Return to Snake Island-Cedar Point Vacation 2015

 

We got to go on a little family getaway last week to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio last week.
What is Cedar Point, you ask?
Well, it is only THE best amusement park in the Midwest, one could even argue the best amusement park in the USA really.
The self-proclaimed “rollerCOAST” because Cedar Point is a peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie hence the POINT part.
The Cedar part isn’t really clear anymore.
I am sure there used to be many cedars there at one time but were cleared out for all those roller coasters.

We had met up with my brother and his family at Cedar Point a few years ago and decided to do that again this year as well as meet our dear friends Vikki and Kari and their families as well.
The planning began back in March and it was something to look forward to in the cold and snow.
We hemmed and hawed on dates then finally I threw out a random date in June when I found out my oldest daughter’s break from cheer camp.
June 29th was the day I said we could go to Cedar Point all day.
A Monday, but it worked for everyone involved thankfully and they all worked around my husband’s ridiculous schedule, thank you all for that.
It was a week before we left for Ohio that Vikki told me June 29th was more than just a random Monday.
It would have been her brother’s 55th birthday.
David had passed away two years ago from cancer in October of 2013.

Vikki with her brother, David.

It hit me right where my heart and my stomach meet.
It wasn’t an accident that we picked this date.
This date picked us.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

We had seen the weather fluctuate between rain and sun for 10 days for the day we were supposed to spend at Cedar Point but at last, we had checked, it was supposed to be sunny and 75 for our day.
YES!
We were so happy!
Then on the trip out, I was texting my friends and my mom when I happened to check my Weather Channel app.
Rain and thunderstorms.
80% chance.
All day.
I was just sick.
I could hear Anna chatting with her friend in the backseat and Ella singing with her headphones on as I thought of their only vacation this summer is ruined.
Tears started running down my face.

How could this have happened overnight?
IT JUST SAID SUNNY AND 75 YESTERDAY!
I got some tears out, sent a few texts and had some chocolate.
I talked it through to my husband and wiped my tears.
We will buy ponchos and stomp through the rain!
Sure this is our only vacation but we are lucky to even have any vacation at all!
We have each other, our family, our dear friends.
If we are having fun and making the best of it, so will they.
We will make it fun dammit!

We got to our cabin on Lake Erie safely, met up with my brother and his family.
But not before we had a casualty.

 

He fell off the cooler in the back of our car.
Because my husband felt he would be safer back there.
Did I mention he is the Michigan fan?

Home sweet cabin.

 

Yay!! Let’s go to the pool!! When it is only 73 degrees!! OKAY!!! The husbands were gracious enough to go in the pool with the kids and a good thing too because the water in the pool was 65 degrees.

After the pool, the gnome and the husbands kicked back with a cold one.
But not before a very sobering realization.
See what I did there??

Looking at ALL our new pet snakes

We find out when we get back from the pool that the teenagers were planning on going swimming in the lake but were stopped.
By something moving in the rocks.
Snakes.
Long story short, we find out that we have a snake problem.
Or rather they have a human problem.

That snake was just one of many living in the rocks just a stone’s throw away from our cabin.
Heh heh heh.
So this is the Lake Erie water snake, say hello.
They like to lay on the rocks and sun themselves all day long.
Lazy snakes, GET A JOB!
This was just one.
There were, at final count, 11 snakes at our cabin, on one particular afternoon.
JUST OUR CABIN.
Not any of the other cabins, only ours.
Funny, I do remember many mentions of the “bug problems” at these cabins right on Lake Erie on Trip Advisor.
But I don’t remember any mention of a “snake problem”.
Probably because the person who wrote about it, ended up with a box of snakes on their front porch three days later.
I kid, I kid.

Our cabin was beautiful and so peaceful if you looked beyond the snakes.
Hisssssss hisssssss.
WHAT WAS THAT?????

Oh and apparently they are good at getting rid of the bugs.
Yeah, no we still had bugs.
THEY WEREN’T EVEN DOING THEIR JOB!

Oh and the snakes swim too.
My sister in law and I were sitting on the deck on the first night and I said, “umm Kristy, is that a snake swimming? Yes. Yes, it is.” CHECK PLEASE.”
It was like we were in Hell.
If my grandmother were still alive, she would have never left the car.

So if you were thinking of swimming at the beach here?
Just know, you would have company.
Little snakes wearing life jackets.
I SWEAR I AM NOT TRYING TO KEEP YOU FROM VISITING.
It gets better.
Keep reading.

We were ready to tackle Cedar Point the next day!
RAIN OR NOT, WE WILL NOT BE DETERRED!!!
Even with a broken foot and snakes that can swim!!!!

We woke up and saw the snakes popping their little heads out of the rocks because we had donuts.
Snakes love donuts!
I even said good morning to the snakes.
They were growing on me.
We woke to beautiful skies, I sat on the deck and listened to the waves and said a thank you to the sky.
This would be a great day to spend with some beautiful people.

We missed the petting zoo by an hour but they left the animals out as a teaser.
Thanks a lot, Cedar Point.
Yes, I know they must live there but how’s about that life as a “farm” animal?
Living on a peninsula on Lake Erie full of roller coasters.
Of course, they looked well fed.
Kind of like those Lake Erie snakes.
SHIVER.

Something about little behinds.

This is Vikki’s dad, Jack and he holds my heart.
So I mentioned earlier about this day being David’s birthday.
I thought about him throughout the day and would occasionally hug Vikki or her dad.
I know this day had to be hard on him as well.
But this is what is so cool about this man: he is 80 years old but I don’t think he knows he is.
Shhh, don’t tell him.
He rode approximately 8-10 roller coaster rides on this day.
He also feels as though he might be “slowing down a little bit”.
I WANT TO BE HIM WHEN I GROW UP.

 

This picture makes me laugh out loud every time I look at it.
Ella loved these cars so much and wanted to ride them over and over and over.
AND OVER.
This is Vikki’s daughter, Beth aka my twin, in the passenger seat and her sweet friend Emily, in the backseat.
The greatest part of this whole thing is that these two teenagers were just as excited to ride with her as she was to ride with them.
There are so many bad things written about teenagers out there and I am here to say this: there are really amazing teens among us and I am witness to quite a few.

 

Case in point.
This train filled with teens riding with kids.
At the end of the night, my daughter Anna and her friend Abby, as well as Beth and her friend Emily ran from ride to ride in Camp Snoopy, with my nephew and my daughter as they squealed with glee.
Those two kids will never forget that.
I am forever grateful for teenagers who do deeds like that.
They have no idea how much children look up to them for things like this.
It leaves lasting impressions.
God bless them all.

Ella was by Jack’s side or “Grampa” as she called him, almost the entire day.
She told him long stories, lovingly pushed him in his wheelchair and just loved being around him.

Ella doesn’t have a grandfather figure in her daily life and I know she misses it.
This day was therapeutic for her, filling a void she desperately needs.

It was good for both of them, I think, to have this day.

 

OMG CAN WE TALK ABOUT FUNNEL CAKE FRIES??
Do we have these in Chicago?
I had never heard of these before or was completely oblivious to them because when I saw the cart for these I heard angels singing and the clouds parted.
No, seriously, the clouds parted and it stopped raining.
The best part of the funnel cake is the outside edge because the inside gets all mushy, so what a perfect invention!
Now, I wasn’t thinking that an hour later on the third run on the Gemini roller coaster when I almost vomited in Kristy’s lap…..BUT OMG FUNNEL CAKE FRIES?????

My all-time favorite part of Cedar Point is the older Frontier part.
We were trying to find out how to get to this area and Vikki asked a young employee how to get here, mentioning some kind of frontier trail to a blank look.
Then she asked him where the Panda Express was and he was all OH YEAH! TAKE A LEFT THAN A RIGHT THEN ANOTHER LEFT!
It’s located in the woods and has all sorts of little shops and cool leather making exhibits etc.
I hope they never get rid of this section but a sure fire way not to is to stick a Panera or a Panda Express in here.
OR A FUNNEL CAKE FRIES STAND.
YES.
MUCH BETTER.
Frontier people would have loved those.

It was so sad to say goodbye to our family, friends and to Cedar Point but we decided we need to make it an annual trip.
Because it was so much fun to spend the day with our loved ones in such a fun place.
We got to talk, hold hands and make lots of memories.
AND HELLO, FUNNEL CAKE FRIES.
By the way, we didn’t get rained out.
This day turned out to be absolutely gorgeous and because of the forecast, the longest lines were only 15 minutes long.
My teenager and her friend got to ride every roller coaster in the park, some four times.
It was the perfect day.
One could even say, it was Heaven sent.

We always stop at our favorite lighthouse in Marblehead on the way out of town.
Which is about 40 minutes drive from Sandusky.
It sounds like a long way but it is just a roundabout drive.
Trust me, it is worth the drive.

 

Going to Cedar Point without stopping at some of the cool little towns along Lake Erie is really doing yourself an injustice.
So allow yourself an extra morning or at least an extra day if you are from out of state.
Oh, and by the way, Cedar Point here is a tip: your employees were amazingly friendly on the grounds of the place we stayed but they knew nothing about the area.
Which leads me to believe that they aren’t from the area.
You need to work on that BIG TIME by training them to learn the area.
They didn’t even offer to help us to find Marblehead.
Mad props to the Ohio family in the lobby of the registration center who not only helped us reroute a way that was better than GPS could send us but also gave us their map.
I love Ohio people.

 

The girls loved walking into the water.
Especially because we were far from those snakes.

Since they were across the lake over there.
HELLOOOOO SNAKES.
I didn’t have the heart to tell the girls that they swim.
Or that they wear little life jackets.

So back to that lighthouse:

Looks innocent enough, right?
So it was open to the public, which is very rare.
My husband and I are both afraid of heights.
I can do roller coasters but I can’t do things like Ferris wheels, fire towers in state parks, lighthouses along great lakes.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT WAS WRONG WITH US.

Maybe we were on a Cedar Point high or something but we had balls.
Balls of steel.
But we decided that on this day, we needed to go to the top of the Marblehead lighthouse.

So Anna and her friend were in front, essentially skipping up the narrow, winding staircase two steps at a time.
Followed by Mike, Ella in the middle, me and then a lady behind me who was probably in her late sixties who made me laugh so hard that I thank God she was in the lighthouse of death with us.
I named her Barbara because I love to name people and dogs.
And inanimate objects.
I named the snakes.
Don’t ask.

The problem with being afraid of heights is that once you go up, you can’t look anywhere but straight ahead but there was no room to look anywhere else.
Because lighthouse of death.
THOSE FISHERMEN PEOPLE WERE BADASS.
CAN YOU IMAGINE CLIMBING UP THOSE METAL STEPS WITH RUBBER WHALING BOOTS ON??
Omg, all slippery and sh#$.
Yeah, that is all I could think of, meanwhile Barbara behind me is all “omg, this is horrible this is awful, oh I don’t know if I can do this, that is a long way down, oh dear heavens, oh my goodness, we just keep getting higher and higher, look how far down the bottom is, no, don’t look, keep looking straight ahead, yeah that is better”.

Her running dialogue is why I am still here today, ladies and gentlemen.
I might even re-name this blog A Barbara Life because God Bless her soul, she saved me that day.
By the way, when we got to the top, Mike and I literally clung to the wall for five seconds, breathed like we were giving birth and threw ourselves back into the stairwell.
Barbara never left the stairwell.
Barbara might still be there.

 

On the way home, we stopped at a place that is kind of a tradition.
Cheesehaven.
We used to go here when we were little and we would go up to Lake Erie.
I am sure a lot of kids get upset when stopping here on the way to Cedar Point because when you are little the last place you want to go is a metal building filled with cheese and smoked meat.
When you are an adult that is the FIRST place you want to go.
So when I told my children about Cheesehaven, they didn’t complain because of FOOD.
My kids love food more than what is probably normal.
So when we pulled up and they saw the sign then read it, I could hear the collective ooh’s and ahh’s from the backseat.
Even the teenager that wasn’t ours was impressed.
By the way, it is pronounced CheeseHEAVEN.
It is.  Really.

We stopped at Notre Dame on the way home because none of us had ever seen the campus and we wanted to break up the trip on the way home.
It is the most beautiful campus I have ever been on but the Buckeye in me definitely felt uncomfortable being there.

Ella met a friend by Touchdown Jesus.

My husband really only wanted to see this campus because he likes the movie Rudy.
He has an aversion to Notre Dame that rivals his aversion to Ohio State.

 

And I yelled Go Buckeyes into the stadium when no one was looking.
See how many touchdowns that gets ya.

 

Umm, Jesus doesn’t even like football.
SMH.

It was such a fun trip, a memory maker for sure and it makes me glad that we do these trips.
The beach would be fun, going to distant lands would be cool but spending time with loved ones can’t be beaten, that is for sure.
Can’t wait for next year.
I want to get my parents in on the action next time.
Only we will rent cabin FOUR next year.

Hey, snakes! There will be two more next year! You can’t handle all that awesome!

HISS HISS!!

That was Harold.
He was very feisty.

WHAT??

This post is dedicated to the memory of David A. Schuster Gabriel