Valleyfair

Yesterday we took the Youth Fellowship up to Valleyfair, an amusement park near the Twin Cities (or, as they simply say in these parts, "the Cities"). Left at 7 AM, got home at 11 PM. I hitched a ride, didn't have to drive, so didn't have to deal with that end of it. But nonetheless I find I'm dragging this morning.

There were all sorts of rides at the park, including Excalibur, High Roller, Power Tower, RipTide, Steel Venom, and Wild Thing. I had visions of leaving my lunch behind me, so I stuck to a few of the tamer rides— wildest one I rode was the Ferris wheel. I figure I first rode a Ferris wheel back about 1962, so that must be safe. I was fine as long as I didn't look down.

I actually spent most of the day sitting around in the shade and eating. For a place that is not basically an eating establishment, Valleyfair sure has enough eating places scattered around inside it. The highlight of the day for me was discovering something called a Double Lemon Ice Chill— imagine finely micro-crushed ice which tastes like lemonade concentrate. I had several of these in the course of the day (at only $4 apiece) and am surprised they didn't come back up. I could live on Double Lemon Ice Chills.

There were also some cool acrobats from Africa.

And of course no trip to an amusement park is complete without getting ripped off on buying souvenirs. Once again, there were more souvenir shops scattered around than you could shake a stick at, and for some reason they all carried pretty much the same merchandise. I settled for a deck of transparent playing cards, a deck of giant playing cards, and a T-shirt. They had all sorts of fancy T-shirts printed in a zillion colors, with a snake on the front (for Steel Venom), or "University of Wild Thing," or crowded multicolor designs about "220 feet straight up and nowhere to go but down" and "I survived Valleyfair!" Old fart that I am, I settled instead for the most old-fart-like T-shirt I could find, which could easily have been designed and printed and worn in gym class back about 1970:


Long ride home afterwards. Between this and our Fourth of July doings, I'm just about ready to conclude that I should finally take a day off this week. Like, today.