Aug 28 2013

Day 28 and 29 – Roller Coasters!

Hi there. There’s just one purpose for this stop and its to visit Cedar Point and ride the Roller Coasters in the best Amusement Park in the world, they have the tittle 15 years running. Aimee and I were pumped! Unfortunately to get all the rides in a day and half, we really didn’t have time for picture posing. I apologize for the minimal pictures from these two days.

We left Four Mile Creek State Park for the four hour drive to Cedar Point Amusement Park. On the way we passed through Pennsylvania..

Soon we were in Ohio and we passed through Cleveland. We snapped a picture of the Cleveland Indians ball park..

It wasn’t long before we were at the Park. This great sign and assorted Charlie Brown characters pointed the way..

The roller coasters were awesome. Three in particular we enjoyed the most. Top Thrill Dragster is a ride that’s comparable to a drag race. Your strapped into this car and it accelerates to 120 mph! Once speed is obtained then the track turns vertical and you pass over the top and continue straight down until you end up at the beginning of the track. The track is over 350 ft in the air! It was awesome, here’s a picture of the top of the track..

The next award winning coaster is the Millennium Force. This roller coaster was actually voted the best roller coaster in the world in 2012. This roller coaster does everything. It was the first roller coaster to top the 300 ft mark and that dip actually made Aimee and I almost black out because of the G-forces on the way down. This is similar to Air Force fighter pilots experience in jets! This coaster obtains speeds of over 90 mph and you can hear it roar throughout the park.

The Blue Streak was Aimee’s favorite. This is the oldest roller coaster in the park at 47 years old. Its an old rickety wooden roller coaster, they just don’t make those anymore. It had a series of small humps that literally put your heart in your throat, package that all up with the fact that the car actually creaked and torqued under the forces, awesome!

The park is actually located on a peninsula located on Lake Erie. They had a great beach and nice marina.

Our campground was nice. It had full hookup, pool, and hot tube. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to use much of the amenities because we closed down the park both nights. Because we stayed on the grounds, we had free shuttles to the park and were also able to get into the park an hour earlier than the general public. This allowed us to maximize the time spent riding rides!

Aimee and I both said that this was the best roller coaster park we have ever been to. I highly recommend if your an roller coaster afictionado that you visit Cedar Park, make it a bucket list item (as Aimee had), you’ll really enjoy it. Well that’s all for tonight, until tomorrow, Bon Soir!

Aug 26 2013

Day 27 – Waterfalls and Daredevils

Hi there…or for today I should say, Hi there eh! Greetings from Canada. Today Aimee and I toured around the town of Niagara Falls, Ontario.

It rained most of last night and into this morning, so we got a later start than we wanted. That’s alright, we welcomed the extra sleep. It finally stopped around 10 so we headed out. We drove over the Rainbow Bridge into Canada. The bridge crosses over the Niagara River. We waited in a short line for Canadian Customs and then we were officially in Canada!

Niagara Falls is a busy city full of hotels, Imax Theater, Shops, Casinos and even a space needle.

We headed over to the welcome center for the falls first. The welcome center was pretty cheesy but had some Canadian essentials, PJs anyone?

There were some educational items in the center, geologist have actually mapped the erosion of the falls over the years. Today, the water flow is controlled by a hydro electric plant to help reduce erosion and create electricity for the area. Roughly 45 million gallons of water flows over the falls every minute!

The overlook was pretty crowded, people from around the world came to Niagara Falls to witness this 7th wonder of the world. Here are a few of our pics from the Horseshoe falls, the largest of the falls..

The water was so powerful. As you can see it would wisp up and create a huge mist cloud that hid most of the falls. On a sunnier day, this mist cloud often creates a rainbow, cool!
Below is pictures of the American Falls, the shots are from across the river…

You probably noticed the boat in the picture, you could ride this boat to the bottom of the falls. Everyone was wearing ponchos or rain coats because you got drenched!

Looking down the side of the cliff, it’s a pretty steep drop…

After watching the falls for some time, we decided to head into town and explore. Our first stop was a pretty cool casino. We kept looking for a restroom, but here they’re called a Washroom, eh!

Need to check your coat, oh wait, coat checking is seasonal..

Aimee and I walked around some shops, including a chocolate and hot sauce shop. Stuff in Canada is very cheap. Yes those are chocolate high heel shoes…

While we were in the casino it started raining cats and dogs, so we stopped by a pretty cool fountain and had some lunch. Later we found out that the fountain is designed to mimic a hydroelectric power plant. There were plenty of cool sculptures in the casino..

Since the rest of the day was going to be rainy, we looked for indoor activities. We found an Imax that was running a show about the falls. The movie was great, if you’ve never been to an Imax, it’s an amazing movie watching experience full of sound and huge screens. I told Aimee we ought to put one in our dream house if we ever win the lottery 🙂

After the movie, the theater was a having a special exhibit of brave daredevils who chanced riding the falls and taking the plunge over the brink (that’s the point of no return, the edge of the waterfall). These daredevills came up with a some cool designs for vessels. As you see these vessels, picture these people going over the waterfall dropping 170 ft!!

That last one took a beating. Whats crazy is about half of the people actually survived. After a series of deaths, the authorities started fining individuals who dared to take the plunge..

Quick story for you..the first documented case of someone going over the falls happens to be a woman. She was a school teacher and was tired of teaching, her students were driving her crazy (she would have to be to go over the falls!). To gain fame and fortune, she decided that she would go over the falls in a 200 lb oak barrel stuffed with her mattress and pillow, she also took her cat! Well she went over the falls and survived, so did her cat; however, she didn’t receive much fame or fortune. She died lonely and poor in 1921. I guess one thing she did do is pave the way for future daredevils! Below is a picture of her and her barrel..

After the exhibit, we headed for some coffee and ice cream. Apparently, Tim Hortons is the Starbucks of Canada, Aimee had to try some. Being the non coffee drinker of the family, I went over to Cold Stone Creamery and (really!) enjoyed some ice cream. Until tomorrow, Bon Soir eh!

Aug 25 2013

Day 26 – 2nd long day of driving

Ah another long day of driving, poor Jacob. I haven’t drove once this entire trip, I’ve got it so good! 😉
This morning we moved out of the Walmart parking lot and headed toward Four Mile Creek State Park, NY just down the road from Niagara Falls.
The drive was about 8 hrs. but it was nice and scenic. We discovered, in a book at Camping World, that we are actually traveling a portion of the Oregon Trail. Maybe we will be able to do the entire trail, it goes from east coast to west coast. In the book, we didn’t buy it, they map out the historical and best things to venture off the trail to see. It looked like fun to me.

We passed a few covered bridges. This one looks like the one in Beetle Juice, don’t say it 3 times!
While we were in Camping World we bought a book to tell us the roads that a passible with a camper. Nobody wants to drive up to a bridge like this and have to take a chance that you may or may not fit. We’ve already run into that problem once.

There were a few tolls plazas we had to pass through, gotta love New York…they really know how to “stick it to ya!”

When you get on a Through Way you collect one of these tickets and it tells you how much you will own at the various exits along the way.

HEY! That’s what our camper’s backside used to look like 😦 Maybe we should warn them of what could happen.

As soon as we get on the road, this is what Roux looks like until we stop. It’s like we drug him! It’s so funny that he can sleep the entire time.

This is a rest stop. I will give New York 2 thumbs up on this. These stops are amazing….Clean bathroom, multiple food options, gas/diesel, great big-rig parking, and free WiFi! You really can ask for anything more.

As we drove from Vermont we could tell the land was changing. The rock outcrops, visible rocks on the side of the road, changed metamorphic to sedimentary to eventually flat plains like the picture above.