Cedar Point!

Having been to Cedar Point with Christina's family a few years ago, I suggested that we make it a stop on our road trip. I am happy to report that neither Mike or Kyle were disappointed with this suggestion. We arrived on the 7th around 5:30 PM or so and were in the park around 6:15 PM. I knew exactly what ride we needed to go on first.

The last time I had been here I was too fat to fit into one of the rides and everyone else in Christina's family insisted that it was by far the best ride in the entire park and the best roller coaster they had ever been on. We walked briskly over to the ride and I got nervous as we approached the entrance to the ride. They have sample chairs out in front so that larger individuals can test the seat before waiting in line. After a bit of struggling I am happy to say that all my weight loss has paid off and I was able to ride Millennium Force. I was not disappointed and strongly feel that it is the best roller coaster I have ever ridden. The first drop is truly amazing.

Cedar Point definitely lives up to its reputation as the best theme park for roller coasters in the world. We had a blast using our starlight passes and were able to ride 6 rides in the 3 hours we were in the park. We rode: Millennium Force, Mantis, Raptor, Devil's Drop, Wicked Twister, and Magnum (The first steel Hyper Coaster). We came back to the RV, cooked up some dinner and promptly went to bed exhausted after a long day that started in the parking lot of a towing company.

The next morning we got up at 8 AM so that we could get into the park early. Our first stop in the morning was Millennium Force again. Mike and I rode up front which yielded an incredible view as we plummeted from 310 feet in the air. As we exited the ride we even had to scrape the bugs off of our shirts. We spent the rest of the morning riding rides including the 128 MPH Top Thrill Dragster. The launch in that ride pins you straight back in your seat and then straight up into the air. We also rode a bunch of other rides that I'm not going to bother listing.

Around 12:30 we were all getting quite hungry so we headed back to the RV for lunch. We decided to head to the hotel lobby to update the blog with all the pictures and the two entries that you've read so far. Sadly, both my and Kyle's laptops are far from functional and we were forced to share Mike's to update. As we were going through pictures an enormous thunder storm rolled through effectively closing the park for a couple hours. Due to the park not being open we enjoyed some refreshments in the hotel lobby until the rain stopped. We headed back to our campsite and found the RV sitting in a couple inches of standing water. We decided to ignore it and head back into the park and see what rides were open. As we walked through the park a few of the major rides were opening so we were able to ride a few of them before deciding were were tired and unbearably queasy.

After a dinner of chicken and hot dogs Mike and I went to race some Go-Karts while Kyle took pictures. We went swimming after Go-Karts and the three of us showered in the pool side shower instead of trying to shower in the RV. I am certain the site of the three of us taking turns under the spout was hysterical.

In the middle of the night another huge storm came through and I awoke this morning to see more than 3 inches of water surrounding our camp site and Kyle's sandals had floated all the way down the street. I walked to the bathroom that is located in the RV park and was stunned to see that there were showers in the bathroom! We had unnecessarily showered at the pool for the last two days when there was a shower less than 100 feet from our RV that had both cold and HOT water. Obviously I felt like an idiot and I'm sure Mike and Kyle will feel much the same when I wake them up and tell them.

Our plan for today is to get out of here around 10 or 11 AM and drive to Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan where my sister decided to attend school this fall. (Clearly she made a mistake by not going to UVA.) If time permits we will also try to get all the way to South Bend, Home of The University of Notre Dame.

Hopefully we will find a better way to upload our pictures so they don't have to be individual blog posts and are easier to read. Thanks for reading.

EDIT: pictures can be found here
http://picasaweb.google.com/UVAdave/Country997RVVirginiaBeachToCedarPoint

-Dave