We were due to leave early on Friday morning. Thursday night, the forecast did not look good. 70% chance of rain on Friday, and 80% on Saturday. Luke and I were super bummed as we fell asleep that night, because we thought our trip was ruined and our money was wasted.
We woke up and got on the road Friday morning, and our fears were confirmed:
It was the ugliest day we had seen in awhile. We almost decided to spend the day shopping or going to a movie in Sandusky instead of hitting up Cedar Point. Something made us turn toward the entrance, though. We paid our $10 for parking and decided to wait it out in the parking lot. We sat there for an hour just hoping there would be a break in the rain long enough for us to head in and ride a few of our favorite rides.
After about an hour of sitting there, it seemed like the rain was letting up a little bit. Luke checked the radar map on his iphone, and sure enough, it looked like there just might be a short break in the rain, long enough to ride a few rides, hopefully. We decided to take our chances, put our hoods up, and head inside the park. What a sloppy, wet mess it was!
We walked to the back of the park, toward one of our favorite rides. Because of the rain, it wasn't open yet. there was no one else near it, and Luke wanted to just stand near the entrance so that we would be the first to ride it when it opened. I rolled my eyes, grumbled and complained, knowing that it probably wouldn't open for another hour or so. I decided to agree, though, and watched the cute geese nearby while we waited.
We had been standing there for about two minutes when a crowd started gathering. I guess people saw us there, and assumed that the ride would be opening soon. It wasn't long before a line started forming. Eventually, the line stretched back so far I couldn't even tell where it ended. And we were at the front of it! Well, almost. Some annoying people pushed past us, even though we were technically the first ones there.
Anyway, after about 20 minutes of waiting there, the rain stopped! A few minutes after that, it was announced that the ride would be opening. The crowd cheered! We ran on up and basically walked right on one of the most popular roller coasters in the park. In the first row! The 20 minutes we waited in the rain was much shorter than the normal 1-2 hour wait for that ride. Score!
So we rode that ride and then my favorite non-roller coaster ride, Skyhawk
At about that time, Luke decided to check the weather on the radar map again. To our surprise, it looked like there would be no rain coming our way anytime soon!
A little while later, The clouds parted, revealing a beautiful blue sky and sunshine! Here is what the park looked like when we first entered:
And here it is a mere 2 hours later!
What a transformation!! And what a blessing :-) We did not end up getting so much as another drop of rain the rest of the day or evening! It was such a wonderful surprise! There were periods of cloudiness, but no more rain!
So here is what we did with the remainder of our sunny day:
*Rode Top Thrill Dragster, one of the tallest and fastest rides in the world...here is a view from behind it, looking up:
*Rode two of our favorite rides, Maverick and Millennium Force twice! And all of our other must-ride attractions once.
*Enjoyed the beautiful scenery! Cedar Point is right on Lake Erie, and there are some beautiful views from some of the rides
*After riding everything we wanted to and more, we hit up some gift shops, and walked back through the park toward our car in the twilight. The overcast evening with everything all lit up was somehow really beautiful to me, and I took a few pictures. These were taken in one of those moments when you are exhausted, but so content. All of my worries had melted away during the fun of the day and all felt right with the world :-)
*At about 9:00, we headed to our hotel to get settled in. It was the cheapest hotel we could find and the furniture was definitely straight from the 70s. But it was clean and charming in its own way...I wouldn't mind staying there again :-)
*At 10:00 we realized we had eaten nothing but an overpriced gourmet pretzel that day. So we made a late night trip to Steak and Shake, right down the road from our hotel. We basically ate our frisco melts without talking or breathing because we were so famished at this point! Then we headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest.
Here we are...the only picture I took of the two of us the whole weekend. You can tell by looking behind us just how crowded the ballpark was :-P
What a fun weekend! I feel like Luke and I reconnected this weekend. It was so nice getting away from our lives for a few days just to have fun! I feel like my stress-level has gone down so much after this little trip. We should do it more often!
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Sorry for the picture overload. Back to the regularly scheduled programming tomorrow ;-)
It was the ugliest day we had seen in awhile. We almost decided to spend the day shopping or going to a movie in Sandusky instead of hitting up Cedar Point. Something made us turn toward the entrance, though. We paid our $10 for parking and decided to wait it out in the parking lot. We sat there for an hour just hoping there would be a break in the rain long enough for us to head in and ride a few of our favorite rides.
After about an hour of sitting there, it seemed like the rain was letting up a little bit. Luke checked the radar map on his iphone, and sure enough, it looked like there just might be a short break in the rain, long enough to ride a few rides, hopefully. We decided to take our chances, put our hoods up, and head inside the park. What a sloppy, wet mess it was!
We walked to the back of the park, toward one of our favorite rides. Because of the rain, it wasn't open yet. there was no one else near it, and Luke wanted to just stand near the entrance so that we would be the first to ride it when it opened. I rolled my eyes, grumbled and complained, knowing that it probably wouldn't open for another hour or so. I decided to agree, though, and watched the cute geese nearby while we waited.
We had been standing there for about two minutes when a crowd started gathering. I guess people saw us there, and assumed that the ride would be opening soon. It wasn't long before a line started forming. Eventually, the line stretched back so far I couldn't even tell where it ended. And we were at the front of it! Well, almost. Some annoying people pushed past us, even though we were technically the first ones there.Anyway, after about 20 minutes of waiting there, the rain stopped! A few minutes after that, it was announced that the ride would be opening. The crowd cheered! We ran on up and basically walked right on one of the most popular roller coasters in the park. In the first row! The 20 minutes we waited in the rain was much shorter than the normal 1-2 hour wait for that ride. Score!
So we rode that ride and then my favorite non-roller coaster ride, Skyhawk
At about that time, Luke decided to check the weather on the radar map again. To our surprise, it looked like there would be no rain coming our way anytime soon!A little while later, The clouds parted, revealing a beautiful blue sky and sunshine! Here is what the park looked like when we first entered:
And here it is a mere 2 hours later!
What a transformation!! And what a blessing :-) We did not end up getting so much as another drop of rain the rest of the day or evening! It was such a wonderful surprise! There were periods of cloudiness, but no more rain!So here is what we did with the remainder of our sunny day:
*Rode Top Thrill Dragster, one of the tallest and fastest rides in the world...here is a view from behind it, looking up:
*Rode two of our favorite rides, Maverick and Millennium Force twice! And all of our other must-ride attractions once.*Enjoyed the beautiful scenery! Cedar Point is right on Lake Erie, and there are some beautiful views from some of the rides
*After riding everything we wanted to and more, we hit up some gift shops, and walked back through the park toward our car in the twilight. The overcast evening with everything all lit up was somehow really beautiful to me, and I took a few pictures. These were taken in one of those moments when you are exhausted, but so content. All of my worries had melted away during the fun of the day and all felt right with the world :-)
*At about 9:00, we headed to our hotel to get settled in. It was the cheapest hotel we could find and the furniture was definitely straight from the 70s. But it was clean and charming in its own way...I wouldn't mind staying there again :-)*At 10:00 we realized we had eaten nothing but an overpriced gourmet pretzel that day. So we made a late night trip to Steak and Shake, right down the road from our hotel. We basically ate our frisco melts without talking or breathing because we were so famished at this point! Then we headed back to the hotel for a good night's rest.
And that concludes Friday's festivities. Saturday we were planning on heading on over to Cedar Point again. However, we decided that we had already done all we wanted to do and more there, so we changed our plans. Here is what we did on Saturday instead:
*Slept in until almost 10! We decided we'd rather sleep than eat the free breakfast offered by the hotel :-P
*Shopped around Sandusky, and discovered that Sandusky shopping is not good. I guess if your city holds Cedar Point, Castaway Bay, Kalahari, and Great Wolf Lodge, you don't have to offer much else ;-)
*Ate lunch at BW3s...again, we were famished after not eating breakfast!
*Headed to Cleveland! First we hit up Tower City Mall. It was pretty, but certainly not as nice as we remembered it. And they didn't have much to offer as far as shopping goes, either. Perhaps it has gone downhill with the economy :-/
We did find it funny that all the Lebron James items in every sports store we visited were on sale
It was also funny that there was a whole Twilight section in FYE. Of course the Jacob doll is not wearing a shirt
*We then went to see a movie at the Tower City Mall Movie Theater. I thought the theater would be nice, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Old, dirty, dated, broken seats...it was a nightmare. And we were the only ones in the theater for the movie we saw...it came out Friday. Weird. The movie was not good, either. This was a bust.
*After the movie, we decided to head on over to Progressive Field to check out the Indians game! They are not good this year, so tickets were only $10. We figured, why not?
*We got to the field super early, and had a chance to watch batting practice
*It was slider figurine night! How lucky are we? :-P
*After batting practice, we headed on up to our seats in the nosebleed section. It was Ohio Night, because the Cleveland Indians were playing the Cincinnati Reds. So Brutus Buckeye and the part of The Ohio State Alumni Band were there!
*It was supposed to rain. We lucked out again, and instead, it looked like this ;-)
* We watched the game, enjoyed some delicious, overpriced ballpark food, and had a great evening. Even if the Indians lost (it was okay, we weren't expecting a win!) What a beautiful evening it turned out to be. I love sitting on this side of Progressive Field with the view of the city in the background.
And the best part of the night?.....FIREWORKS after the game!!
*Slept in until almost 10! We decided we'd rather sleep than eat the free breakfast offered by the hotel :-P
*Shopped around Sandusky, and discovered that Sandusky shopping is not good. I guess if your city holds Cedar Point, Castaway Bay, Kalahari, and Great Wolf Lodge, you don't have to offer much else ;-)
*Ate lunch at BW3s...again, we were famished after not eating breakfast!
*Headed to Cleveland! First we hit up Tower City Mall. It was pretty, but certainly not as nice as we remembered it. And they didn't have much to offer as far as shopping goes, either. Perhaps it has gone downhill with the economy :-/
We did find it funny that all the Lebron James items in every sports store we visited were on sale
It was also funny that there was a whole Twilight section in FYE. Of course the Jacob doll is not wearing a shirt
*We then went to see a movie at the Tower City Mall Movie Theater. I thought the theater would be nice, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Old, dirty, dated, broken seats...it was a nightmare. And we were the only ones in the theater for the movie we saw...it came out Friday. Weird. The movie was not good, either. This was a bust.*After the movie, we decided to head on over to Progressive Field to check out the Indians game! They are not good this year, so tickets were only $10. We figured, why not?
*We got to the field super early, and had a chance to watch batting practice
*It was slider figurine night! How lucky are we? :-P
*After batting practice, we headed on up to our seats in the nosebleed section. It was Ohio Night, because the Cleveland Indians were playing the Cincinnati Reds. So Brutus Buckeye and the part of The Ohio State Alumni Band were there!
*It was supposed to rain. We lucked out again, and instead, it looked like this ;-)
* We watched the game, enjoyed some delicious, overpriced ballpark food, and had a great evening. Even if the Indians lost (it was okay, we weren't expecting a win!) What a beautiful evening it turned out to be. I love sitting on this side of Progressive Field with the view of the city in the background.
And the best part of the night?.....FIREWORKS after the game!!
Here we are...the only picture I took of the two of us the whole weekend. You can tell by looking behind us just how crowded the ballpark was :-P
What a fun weekend! I feel like Luke and I reconnected this weekend. It was so nice getting away from our lives for a few days just to have fun! I feel like my stress-level has gone down so much after this little trip. We should do it more often!
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Sorry for the picture overload. Back to the regularly scheduled programming tomorrow ;-)
What a fun weekend! Glad you got some quality time with your husband!
ReplyDeleteSO glad you had a fun weekend to reconnect! Yay for the sun coming out for your day at Cedar Point!!
ReplyDeleteYay! Glad you ended up having such a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteMy hubby & his brother want to go to Cedar Point this summer but I'm afraid they'll be leaving me behind. Hubster took me on my first roller coaster last year and I swore I'd never go again. H.a.t.e.d it -- but i'm glad you guys had fun! :)