More on That Later

Six amusement parks, seven seven days (see illustration).

Now you have to understand, I don't like long car trips, and my arthritic right ankle swells up inflicting untold pain on me if I walk on it for an extended period of time (20 seconds).

So why then would I embark on a journey that involves over ten miles of walking and over a thousand miles on the road? Two words. Roller coasters. I love 'em, and each year me and my compatriots venture out in search of new coasters to ride.

This year we are doing a sweep of the Midwest. Starting out at Cedar Point amusement park off of Lake Erie, we will sweep down and through to Worlds of Fun in Kansas City, then fly home. Along the way we will visit Paramount's Kings Island in Cincinnati, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom in Louisville, Holiday World in, get this, Santa Claus Indiana, and Six Flags St. Louis in our first of two parks in the great state of Missouri.

The itinerary goes something like this:
Fly to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, drive 3 hours to Cedar Point and stay the night.
Go to the park on Thursday, all day
Drive 4 hours to Kings Island, sleep for a few hours
Get up at the crack of dawn and go to the park and walk around all day.
Then after we are all thoroughly exausted and ready to pick fights with Girl Scouts, we will drive to Kentucky Kingdom.

Rinse... repeat. You get the idea... for seven days. No potty breaks. Do not pass go. Deposit 200 dollars.

We will be deriving most of our nourishment from the park's ample supply of chicken fingers, hamburgers, and waffle cones. By the end of this Bataan Death March* of a vacation we will be weary, but we will thankful that it is all over. We won't regret a second. At least I won't.

Unfortunately, I just discovered that my favorite coaster is currently down for X-Files-like reasons. Luckily I have tasted its sweet nectar before. To add insult to injury, it looks like we will be dodging a steady stream of lightning bolts all day long.

I hope this is not an indicator of what's to come. If any of our hotels have internet access (I think a couple do), I'll throw up a post or two during my journey and hopefully have a pic or two to share. All of you who are interested (Hi Mom), will be taken on a wonderous journey full of pitfalls and revelations not unlike the coasters I will be riding. Of course I could just be some idiot blogging to an indifferent universe.

*I really shouldn't compare the Bataan Death March to my trip as I am pretty sure the soldiers who went through that ordeal had absolutely no access to roller coasters.