Weekend of Fun!
Aug. 11th, 2008 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
auntiemeeshI'm not getting any real vacation time this summer, but I did manage a three-day weekend with my one remaining PTO day. So I enlisted the help of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eve11 and planned a weekend of fun.
Saturday was all about Kennywood (a local amusement park). We got there around noon and made the Potato Patch our first stop. Mm, yummy cheese fries, nom nom nom. While letting them digest, we wandered through the Penny Aracade and the midways.eve11 won a cute little stuffed dog at the Goblet Toss.
We decided to do the Skycoaster at some point during the day, but needed some time to build up to it. It's not a rollercoaster, instead, you get into a harness, get hoisted 180 ft off the ground, pull a ripcord, and swing down like a pendulum (approx. 75mph). Sounds scary as anything, but also great fun.
Here's a group just leaving the ground.
Hoisted up to the top of an anchoring pole.
And swinging free.
Unfortunately, when we finally screwed up our courage to buy the tickets (this costs almost as much extra as admission to the park), we found out that they were only taking groups of three because of wind conditions (three people = more weight = less chance of death from the wind pushing you into one of the support structures). We were only two, and while we thought about lurking about the ticket booth looking for an unattached person interested in going on the Skycoaster with us, we eventually decided to try again another day.
We had more success with the other rides we went on, however. The first thing we did was the Log Jammer, a fun little flume ride. Not too big and you don't get very wet, but it's a nice prep for the more adventuresome rides. After that we wandered around some more before making our way to the Pittfall. For some reason, while I was eager to try the Skycoaster, I've never really had any real desire to get anywhere near the Pittfall, but I geared up my courage and gave it a shot. Amazingly enough, I didn't die.
I have a whole series of tall, taller, tallest shots here, but this one shows the scale pretty well.
What it looks like from the entrance to the line.
It's a simple ride, really. You sit in a chair-like arrangement with a shoulder harness, they haul you up 251 ft. to the top of the tower, leave you up there for an agonizingly long time, and then drop you. About two thirds of the way down they apply brakes so you don't go squish at the bottom.
After a suitable recovery period (I was a little wobbly afterwards and my head was tingling a bit) we decided on the Thunderbolt as our next target. The Thunderbolt is one of Kennywood's three wooden rollercoasters and it's great fun. Unlike most coasters, it starts off right away by dropping you down into a valley. It's not the fastest coaster in the world, but it and the Racer (another wooden one at Kennywood) are my favorites.
After that we needed more food and midway games before standing in line for the Raging Rapids, a white-water rafting type of ride. You sit in big round boat/raft things that hold six. We shared with a trio of adorably giggly pre-teen girls who were very excited about the ride. There's a lot of bumping into walls and spinning around on this ride. There's also a lot of water. I was the lucky one to get completely dumped on by the waterfall, which means by the time we got off the ride I was every bit as wet as if I'd just jumped fully clothed into the river. Very fun but very wet. After that we pretty much packed it in. Got frozen yogurts, wrung out our clothes (twice), sat in the sun for a while and then headed back toeve11's place.
Saturday night was a whole other order of fun. Eve and her boyfriend have a Wii and Rockband. I've never tried either before. I am now hopelessly addicted to Rockband (my instrument of choice is the bass, although I also like guitar, and drums are freakin' impossible, seriously). I can feel the withdrawal even as I type this. If I disappear entirely from the face of lj and life, it's altogether possible I've gone crazy, bought myself the requisite kit and have blown off work and forgotten to eat while dedicating myself to conquering all the blue notes (basically, I suck and can barely manage the easy setting - being able to get through the songs on medium is my new goal).
Sunday was very laid back. Breakfast at Kings, more Rockband, writing fic and gettingeve11 to beta it for me in person, which has to be significantly less fun for her than doing it by email - I'm stubborn and get frustrated and it's not pretty. It was, by my accounts at least, a very successful Weekend of Fun!
eve11 and planned a weekend of fun.Saturday was all about Kennywood (a local amusement park). We got there around noon and made the Potato Patch our first stop. Mm, yummy cheese fries, nom nom nom. While letting them digest, we wandered through the Penny Aracade and the midways.
eve11 won a cute little stuffed dog at the Goblet Toss. We decided to do the Skycoaster at some point during the day, but needed some time to build up to it. It's not a rollercoaster, instead, you get into a harness, get hoisted 180 ft off the ground, pull a ripcord, and swing down like a pendulum (approx. 75mph). Sounds scary as anything, but also great fun.
Here's a group just leaving the ground.
Hoisted up to the top of an anchoring pole.
And swinging free.
Unfortunately, when we finally screwed up our courage to buy the tickets (this costs almost as much extra as admission to the park), we found out that they were only taking groups of three because of wind conditions (three people = more weight = less chance of death from the wind pushing you into one of the support structures). We were only two, and while we thought about lurking about the ticket booth looking for an unattached person interested in going on the Skycoaster with us, we eventually decided to try again another day.
We had more success with the other rides we went on, however. The first thing we did was the Log Jammer, a fun little flume ride. Not too big and you don't get very wet, but it's a nice prep for the more adventuresome rides. After that we wandered around some more before making our way to the Pittfall. For some reason, while I was eager to try the Skycoaster, I've never really had any real desire to get anywhere near the Pittfall, but I geared up my courage and gave it a shot. Amazingly enough, I didn't die.
I have a whole series of tall, taller, tallest shots here, but this one shows the scale pretty well.
What it looks like from the entrance to the line.
It's a simple ride, really. You sit in a chair-like arrangement with a shoulder harness, they haul you up 251 ft. to the top of the tower, leave you up there for an agonizingly long time, and then drop you. About two thirds of the way down they apply brakes so you don't go squish at the bottom.
After a suitable recovery period (I was a little wobbly afterwards and my head was tingling a bit) we decided on the Thunderbolt as our next target. The Thunderbolt is one of Kennywood's three wooden rollercoasters and it's great fun. Unlike most coasters, it starts off right away by dropping you down into a valley. It's not the fastest coaster in the world, but it and the Racer (another wooden one at Kennywood) are my favorites.
After that we needed more food and midway games before standing in line for the Raging Rapids, a white-water rafting type of ride. You sit in big round boat/raft things that hold six. We shared with a trio of adorably giggly pre-teen girls who were very excited about the ride. There's a lot of bumping into walls and spinning around on this ride. There's also a lot of water. I was the lucky one to get completely dumped on by the waterfall, which means by the time we got off the ride I was every bit as wet as if I'd just jumped fully clothed into the river. Very fun but very wet. After that we pretty much packed it in. Got frozen yogurts, wrung out our clothes (twice), sat in the sun for a while and then headed back to
eve11's place.Saturday night was a whole other order of fun. Eve and her boyfriend have a Wii and Rockband. I've never tried either before. I am now hopelessly addicted to Rockband (my instrument of choice is the bass, although I also like guitar, and drums are freakin' impossible, seriously). I can feel the withdrawal even as I type this. If I disappear entirely from the face of lj and life, it's altogether possible I've gone crazy, bought myself the requisite kit and have blown off work and forgotten to eat while dedicating myself to conquering all the blue notes (basically, I suck and can barely manage the easy setting - being able to get through the songs on medium is my new goal).
Sunday was very laid back. Breakfast at Kings, more Rockband, writing fic and getting
eve11 to beta it for me in person, which has to be significantly less fun for her than doing it by email - I'm stubborn and get frustrated and it's not pretty. It was, by my accounts at least, a very successful Weekend of Fun!
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-11 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-11 09:00 pm (UTC)WAHHHH! I miss Kennywood! (Although I'm not certain I could have been persuaded to try either the Skycoaster or the PittFall.)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 09:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 12:09 pm (UTC)=D
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Date: 2008-08-12 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-12 10:30 pm (UTC)And my goodness, Kennywood has some totally crazy rides! I'd need several sets of clean clothes.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 01:24 am (UTC)