Day 17 & 18: Cedar Point Amusement Park

The Raptor

We took advantage of Early Entry to ride a couple of killer roller coasters: Maverick and Raptor. Maverick boasts a "Twisted Horseshoe Roll" maneuver and a 400-foot-long speed launch through a dark tunnel. This ride was, in fact, a dizzy experience. Raptor leaves your feet dangling below you and is one one of the tallest and fastest inverted coasters in the world, featuring six head-over-heels inversions.  Greg met the height restriction of 54" by an inch-and-a-half, so we were cleared to ride anything in the park!

Once Cedar Point opened to the public, we continued to tempt fate by riding four more coasters, in addition to other rides. After lunch, we relocated to the Soak City Water Park to partake in body slides, tube slides, and the lazy river. In the evening we rode a few more rides in the amusement park. The worst part of the evening occurred when we rode the lame-o bumper cars, and my car never moved. It was stuck in reverse while everyone shouted repeatedly, "Turn the wheel the whole way in the opposite direction." Meanwhile I was being pummeled by every other car in the rink. Not fun.

The next day began by Nick & Ron chickening out of riding "Dragster," the park's baddest of the bad roller coaster. This absurd ride goes 120 m.p.h., straight up, over one arch, and straight down (with some corkscrews thrown in for good measure). Truly sick. I encouraged Nick to pass because it just didn't look like a healthy choice for a growing boy. Ron's choice was on his own free will.

We left the park in the evening and drove eastward to a KOA Kampground in Grove City, Pennsylvania. This was actually quite a nice KOA, one we would go back to for a greater length of time. But at this point, we had one thing on our minds: tomorrow we would be home!