Thursday, 6/30, Sandusky, OH

After the long day at Cedar Point, we all slept in a little.  Only Naama was up
and ready in time to get to breakfast, which closes at 10AM.  But Karen and I
also made it out in time to at least snag a bunch of peanut butters, jellys, and
margarines.  We had bought a plain old 2-slice toaster at Walmart before we left
since we knew we couldn't use the dining room's toaster due to the lack of
kosher supervision.  And we  brought a few loaves of bread and some rolls.  So
it really came in handy today.  We were able to have toast with all the
toppings, including Nutella (at Josh's request).


We went to Ghost Manor Thrill Center in the morning (well, close to the
afternoon, actually).  It's a place that has an XD Theater, which is an extreme
4-D experience.  It's also a haunted house and roller skating rink.  Outside of
the building is this big dragon thing on the wall.  I had the kids line up for a
picture under it, and noticed a worker was on the side of the building who
noticed us.  Then once the kids are finally posed, the nostrils of the dragon
give this really powerful blow of air with the smoke coming out.  I won't say
which one, but one of the kids got really scared and ran away and didn't want to
go back to take the picture.  But then the worker came out and said she had
called inside to have them do the dragon thing for kicks.  She offered to take
the whole family picture, as seen below.

Future employees of Uncle Matt's funeral parlor

They have five 8-10 minute movies that are roller coaster simulations.  We did
three - Cosmic Coaster, Canyon Coaster, and Haunted Mine.  The simulation was
extremely real, maybe even a little more so than some real roller coasters.  You
really get bounced around in your seat.  It's so jarring that the flab on your
neck starts flopping around (at least for me!).  One or two movies would have
probably been enough, but who knew.  We purchased them in advance.

The haunted house was pretty cool.  I don't really remember them from the good
old days, but I guess it's the same type of thing.  You walk thru darkened rooms
and corpses and skeletons pop up at you, and there's one live costumed person
who follows you around and pops out of windows and doors to scare you.  It's
about a 15-20 minutes walk thru the whole thing.  Then we went back to the hotel
for a swim and some relaxation, and a late lunch.

Monument shop in Sandusky with a cool tombstone

We got "kicked out" of the room finally at around 4PM when the cleaning people
asked if we wanted service.  So we went out to get some ice cream and some
drinks and stuff for dinner.  We also went to one of those do-it-yourself car
washes to get all the squashed bugs off the bumper/hood and windshield.  With
the cargo carrier on top, the van is too big to go thru the regular wash, and
I'm not so sure we could even use one of those with it on top.  So I sprayed the
car down and got most of the remains removed.

After a bit more relaxation, we headed out for East Harbor State Park, which is
about 10 minutes away.  We had bought a portable propane grill and brought
hamburger patties and hot dogs with us.  The park is right on the southern end
of Lake Erie with a couple of islands just north of the park.  The grill worked
really well, and we had a nice picnic in the park.

Posing on the shore of Lake Erie

How romantic!!

"I hope Karen brought enough for the others!"

Smokin' Hot!!

Sunset on the lake

Bon Appetit!!

Cool ice cream parlor right near East Harbor State Park

We filled up with gas on the way back to get ready to head out for Milwaukee in
the morning.  But first we'll stop in Skokie to meet the Lerer cousins for
lunch.  That extra hour we'll gain as we travel across the time zone will come
in handy as we have to make it to Milwaukee in time for the Sabbath.  We can
sleep an extra hour now!!

Wednesday, 6/29, Sandusky, OH

The hotel has signs on the doors warning guests to keep doors and windows closed in the evenings.  Not due to any kind of criminal element, but rather from Mayflies.  Apparently, this area's April showers do not bring May flowers, but rather, Mayflies.  They are these large mosquito-like things that rise from Lake Erie's warm waters, live for 24 hours, and then drop dead, while sticking to wherever they were at the 24 hour "expiration" time.  They said you could see feeding frenzies in the lake as the fish go after them.  They also said it's a testament to the good health of the lake.  The whole wall of the the convenience store we went to was stuck with them.  And it looked like the road was also covered with them.

 Cedar Point Amusement Park is open from 10AM - 10PM these days, but we didn't get out in the morning until around 10:30.  So we got to the park at around 11AM.  (The online tickets I purchased were finally able to be printed out in the morning, so I didn't need to deal with customer service.)  We just strolled right in, with a bag of food for lunch (that is supposed to be not allowed) and no one checked the bag.  That was quite different from these venues back home.  We put our stuff in an all-day locker rental and were on our way.  Before we left from NJ, we had purchased these insulated water bottle holders with straps, and those came in very handy as it was quite warm (~80 degrees).  It fits a Sports water bottle and has a small zipper pocket to keep money/credit card and stuff so you could leave the wallet in the locker.  And we all got a different color bag as seen below!

The Windseeker ride is a new one for 2011.  It's like those huge towers that are observation decks that rotate around, but this one the observation "deck" is actually an open air swing!!  (Not for me!)

The clouds in the sky were pretty neat.  There were some interesting patterns going on.  It was a really nice day, perfect for an amusement park and getting a bit wet too on some of the rides.  Karen, Adina, and I went on Thunder Canyon (like Congo Rapids at Great Adventure, but on some kind of growth hormone) and we all got drenched.  I think me more than the others.  Wound up in the direct path of not one, but two, waterfalls!!  But it was well worth it, even at 6PM.  Sun was still shining bright.

"Skyline" of Cedar Point Amusement Park

Here are a couple of the rides that Arie and Josh went on.  They went on their own thru the park, while Karen and I went with the girls.  They waited an hour for the coaster, but Arie said it wasn't really worth it.

Raptor

MaxAir

We even got Karen to go on the Iron Dragon ride (below).  And she hates these things.  But no loops or corkscrews, or anything like that.  Just one decent drop at the beginning and then just twists and turns at high speeds.

Iron Dragon

No way you can catch me on this crazy thing.  Shoots you up this huge tower and then freefalls and bounces back up a little at the bottom.  The one in the back is the original (?) "Kingda Ka" type (for Great Adventure enthusiasts) coaster.  Arie and I actually did Kingda Ka a few years back during a class trip when I was chaperoning and was selected to lead the "brave" bunch of kids.  Kingda Ka is actually a bit taller than this Dragster ride.  Great Adventure was trying to outdo this one.  But they're both pretty sick.

There was a pretty cool show featuring Extreme Sports athletes.  One guy on a bike was actually a double X-Games gold medal winner.  They had bikes, roller bladers, trampoline gymnasts, etc.  I'm not sure which was more entertaining - the actual show, or the guys sitting behind us ooh-ing and ahh-ing at every single stunt.  They were pretty funny.

Naama went on her FIRST "big" coaster with loops and corkscrews.  Appropriately enough, it was called Corkscrew!  This is part of what it looked like:

Corkscrew

Naama enjoying the swings!

Waiting in line for Wildcat, a small, but fairly intense ride with a few decent drops.  It's designed like the old Mousetrap game.

No pictures to show for this one, but Adina really wanted to go on the Maverick ride.  We had seen it while taking the steam train ride around the park.  It has what looks like a really nasty 90 degree drop (maybe even more than 90 degrees!).  It had a long line throughout the day, but at 7PM we decided to check it out for what could become the last ride of the day.  It showed an hour wait.  Adina really wanted to do it (and I can't deny that I did too) so we decided to wait on line.  While on line we met a very nice family (well, at least the mom and daughters were on line) from Tennessee (Knoxville, I believe).  We got to talking about all the different good parks in the country, among other things.  They've been coming to Cedar Point for a few years now.  It's about the same drive as we had from NJ.  And of course we got into discussion about this road trip, so she said she would try to follow us along as well here.  Maybe we'll bump into them as we pass thru TN in a few weeks!!  But we're planning on only hitting Memphis (Graceland).  Hopefully they'll join the fun and add some comments here.

Anyway, getting back to the ride... OMG!!  What a sick ride (as my nephews, Ephraim and Jeremy, would say).  It propels you up the initial climb into that vertical drop.  The drop is only a couple seconds long, and then you go into a really twisty, loopy, corkscrewy ride.  And then you come to what you think is the end - seems like the brakes engage and you'll be hitting the station, but then all of a sudden you go into a new quick acceleration to hit some more corkscrews and stuff.  Then it finally ends.  It was definitely worth the hour wait.  (And it was pretty much exactly an hour.  The estimated times on the rides at this park were all pretty accurate.)

On our way home we got caught at the railroad crossing.  Not very interesting, I guess, but living right on the Northeast Corridor Amtrak line back home, we're typically used to seeing/hearing these types of work trains only in the middle of the night and not being able to fall asleep again for a while after they go by.  And what does Josh say when we mention the thing about them going by our house??  "These kinds of trains go by OUR house??"  But then again, his room is on the front side of the house, so he doesn't hear them as well as I do.

Tomorrow should be a more relaxing day.  Probably do some swimming in the morning and then going to some Ghost Manor thrill house that also has some 4D movies.

Tuesday, 6/28, Heading out

Mazel Tov/Congratulations!!! Arie passed his road test. I'm not sure if the
test is usually that quick, or maybe the tester just wanted to get out of my hotbox
(1990 Civic, no air, ~180K miles) as soon as she could. The wait at the Kilmer
DMV was at least 2 hours long to get his license, so we went over to South
Plainfield, where we had to wait ONLY 1.75 hours. You can't drive out-of-state
with just a permit, so he would need the actual license if he would help with
the drive.

So we headed out about an hour later than we were planning. We left Edison at
1PM. As you can see, we tried packing "light". Actually, we realized last
night that we would have to consolidate a bit in order to fit everything in,
including food for a small army. We're not exactly "roughing" it, but if
you consider no broadband access while doing 75mph on the road "roughing" it,
then maybe we are.  Each place we're staying has internet access, so we're able
to keep this blog updated.

The trip was fairly uneventful, thankfully. I had been pretty nervous about
that Sears X-cargo X-treme cargo carrier on top of the car. I read the reviews
before I bought it, and there are always those reviewers who seem to have
experienced a nightmare with it - rattling around on the roof, water leaking in,
"oscillating" on the rack (whatever that means). But as usual, those reviewers
were probably not very skilled in installing it correctly. We had absolutely no
problems. Didn't even notice it on top of the car. When we stopped for gas, a
trucker saw me inspecting it and he said to do that frequently, as he's seen
them flying off car roofs. I said that since I hadn't heard anything from it on
the road, I figured it was either on there pretty good, or I had already lost it
way back and never noticed. Thankfully, it was the former.

A fair amount of cops on the road, along with many wide-loads. (I'll wait until
the jokes subside - "Was one of them YOU???") No traffic, just some slow downs
to 50mph at some construction areas. And we almost made friends with some
fellow Orthodox Jews driving with North Carolina plates. (For all the non-
Orthodox Jews reading, it's something of a game when traveling to see others of
our ilk anywhere. And there aren't too many of us down in NC.) So we passed
the car on its left and Karen mentioned that the driver was wearing a
yarmulkah/skullcap. Then a minute later, I see the car zooming up on our left
side, and the guy's wife is looking out the window at us smiling, so we all wave
to each other. Then they dropped far behind once they all had confirmation of
the sighting.

So we pulled into Port Clinton, OH at around 9:30PM, with just a few bathroom
stops, and one gas fill-up. I was quite impressed that we got 22.3 MPG, with
the big load and the air running. The sticker mileage for highway is 22, I
believe.

I bought tickets online for Cedar Point Amusement Park, at a $13/ticket discount
off the regular price. Unfortunately, their website gives an error trying to
open the pdf to print them out. I tried on two machines with no luck. I guess
I'll have to visit customer service to get in tomorrow morning. Hopefully we'll
have some good pics of the "Roller Coaster Capital of the World".

Monday, 6/27, Getting ready for the trip

This blog will be used to chronicle the events of the Schwartz family cross-country road trip of summer 2011.  Tomorrow, we begin by shipping out for the long trek to Sandusky, Ohio.  From there, other highlights of the trip will be Milwaukee, Minneapolis, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and a good chunk of the west coast.  If all goes well, our trip will last through July 29th and will be recorded here for posterity.