much longer line by this point and we figured we'd wait until it got short again at night. 

We rode the Cedar Creek Mine Ride, which was a small, western-themed mine ride coaster.  It wasn't particularly exciting--the biggest hill is small--but it was still fun and a little whippy (in a good way).  

At that point we figured all of the other lines were long so we might as well tackle our other biggest target, Steel Vengeance.  Steel Vengeance was once upon a time one of the biggest and fastest wooden coasters I've ever ridden, but like so many others it had gotten rather rough.  It was an incredible layout, but ouch.  So, a number of years back, they shut down Mean Streak and brought in the angel that is Rocky Mountain Coasters, and they completely reimagined it.  They used most of the structure but added steel track that can even do inline rolls and all sorts of crazy stuff.  The videos I had seen looked incredible, so we were excited!  It was one of our longer waits, probably close to an hour but in the end a little shorter than expected.  I should probably add here that my one crankiness about Cedar Point is that some coasters do not have bins for bags and other loose articles.  Most older ones do, but others don't, and for those you need to rent a locker.  They are $3 for two hours or $5 for 3, or you can spend $12 and transfer it around the park, but only for three hours.  It was a bit frustrating to have to do that all over the park when you got to a coaster without bins, though I learned to ask at the entrance each time at least.  Steel Vengeance went to the extreme of not allowing even fanny packs on the ride, so they have free tiny lockers and metal detectors in the middle of the queue for that stuff.  I had to get a big one anyway, so at least we got to bypass all the people that needed to stop there!  When we got up to the platform we happened to be first in line for a new set of seat assignments, and sure enough, we got assigned to the front car!  It was a little intimidating but I think the couple we were chatting with in line, who were huge fans of the ride, were thrilled for us and a tiny bit jealous.  But they loved watching us, I think!  The ride was absolutely beyond words amazing.  I will always love Millennium Force for its height, speed, and feeling of flying, but this was so much FUN.  There's a 200-foot, 90-degree drop, and it goes 74 mph.  You're up and down hills, through a number of upside-down rolls, and it's so fast and crazy but so exciting.  We couldn't believe how fun it was!

  

Look at that drop!

After that we tried to strategize our night.  Lines were still crazy long.  This one, Maverick, was such a long line and we were only holding out hope it would ease up that night or that we could catch it first thing the next morning if we had to.  

We wound back around past Millennium Force, which also had too long of a wait to consider.

We walked past Rougarou, the second one we rode the night before.  Look at that giant loop!

I wanted to get a better picture of Valravn's dive.  They hold you at the top before you go straight down, and then there's another one like that later in the ride, but they fake you out and send you right over it!

We finally managed to find one coaster with a reasonable line, but even that was about 25 minutes, I think.  Blue Streak is the oldest coaster in the park, and it's a nice, classic out and back wooden coaster.  A little rattle-y like most, but still super fun.  Carter was a little offended that I said I like Seabreeze's Jack Rabbit better, but they're very similar and the Jack Rabbit has a tunnel and plays more with the terrain, which makes it more unique.  They're all probably dwarfed by Kennywood's Jack Rabbit, Racer and Thunderbolt, so there's that...but Carter still hasn't ridden the Seabreeze Jack Rabbit, so we'll see next year when he goes there with school!

I think this post is long enough at this point, so stay tuned for part two of our crazy whirlwind of a trip!