Mo' Ohio

A quick note: If at all possible, get your hands on the official Joliet Jackhammers jingle. With lines like, "Boom! boom! go the bats smashing up the balls, boom! boom! go the balls crashing off the walls!" it's a must listen. In other news, the sighting of girls doing double dutch in the parking lot of a gas station on Weber makes me wonder if I should start playing late night games of Red Rover at the Thornton's on Essington.

And back to Ohio. . .it seems so long ago, I hope you all still want to hear the stories. Perhaps I need to sit in the Golden Girls' kitchen with a piece of cheesecake to get in the right mood to reminisce...

So post-Dive Show, we continued riding the rides, if you know what I mean (I mean riding roller coasters). We rode an indoor roller coaster that was none too exciting, then got stuck in the world's longest line for the Raptor. The highlight of that line by far was a man we liked to call "Freak on a Leash." The man was skinny with long, probably dirty hair, dressed in black, and had a large collar attached to a chain around his neck. One might think the banging of the metal would detract from his coaster going experience, but Freak on a Leash cared not for pain, only for style. I tip my hat to this man.

We continued walking through the park, stopping by some crap filled stores, where I found the world's ugliest candle. It's very similar to the mouse candle shown on this webpage, but uglier due to its day-glo color. I was so confused by this candle that I thought what were supposed to be the mouse's paws were actually boobs. Somehow mouse with boobs candles were just too much for me, till I was corrected by Nancy and Megan that they were paws.

We decided to go on a water ride, and we chose a innertube ride like Roaring Rapids at Great America. However, we were in for a culture shock as we walked up to the line. I don't know if this is an Ohio thing, a whiskey tango thing, or what, but for some reason, riders of "Thunder Canyon" decided that shoes were just too much of a limitation, and rather than have their feet covered during the ride, left their shoes in a neat and tidy line outside the ride's entrance. WHY GOD WHY? Athlete's foot, tetanus, the idea of touching where other people's bare feet have been, the altogether skankiness of amusement parks-aren't any of these reasons to keep your flip flops on? Nance, Megan and I refused to be hip to this craze and kept our shoes on. As we waited in the line, we quickly realized that none of us wanted to get very wet, which was going to prove to be a problem. A bespectacled 12 year old girl behind us kept us informed of impending danger. Apparently she was somewhat of a veteran visitor to "Thunder Canyon," and gave us such interesting facts as, "You're going to get wet" (said quite snidely), and "This ride has 5 waterfalls." When we finally got on the ride, Fact Finding Flossie continued her reign of terror; smirking at us maliciously as we got soaked, and booing when we escaped one of the famed 5 waterfalls. Soaked and pissy, we headed off to dry off on some more roller coasters.

Now as some of our female readers might know, roller coasters, especially wooden ones, tend to bump the ta-tas around in quite an uncomfortable way. I was in a lot of pain on rides like the Magnum and the Mean Streak, and the pictures taken of me on the rides tend to illustrate that fact. When we got off the rides and looked at the video screens, we noticed that on pictures from both these rides, while other passengers had their hands in the air, I was holding my boobs and wincing in pain. Being ghetto, instead of buying the pictures, we took pictures of the screens that showed the pictures. Cheap hos, yes, but also creative ones.

As we walked around the park, sampling culinary delights like Icees from foreign workers with names such as "Vladimir" and "Petr," It began to rain. We headed back to the hotel and went to eat at this random pizza/chicken finger/burgers/any foods that little kids will eat restaurant. We ordered our food, and the waitresses got our names and said they'd bring the food to our tables. For some reason Nancy didn't get her drink, and they kept giving her the wrong food. Meanwhile, while we waited for our orders, another foreign waitress (not BernadettaEtta) kept calling out, "Drinks for Ellen?" with such despair in her voice, that we wanted to pretend to be Ellen just to calm her poor soul.

By this point the weather was nice again, so we went back to our rooms, changed clothes, and headed back to the Park. We decided to change into bikinis and shorts since we'd be swimming later, which drew the attentions of male park goers (one of whom tried to start a conversation with me by asking if he could feel my shoe) and the wrath of angry middle aged mothers (I kid you not, they glared at us). We rode the Wicked Twister several times in a row, then headed over to...drum roll please. . .the Schwabinchen. The Cedar Point website describes Schawbinchen as "A German-themed circular ride [that] offers high speed aboard a rotating and tilting platform." I describe it as, "rotating in a circle around the torso of a big breasted German woman." The giant torso is not the only highlight; the background of the ride features giant frankfurters and a pair of phallic looking towers personified as mannish women. Horrified by this spectacle, I asked the ride operator what Schwabinchen meant; she informed me that it was "the lady's name." We took a spin on Schwabinchen, accompanied only by a pair of preteen girls (who yelled at me to "Slam it!" when I couldn't get the car door closed) and a Greek-looking young gentleman who seemed to be riding with ulterior motives; these suspicions were confirmed when he attempted to flirt with us post-ride. Schwabinchen was a little rougher than expected; while attempting to mimic the one hand on head pose of our male rider (and incidentally, the pose of Schwabinchen herself), I got slammed around a bit; as I yelled to Megan and Nancy during the ride, "I didn't think she rode hard." But don't just take my word for it, listen to this review of Schwabinchen from former "Smooth Operator" Jason Caufield of West Virginia:

My Baby
This summer I worked at Cedar Point and Schwabinchen was one of the rides that I worked on. She was also my favorite to work, because of the music and the controls. Hopefully when I go back to work at Cedar Point next year I will once again get the opportunity to be a part of Giant Wheel Triangle again.

She was his "favorite to work"? Eeeeeeww. I wonder who "My Baby Daddy" is? The "Wicked Twister"? I know I'm really saturating this entry with Schwabichen info, but please, PLEASE look at this page Don't they look pleased to be riding Schwabinchen? Isn't Julie festive in her "Coaster Fanatic" tee, and is dapper Geoff sporting a "Davey and Goliath" shirt?

And on that note, it's dinner time, and I'll finish up later!