Can you raise both your hands and clap 'em

[austin_dern]

bunny_hugger's brother, and his girlfriend, made a trip out to Michigan for the week. He really wanted to get to Cedar Point --- he hadn't been in maybe a decade --- and we were glad to bring them out. (Weirdly we'd barely been to Cedar Point this year.) Unfortunately the only time he could find to go was the weekend, a Saturday and Sunday, and on Labor Day weekend, which we expected would be an incredibly crowded pair of days. Saturdays are usually packed and late summer Saturdays when the weather's good are worse, but, there's only so much you can do about manipulating the flow of time.

They chose to stay overnight at the Hotel Breakers, the hotel on the point, and in one of the wings slated for demolition over the winter. (bunny_hugger and I stayed in a nearby Sandusky hotel; we had Hotel Breakers reservations for our main Halloweekends trip.) This was the first time bunny_hugger and I had been in the hotel apart from Halloweekends, so we got to see the long entrance hallway and main lobby without the spider and bat and cobweb decoration and all that. To our surprise the spooky, creepy fluorescent-green lighting of the entrance hallway is not something they put up only for Halloween decorations, or else they put those bulbs in early this year. It's a spooky atmosphere.

Inside the park we found the giant Kraft Macaroni and Cheese sculpture which had been at Kings Island earlier in the season. Goodness knows why this is moving around Cedar Fair parks, but it is.

bunny_hugger's brother's girlfriend was coming to the park mostly as a favor to him; she was skeptical at best of roller coasters, while bunny_hugger's brother was hoping to get in some of the roller coasters, particularly the new GateKeeper. The first thing we rode was the Mine Ride, a mid-70s roller coasters that goes around your Old West themed locations and isn't too fast and hasn't got very steep drops. The second roller coaster we rode was Iron Dragon, which dates to the mid-80s. She was unsure about riding this one, but allowed herself to be talked into giving it a chance. I would think this a fairly friendly modern roller coaster to ride --- it's not quite 80 feet tall, hasn't any steep drops or loops, and is gentle enough that you're asked to bring loose stuff like purses and redemption prize games in the suspended car with you --- but that was enough for her. She wouldn't ride any more roller coasters.

And that's a shame as we did get onto GateKeeper, Cedar Point's big but very smooth and surprisingly non-intense winged (one where the seats are on the left and right sides level with the track) roller coaster. bunny_hugger's brother had wanted very much to ride this and we waited through a line that wasn't as bad as we'd feared --- something like a half-hour long --- for front- and second-row seat rides. His girlfriend waited with us but walked off the platform rather than ride it, but, that's her choice. bunny_hugger's brother loved the ride, though, describing it --- rather aptly, really --- as a perfected version of Raptor (a mid-90s inverted coaster, that is, one where the seats hang underneath the track). bunny_hugger got a ride photo of her and her brother.

Her brother and his girlfriend had bought tickets not just to the park but to the water park attached to Cedar Point, and they thought the weather good enough to take it in. So at this point we parted ways for a little while.

Trivia: In 1996 typical homes in the New York City area sold for about 3.7 times household income. By 2006 they sold for about 7.1 times. Source: How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities, John Cassidy.

Currently Reading: Enslaved By Ducks, Bob Tarte.