On the road again…. (part 6)

Okay. So, this is my last Ohio post. (I know. I know. I’m excited too.) And since it only took me a mere month and a freakin’ half (!!!!) to describe an eight day vacation, I am clearly in my bloggy prime here lately.


Clearly.


(High five!…. Anyone?…. Anyone?….. No?…. Oh.)


Well, anyway….


I was in Seattle on an involuntary vacation for the past five weeks and it was exhaustingly busy and eye-opening at moments, to say the least. But, hey, just for sh*ts and giggles, I think we should properly kill off the Ohio tale first, right? Sure, why not? So, umm…. Ready? Set? Go!



DAY 7:


We spent our last full day in Ohio at Cedar Point Amusement Park. We had a view of Cedar Point from our rental home and had been enviously watching it glowing and glittering just a ways across the lake from us night after night the whole week we had been there. So, it was nice to finally venture over to grab our own little piece of the experience before heading back to Chicago.


Here’s what it all looked like….




Cedar Point had been invaded by dinosaurs when we were there and happily advertised that fact everywhere we looked. Here’s Scope, Wednesday, and Scope’s parents with a shifty-looking beast we ran into in the parking lot.




Just inside the gate, we crossed paths with Charlie Brown, Sally, and Linus. Naturally, I went running, squealing, and vaulting over little children to get Wednesday’s picture with them.




Scope’s parents ditched us at approximately that exact moment, perhaps fearing I would force them to stand and smile next to Snoopy or Peppermint Patty if we chanced running into them. And I SOOOOOOOOO would have. So, good call on their part!


After our run-in with Charlie Brown, Scope and I took Wednesday on a few of the more tame rides, like the ferris wheel….




….and a viking boat thingy that went rocking backwards and forwards up into the sky.




And Wednesday liked those rides well enough, of course, but the girl has a whole heaping helping of me in her and, thus, she hungered for something wilder. So, we headed over to the Iron Dragon rollercoaster.




The Iron Dragon boasted a 4 out of 5 rating on the clench-your-butt-cheeks-and-hold-the-f*ck-on scale by which the theme park powers that be grade all rollercoasters. Naturally, that means my Neurologist would probably snap and give me a wedgie if I went on it. But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?…. Yeeeaaahhhhh…. *crafty look* So, I joined the line, all giggly and excited and awaited our turn to rocket through the air.




It.


Was.


AWESOME!!!!


Duh.


We ended up going on it three times. Uh-huh. Three. And I videotaped one of them. Wanna see?! ‘Kay.



(And just for the record, my back after all that rollercoaster-ing? Totally fine! So, yay!)


What else did we do? Well…. Wednesday tried to wrestle a chocolate chip cookie away from a Snoopy statue.




Scope and I got thrown in the stocks.




And we got our Tom Hanks “Big” on and had our fortune told by a Zoltar machine.




Our fortune? Something about finding good men under shabby hats. Okay, then. Moving on….


Eventually we wandered into the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit.




There we hobnobbed with these dudes, and dozens more….



















The dinosaurs in the exhibit were incredible. They were life-size animatronic goodies galore! They moved! They roared! They snarled! They shrieked! They leered at us with their evil dino eyes and sneered with their evil dino grins! And, best of all, they provided shade! Lots and lots of blessed shade, which was soooooooooooooooo welcome on that sweltering, nearly-100 degree day, which I swear was hotter than the devil’s freaking armpit!


*happy shudder*


After that, we went shopping for souvenirs in the Snoopy Boutique….




….where Scope and Wednesday bought matching Charlie Brown shirts. (Awwww.) Then, as thunder clouds started to gather threateningly above, we said “smell ya later!” to Cedar Point and went back to our rental house to pack up for the drive back home the next morning.






DAY 8:


Our last day in Ohio we had to be out of our rental house by 9 am—*gulp!*—so, there was not much to do but play a quick last game of ping pong….




….and say goodbye to the house….




….and say goodbye to the lake.




Wednesday had really enjoyed her time in Ohio and was crushed and sad to leave.




But our time was up and we had to go. So, with Scope and Wednesday in their matching Charlie Brown shirts, we hit the road back home to Chicago.




And then we had to IMMEDIATELY start packing for our five week stay in Seattle. Oy!






© Coracabana

On the road again…. (part 5)

Scope, Wednesday, and I took a big family vacation with my in-laws to Ohio a bunch of weeks ago, which I have been sloooowwwwwwwly telling you all about. (For part 1 of this story click HERE, for part 2 click HERE, for part 3 click HERE, and for part 4 click HERE. *whew!*) Here’s what happened next….



DAY 6:


The sixth day of our stay in Ohio was pretty low key. First we went to Milan to take a tour of the house where Thomas Edison was born.







While waiting for our tour to begin, they actually allowed us to hold Thomas Edison’s Grammy. Pretty cool, huh?




Our tour guide was amazing. I hate to admit I’ve already forgotten his name though. It might have been Larry…. Or Lawrence…. Or Leonard…. I’m just not sure, but he was spectacular. He truly delighted in telling us quirky little tales about “that odd Edison boy” who burned his family’s barn down at the age of six and who was thought to be a complete idiot by his teachers and, well, pretty much everyone else he crossed paths with, except his mother.




Our tour guide (let’s call him TG) had the most intoxicating voice, like all the little stories and tidbits he was whispering were deliciously juicy secrets he had been saving up for years and years solely to share with us. He often started sentences with, “I shouldn’t tell you this, but….” and we would lean in closer and closer as he’d let fly gossipy nuggets of information on Edison, like how his daughters were bright but his sons were dim…. so dim that Edison eventually got disgusted enough to actually ask Thomas Edison Jr. to give up the Edison name.


Ouch.


I swear, TG could take over the world if he wanted to. He was practically hypnotic. We were hooked on his every word. He took us all through the Edison home and showed us all kinds of things Edison-related, like some of his inventions, and even the actual bed Thomas Edison was born in.




Eww, huh? I know. But anyway….


After Edison’s house, we stopped for lunch at Invention Restaurant which looked really cute and inviting on the outside, but was a complete disorganized dive on the inside.




Oh well.


Before leaving Milan, we poked around in a couple of antique stores, where Wednesday was utterly baffled by the old rotary phones piled up in there.




”But…. but…. but how the heck do you dial it?!?!” she sputtered.


*crickets chirping*


Wow.


I grew up with a rotary phone. Did you? It wasn’t that long ago, was it? It was, like, the 80’s, right? It never occurred to me that someone—and a brainiac straight A high school honor student no less!—wouldn’t know how to work a rotary phone. How can that be a dead knowledge when Katrina and the Waves still gets radio play?!?! Holy sh*t!


*deep calming breath*


So, I taught Wednesday how to dial the “ancient freaky phone”.




After the “weird” phone-dialing lesson, we left Milan and went back to our rental house with the rest of Scope’s family to change into matchy matchy outfits for a big family portrait session with Maybelle Photography.


We met our photographer at an arboretum and, after doing a slew of shots there, we migrated back to our rental home for part 2 of our session. It was almost 100 degrees and windy as all hell that day, so I didn’t have high hopes that our pictures would be anything but comical, sweaty, windblown messes. But I was wrong. They’re actually really good! Here are two of my favorites that she cleared for sharing online.








Photoshopping the sweat off of everyone’s shirts must have literally taken DAYS. Dang. That’s service. Way to go, Photo Girl!


But anyway….


That night we attempted to go out for a game of outdoor Goofy Golf, but the golf place had already closed down for the evening when we got there. This was definitely one of those blessing in disguise thingies though, because a vicious, cutthroat lightning storm hit out of nowhere about five minutes after our goofy golfing dreams were crushed to a fine paste. Here’s a big ol’ yay on that! So, instead we went back to the house to charge our camera batteries and otherwise get our act together for the next morning when we would be invading (….drumroll please….) Cedar Point Amusement Park.



[….to be continued….]






© Coracabana