Hey everyone, this was quite a crazy couple of weeks/months in 2024 for me. Normally I would split these into different blogs, but they're all a little too interconnected for me to make them separate things.
It all started with my grandparents (maternal grandma and paternal grandpa) having a lot of really rough things happen. Earlier in the year we moved my grandma to memory care and that meant a lot of going through her house and getting it prepped for selling. Lots of things to go through, and one of the things I did was get the curio cabinet for our house (we have niknaks and such we want to display). I bought another curio cabinet many years prior and it was easy enough to move both carrying myself and hauling in my car, and I figured that I could do the same this time. Unfortunately my car is smaller and the cabinet is bigger and heavier, so I had to rent a uhaul trailer and get mizorlover to help me move it. That was the first time I used a trailer, and it wasn't that hard; not exactly easy but was easy enough. I also took 2 shelving units, one from the basement that I'm using in the garage and the shelving unit in my uncles room that we're using for storing our business stuff. Mozorlover and I went to one of the arcades by me afterwards and it was fun seeing him again. Also while cleaning out one of the dressers we found my grandpa's ring that we thought he lost. I liked it the most as a kid and I'm the only grandson that wears rings (my brother and cousin both have a school ring that they don't wear often, whereas I have 2 class rings and wear them all the time), so there wasn't any push back of "no I want that."
Well fast forward some weeks and my grandma fell and broke her hip. For a 90 year old woman that's pretty bad and concerning; it could be quick and easy, or it could be a death sentence, and all sorts of in-between. Thankfully it was "quick and easy," now it's just rehab. Rehab was not great, yes she got her hip fixed but she developed some bed sores and pressure sores, and they weren't very attentive to "dementia patient who can't verbalize there's a problem," which resulted in someone basically staying with her all the time (mostly my mom). That took quite the toll on her as it was like a month long process.
Once my grandma got out of rehab, my 97 year old grandpa somehow contracted covid. "Somehow" being the very key word, he doesn't go out much, neither did my aunt who he lived with, and he didn't get a lot of visitors. One grandparent out of the hospital, the other one in. My mom and dad looked after him while he was in the hospital since it was probably the end (because again 97 year old man), knowing full well they were going to get sick from him. Vikingpolak also went to see him while he was in the hospital because he wanted to see him as well, which of course meant that he got sick too, or at very least meant that he was at risk of carrying for a while. Mskate and I didn't see grandpa when he was sick, mostly because it meant that we were the only ones that could see my grandma since she certainly couldn't get sick especially since she is living in a nursing home with lots of other old people, and since we are her only family that's local (everyone else lives in other states) it was super necessary that we stay healthy. Even though she didn't need a family advocate we did visit her often since she needed our company.
Here's the crazy thing with my grandpa, he's 97 years old, his wife had been dead for 10 years, he personally met 3 of his great grandkids and has seen all 6 of his great grandkids, he saw all his grandkids graduate college, he outlived his older brother so his last goal was met, he had been losing his strength and independence while maintaining his mind for years, all of his friends died; he lived a very full life and was saying "I don't know what's taking the Lord, I'm ready to go home." Once he got out of the hospital he lived for about a week more, giving all of us time to say goodbye (and he stayed lucid the entire time). Mskate and I went to see him a day or 2 before he passed, he was really rough and was spending most of the time sleeping since he had no energy, we went in and held his hand and told him how much we loved him, and his eyes lit up and gave a little smile to us. Really great moment.
Around this time there was also a funny work story. My first boss was retiring and he's a character. One of his traits is that he always had a bottle of diet mountain dew with him, and I had the idea of "mountain dew cake." I don't remember where I first heard about it, but I knew there's a way to make mountain dew cakes. I looked up some recipes and asked my coworkers if they would chip in (which they did). I made 2 different recipes and shared it with people to get their opinion, and then made the recipe people liked most on his last day. On his last day we got him out of his office, decorated it with balloons, and then brought everyone back in. He really liked the cake as did everyone else. Great way to send him off.
Now for my Cedar Point 2024 adventure. Last year in 2023 my mom and I went to Cedar Point twice for some fun weekends since I had the season pass, and this year my mom needed a break from all the craziness she was dealing with. We had been planning this for a week or so before grandpa passed which was about a month after grandma got out of rehab. It's halloweekend mid-September which means it wasn't hot at all, and I took a day off on Friday so we could go during a weekday and less crowded. Mom got to the condo early in the morning so we could get there around when it opens, and we didn't eat much because of all day dining plan (eat a meal once every 1.5 hours). The drive down was pretty easy. I had a little trouble getting my account on the app because cedar point updated the app since last year and it required a complete redownload, but I printed off our tickets so no problem. We went to Hugo's Italian Restaurant first since it was the closest to the entrance, we needed to start the dining plan, and most importantly we were hungry. We split a piece of pepperoni pizza and Caesar salad. We then went on our first rides of the day, Ocean Motion followed by Raptor. Ocean Motion is a fun ride, it's a boat ride where it rocks you back and forth, really fun little ride. Then raptor is a fun roller coaster.
After the "opening things" we went to the pier area. We rode max air, a ride where it swings you back and forth as it spins you around. There are 50 seats on the ride so there wasn't much of a line (I think we had to wait until the current ride finished before we could ride). It was quite fun. Once done with that it was time to eat again. We went to The Pavilion and had roast beef and lobster bisque as we watched the waves crash on Lake Erie. We then went to the different small rides at the pier area; Calipso, Matterhorn, Troika, and dodgem cars. All of them are fun spin-around rides, and dodgem was really fun even though mom had a little trouble getting in and out of the cars. The big thing though was that we were able to ride Windseaker, the super swings ride we weren't able to ride last year. It's like 200 feet in the air and spins you around on big swings. It's REALLY fun, and kind of thrilling because of the heights. There's parasailing and small planes or something, and we were above them. Once we rode Windseaker we went back to the Pavilion and had fancy nachos; dorito chips, nacho cheese, taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, and I think sour cream. REALLY good. I also don't know exactly when this happened, but in my camera roll I have a guy with a really funny t-shirt, which was before a picture of an error/no signal on a TV monitor at the Pavilion, so they had to be here.
Now it's time for some roller coasters. We went to gatekeepers since it was close to the Pavilion. This is an interesting roller coaster where there are 2 different sides with the riders riding on either side, with 1 giving a view of the lake and the other a view of the park. The line wasn't long so we rode both sides. As we went through we rode Rougaru and Valraven, 2 really fun roller coasters. Valraven is a fun ride where it drops you down a 90 degree drop. It was about time to eat again and we went to coasters where mom had chicken fingers and I had the fries. Since coasters is close to the main stage we watched some of the Peanuts Halloween show that was going on then. Something that was funny was they did Time Warp, a song from an R-rated musical, in a stage show that's made for kids. Kind of funny.
This is when planning had to happen. During halloweekends the back of the park is scary land starting at 8PM, and it was like 4PM now or so, and since we aren't into scary we wanted to do those rides before scary started. We walked through frontier land and went on Skyhawk in scary land. Maverick was the next ride on our list, a really fun roller coaster with a 95 degree drop; yes, it's an inverted drop which is pretty cool. In my notes I have that we left the line for some reason when we were close to the end and then went back and the line was longer. I think it was for food, which is when we went to a hotdog and pizza place where I wanted to get the bratwurst burger but they were out, so I think we split some pizza (which wasn't very good). The maverick line on the 2nd time was pretty long, so it was time to eat again. We went to frontier farmhouse kitchen and grill and had brisket and Brussel sprouts. Yummy.
It's now like 7PM, meaning we have about an hour before scary starts. We rode like every big thing but there were some small things we would have enjoyed like the train that goes between scary and not. I had the idea of riding the train out of scary land, but it must have closed around 7PM so people don't accidentally go to scary, so we missed vikingpolak's favorite childhood ride. We walked our way through the back of the park to the side where camp snoopy is and the other rides we haven't rode yet. We wanted to ride pipe scream, a spin and wave ride in camp snoopy, but camp snoopy was closed down probably because it was in scary land. We were really close to the entrance to scary land when it changed over, we thought we'd get out but nope. When the time changed there were crazy sadistic laughs that started playing on the park sound system signaling the start of scary time. The scary was a lot of scary clowns that would get in your face and spook you. We got out before we got spooked, and on our way out we saw a girl that was crying from terror in a place where the clowns weren't going. Poor kid.
Now that we're out of scary land we went to Back Beat Que and got brisket and macaroni and cheese. This was a pretty good meal for what we did next. There was a trampoline show coming up soon and we wanted to see it, and the brisket and mac ended up being good food for us to have while watching the show. The show was REALLY cool. There were these stilt walkers that were leading the trampoline artists to the stage, and it was all morbid like evil spirit things leading them by the neck to their punishment, and it was going through the crowd that was gathering. Then they took off the robe hood revealing a skeleton costume and the funny thing was the costumes were on backwards. It was a bit uncanny since their knees would be backwards and they were clearly facing away from us but the skeleton was looking at us, but whatever still cool. What was neat about this is that it was all acrobatics, like they're jumping over each other and jumping together and doing jump rope with each other, and jumping in and out of the wall of the stage, and it was really cool. After the show the performers did a little meet and greet, and I told one of them it was a really good show. Also, one of the performers was a trombone player, and I took a photo because I played trombone in school.
Now its's like 2 hours before close, and we had some choices to make. One coaster we haven't rode yet was corkscrew, and we decided not to ride it since the ride is really rough. We did ride power tower, the ride that's either a drop or a shoot up. I think we did both because the line wasn't very long. We were also close to Magnum XL, another old ride, and mom decided to sit it out. This was definitely for the best since it was rather rough and probably would have hurt her a little. The thing that's kind of crazy is that it's a "just a lap bar" coaster and is kind of open on the train car, and it goes up super high. Like, I know it's safe, but it gave me some fear of heights or something. We watched a little of the last show of the night at the main stage, a jukebox musical about witches or something. After watching some of that we got a burger and frings (fries and onion rings) at coasters at like 11:50 PM (right before the park closed). Good way to end the day.
That was basically the trip to Cedar Point. We spent like 14 hours in the park until they closed and kicked us out, and ate $154.02 worth of food for like $40. We made it to the hotel and fell asleep really quickly. On the drive back we picked up a case of Yingling since Yingling was my grandpa's favorite beer (he grew up in the same city as the brewery and would watch them load up the kegs for fun), but it's not available in our state so we had to get it while we could because we needed to have his favorite beer at his luncheon thing we were doing. At some point during the trip we walked through the arcade in the park and I got this funny picture of me at one of the rides. I turned it into this meme.
The day after Cedar Point was my church's Octoberfest, where mskate and I were volunteers. It's a fun festival and fund raiser; there's a beer garden, brats, bavarian pretzels, polka music, and various games. I sold 50/50 tickets, just walking around yelling "50 50," and I think mskate was selling food tickets. Another fun thing was the basket raffle, people donate different baskets of things and parishioners put tickets in for a drawing. Mskate and I made a frankenmuth basket to donate and it got a fair amount of tickets. I normally buy about $200 worth of raffle tickets, but even so we didn't win anything. One of the fun games was the pretzel toss, which wasn't actually pretzels but ping pong balls with pretzels drawn on them. I ended up winning, my teammate and I were really good. It was a fun time.
Now it's time for the sad bits, my grandpa's funeral. Here's the rough thing, our family is REALLY spread out; my parents, brother, aunt, 1 cousin, and myself live in the same state as grandpa, and my other cousins and uncles live on other ends of the country (and 1 lives in Japan). Since I streamed my other grandpa's funeral and grandma-in-law's funeral I got all the necessary equipment and set-up to stream the funeral for all the family that couldn't make it. Vikingpolak came over a day or 2 prior to do some tests since my laptops at the time wouldn't be good for streaming, so he brought his laptop over and we did some tests after getting OBS set-up on his laptop. My aunt decided we shouldn't do that and so we didn't. We brought all the gear (camera, cables, capture card, and laptop) just in case, but it didn't end up happening. This was not ideal since only my one uncle and same-state cousin was able to come, meaning everyone else missed it, but I'll get to how we mitigated that in a bit.
The drive up was pretty surreal, because I had been up there many times as a kid but haven't been up there in at least 10 years and mskate had never been. We put the condo address in the GPS and it was going to take us a certain direct way, but I was like "no we need to go in the town way." We were early before the funeral so I had a little time to show her around the small town. I showed her the McDonalds with the play place that we spent a lot of time in. I showed her the small park that we would walk to and play at. We drove to the house with the friend with an indoor pool that we would swim at all the time (the friend isn't there anymore, had to move out because they were old and the house had a lot of regular maintenance since "indoor pool" and a really large property, and so we didn't knock on the door and say "I used to know the previous owner, can I see your basement"). We drove by the school with the big wooden play structure that we would drive to and play at. We drove by the local 1 screen theater that was always fun to see what was playing and maybe go see it (last one I remember seeing was Skyscraper). I don't remember what the movie was, but it wasn't super interesting. The movie theater is owned by an old couple, I'd love to interview them and get their story as a "real old time movie theater." I also showed her the drive through party store and got her a diet coke from there. Then we went to the local grocery store that has been there forever. Something interesting is that since there's an Amish community in the area the grocery store has a hitching post for a horse and buggy (because that's what the Amish drive). When we were there there was a horse and buggy parked at the post, so that was cool. We went to the store to see if we could get the elfwich cookies that grandpa loved (or maybe it was grandma, one of them really liked them and always kept them stocked), and one year for Christmas I gave him a wholesale box of them and he and my aunt liked them. It was a fun story to tell at the luncheon.
The ceremony was really great. He didn't have a "funeral home visitation," just a wake in the vestibule of his home church where we were having the funeral. We video called my cousin in Japan and I think also my uncle who lives in Florida. My grandpa was a carpenter by hobby and his main thing in retirement, and his casket was a really nice wood. I got to meet some of my extended aunts and uncles that were kind of local, which was nice. I also got to spend some time with my one cousin and let him know about when we'll be over his way for a catechism training thing and that we should meet up.
Now to start the ceremony. First off, my grandpa was a world war 2 navy vet which meant that he could get full military honors. However, there was a small risk that this wasn't going to happen since there was some paperwork problems; now there's some kind of form that says military career and such, but that started in like Vietnam and wasn't really a thing for WWII, but we were able to find something that counted and he got the full ceremony. It started with members of the VFW in military dress putting poppies on his casket and giving him a military salute. Afterwards active navy did a color guard presentation of the flag, putting it on his casket, and then presenting the flag to my aunt and thanking him for his service. After that he got a 9 gun volley (since 21 gun salute would be too much for even a rural farm town) and taps. Really great ceremony. After that it was time to go into the church worship space where my uncle gave a nice eulogy. Lots of stories of him at work and in the navy and his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids. Then for the funeral my brother and I read readings. After mass I was one of the paul bearers. The hearse had the military emblem and American flags on it since they were moving a veteran, really cool. We had a nice little final goodbye at the grave site and then went to the condo for a luncheon. Before I get to that though, even though we weren't doing "full filming and streaming" I did get mskate to record the military ceremony, my uncle's eulogy, and the final prayer at the grave site, and once mskate gets enough pictures scanned in I'm going to make a slide show over the eulogy (because we were filming the floor to not be conspicuous). I sent a rough cut with "the floor" to my uncle who couldn't make it and my other uncle who gave the eulogy since my aunt wasn't able to come and wanted to hear the eulogy, but once I get the full thing done I'll send it to everyone.
After the funeral we all went to the condo and had a luncheon type thing for anyone who wanted to join. 10 years earlier when my grandma died we had a thing at the church social hall, but they stopped doing that so we just had sandwiches at his condo. Mskate and shared the cookies with everyone, but I was kind of the only one that really got the significance (probably because it was mostly my memory). We hung out with the cousins that came, and I primarily hung out with the big cousin who came. We did a lot of talking about stories, like how my cousin installed quake on my grandma's computer and that was a big deal for her, and one time when they were over for a visit they were watching subtitled anime on her computer (this was before youtube). A great memory from when I was a kid is that change would fall out of my grandpa's pockets and fall into the chair, and if you lifted it up there would be a bunch of change under it, and every time we came up we would "check the money chair" and there was always money there (like maybe $5 in various coins), and then we would play with the money while we were up there. I lifted up the chair and there were 2 dimes, one for my brother and one for me. Even in death my grandpa gave us "magic money chair money." I have them in my money drawer with a little note saying "the final money chair money." We also went through some of this things to see who would want what. Everyone picked some tools and such that they would use (because he was a carpenter by hobby and had a lot of REALLY nice tools), and one thing that I found that really spoke to me was "the toy train assignment." In an introduction to drafting class one of the final assignments is to draw a toy train in isometrics using a top, front, and side view. Why is this the final assignment? Because it has slopes, overhangs, cylinders, and domes, some of the hardest things to draw in isometrics. My grandpa was an engineer and I'm pretty sure that he had to do this assignment as well, and because he's a carpenter he made it out of wood. I uploaded it to r/engineeringstudents with the title "my engineer and carpenter grandpa made it real" and it got 400 upvotes.
After the luncheon thing we drove home, and stopped at the McDonalds. You might say "it's a McDonald's, it's all the same, what's so special about it?" In this small town it's not just "a McDonald's" it is "THE McDonald's." When we were kids and my mom had to grade papers, she would go there before everyone was awake and do the school work there. Since she was so regular she became friends with other regulars that would go there, because it was like the only place that was open at 6AM on Saturday. They had an indoor play place and in the winter it was the only place where kids could run around. They also had those "Fischer Price play houses" in the play place, and we have home videos where my cousin and I are playing in them. When there was the Inspector Gadget and Beanie Baby happy meal toys my grandma and her friend would go there to get the toys (of which I still have my inspector gadget). We didn't eat there often, but it was "a place with memories." One of the funniest things I remember from when I was like 18 or 19, we were getting some food there and a "tig bitty goth girl" (platform boots, black leather pants and jacket, black corset, died hair, and black lipstick) and her 90s grunge boyfriend (ripped blue jeans, cutoff sleeve t-shirt, denim vest with patches, long hair with a manly headband), and it freaked out some of the locals that were there. Mskate and I went there for some additional food and because I wanted to have a visit at another memory. The play place was downgraded but still there, and it looked like there were some regulars that were hanging out. Great little way to end off this literal trip down memory lane.
Well it's now like a week later and it's time for Fall Festival in Evansville with my family. Mskate and I shared a room with vikingpolak and he went down with us. Mskate and I were really happy to go there since we missed seeing everyone at the 90th birthday party due to being in Hawaii, and there were some people we didn't meet yet that we would have met at the party but didn't. I packed up a cooler of drinks and foods for everyone, including cherry spite from the funeral. Vikingpolak got to our condo early in the morning and we each drove for about an hour and switched places. The drive down was pretty uneventful. We got to our hotel, checked in, and unloaded all our stuff. We had a suit where vikingpolak had the sitting room and pull out couch, and mskate and I had the bed room. Good spot for all the fun.
Time for the start of the festivities. We started by going to my great aunts house and visiting with her for a while. We just sat in her kitchen and talked. Eventually my parents showed up and they had the boxes of things we were giving everyone from my grandma's house. In the process of going through her stuff we picked out things that we figured people might like; different tchotchkes and knickknacks that had some meaning (like German beer steins for my uncle, hummels that match their personalities for my cousins), and clothing that would be meaningful (like the alumni clothes for my one aunt and the sweat shirts my other aunt made for my grandma and grandpa), and once everyone was together we were going to open it up at my great aunts. She keeps her house very clean and wasn't super happy with us putting a bunch of boxes on her fireplace hearth, but we told her it will be gone by the end of the day. After our little visit I scoped out the arcade that was right by her house, and it was a "single price admission, unlimited games included" with a good selection of all kinds of video arcades (I'll give details when I get there).
Now things are about to start for real. We went to my aunt who lives a couple blocks down from the big festival. Normally we just park outside her house when we come to visit, but parking by her was super full because everyone was at the festival, and so we had to park like half a mile away at a CVS. When we got there we saw aunt G and...you know I don't think I ever had a story with my boy cousin since I started blogging and so I never gave him a name. Anyway, we visited with them a little and he was all "I want to watch the video you made for [your grandma/my great aunt], specifically the final bit." If you forgot or I never mentioned it, I spent basically the first half of 2024 making a big video of my grandma's life for her 90th birthday party, with 6 different sections: youth and marriage to "It Was a Very Good Year," young adult married life from when my uncle was born until when my grandma started teaching to "Shake, Rattle, and Roll," her career as a kindergarten teacher to "What a Wonderful World," early grandkids (up through about middle school) to "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet," grandkids highschool to now (like Christmas of 2023) to "I Did It All," and then "the sing along" of assorted meddles sung acapella by me to a bunch of pictures I had left over (songs include bingo, skip to my lou, when the saints go marching in, ragg mopp, roll out the barrel, she'll be coming round the mountain, an "accordion solo," you are my sunshine, deep in the heart of Texas, it's a small world, let it snow, over the river, those were the days [all in the family theme song], danny boy, a luliby my grandma made up, and the pizza hut song). Boy cousin just wanted to watch the sing along portion because it was his favorite part. If you don't know the reference, just scroll through and find a thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas blog.
It's now time for the main draw, the fall festival. Mskate and I walked around and got some ideas of places we might want to get food from, and got some food as well. Envision a "southern carnival," and this is it. There are food stands set-up across the entire main street from different local organizations (churches, sports teams, political organizations, scouts, and similar) all offering different things, and more than half of it fried. This time I had sauerkraut balls (sauerkraut wrapped in dough and fried) and fried zucchini. I think we also split a nachos. It was just getting the lay of the land if you will. We went back to my aunt's house and just hung out on the porch until someone with a key came back. "Boy cousin" came back with a giant 4 foot pronto pup stuffed animal (it's like a corn dog but there's something else about it). He's really good at carnival games (probably because he grew up playing them since they were so close to the carnival), and he had to win like 3 times in a row (which he did). The carnie was messing with him and on the 3rd win said "OK and now you just need 1 more win to get the grand prize" and he was all "look here you damn carnie, you said 3 wins and this was 3, now give me my prize before I slap your last good tooth out," and the carnie was all "man I'm just messing with you, here's your prize." Tough southern boy right there.
Now it's time for "Christmas in October at my great aunt's house." All my aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered at my great aunts house. Everyone found a seat on couches and chairs, some on the floor, and I helped out with handing out the boxes of stuff. This is pretty symbolic or something since when my mom and her family were kids they would go down to Evansville for Christmas and have Christmas morning with the cousins. This was very similar to what it must have been like when they were kids. After I passed out all the boxes I recorded it like one would expect when parents record their kids on video. Great little time with everyone saying "hey I remember this, hey this is so me, I'm so happy to have this from [grandma]" and seeing what everyone got. Afterwards we went back to our hotel and had dinner (Drurry Inn, free dinner). While we were there my great uncle and his wife came to visit with us. He's like 10 years younger than my grandma and great aunt and as such is able to do more than them. While we were there we asked him who the flower girl was at my grandma's wedding since she kept popping up in the wedding pictures and none of us knew, and grandma was too confused to remember. I want to say she was like a church friend or good neighbor, but it was like "no relation, we knew her and she was the right age for the job." Speaking of my grandma's wedding and the age gap, my great uncle was the ring bearer at her wedding, and when I first saw the photo I was like "who's the boy" and then it hit me that it was him. That was the end of day one.
Now it's day 2. We had breakfast at the hotel and then went to my great aunt's house. It was a bit early to get into the carnival and everyone else was all sleepy, so we went to the arcade by my great aunts house. Mskate, pepperBC, and I went down, paid admission, and enjoyed all the games; and then my mom and aunt K joined us shortly later. I played a teenage mutant ninja turtles arcade game (can't remember if it was turtles in time or the original) with the family and we played all the way through to the end since my brother loved TMNT and always played turtles in time at Wheels Inn (but being kids we never got very far). I also played some "line up the balls and clear the board before it reaches the bottom" game until I reached a level I couldn't beat no matter how many continues I did. This is a memory thing, because when I was on vacation with my grandparents once this same arcade game was at the hotel and my grandpa let me put like $6 worth of quarters into the game as I kept getting a game over. There was also some "driving and shooting" game which was really fun; the story is that you're like 2 cops on a chase and you have to shoot the bad guys that are shooting at you as you drive the car. I think I also played dig dug and pacman and similar games. Then there was dance dance revolution, and with how the free play was set-up it had 2 players worth so I ended up playing lite mode with 2 players (all of it was jumping). I got a good cardio workout on that one. There was also some Japanese import rhythm game with hitting the light up squares. Really fun, highly recommend. We spent a couple hours there before it was time to start the carnival again.
We parked at a lot that was for the girlscouts. This was the main event as it was the children's pet parade. It's where kids bring their pets and walk them down the main street as people spectate and it's all serious like (there's an announcer, categories, awards, and everything). VikingPolak walked Turtlegirl's dog in the "boy with pet" category (boy with pet, girl with pet, boy and girl with pet, family with pet, family with big pet aka farm animal). It was really fun, we met up with turtlegirl's parents as we watched kids and families walk with their pets. There were some families that got really into it, with them doing like a full wizard of oz costume, toy story group, beetlejuice, and others. There were also kids riding donkeys and ponies. The funny thing with turtlegirl's dad was he was walking their dog in a pet stroller, and it looked funny because he has a handlebar mustache, bald pony tail, and generally resembles a retired biker, while pushing a little dog in a stroller. We cheered really loud when our people passed by.
After the pet parade we met up with everyone; turtlegirl, her husband, her parents, the aunt who got married when I was in college, my aunt who lives close, my parents, and my great aunt. We went to the midway and watched some carnival games. They had some coin pushers set up (token in token out with prizes to knock off) and I played it for a little while. It was $1 for 5 tokens, $2 for 11 tokens, $5 for 30 tokens, and other "more than 4 for a dollar" conversions. I got just $1 worth and was able to play like 9 rounds; didn't win any prizes but I did knock over tokens to continue playing. After that was a very crazy game. In the middle of the booth was a roulette wheel type thing, a wheel with a bunch of holes with numbers over them, and around the booth were numbers from the wheel to put a bet on, 50 cents to play and if you win you get a stuffed animal. Pretty basic roulette, right? No, instead of a ball it was a live mouse. The carnie puts the mouse in the center of the table and whatever hole it scurries into wins. Well that's something you don't see every day, or every carnival. It's not very humane, the entire game is based on a mouse's fear that causes it to scurry away, and if the mouse didn't immediately run for a hole (just sat in the middle) the carnie would bang on the table using the box it was released from to scare it and make it run to a hole. After playing 2 rounds of live mouse roulette and watching some others my great aunt went home. There was a little trouble with that though, because she started feeling weak and needed to sit down, when there weren't any chairs. We went to the people who run the festival and their break trailer and they were able to get a chair for "this elderly woman" until she was able to get up again. After she left I got my brain sandwich. It's a deep fried pig brain on a bun served with pickles and onions, a specialty of Evansville that I get every time I go.
After my brain I got my aunt some fried green beans since I knew where they were and wanted to get some myself. Mskate then got us Donald Trump shaved ice (I think part of the sales went to his campaign). We then hung out with some of the family at one of the bars on main street. During fall festival the bars say "outside food welcome, but no drinks" and are a good place to hang out. I know my dad was there, and my mom and aunt showed up at some point, and I think vikingpolak showed up, but that was kind of it, none of my cousins. I can't remember if I had anything while I was there, but whatever. After an hour or so mskate and I went back to the hotel for dinner at Drurry. After dinner we bought our tickets to Holiday World and just had a quite night in (I played amazon luna and watched Pelswick I think).
Now I don't remember where exactly this happened during Saturday, but according to my phone camera gallery at some point we went to the city courthouse where my great grandpa used to work. He was a local politician and his primary station was at the court house. We didn't know exactly where he worked, so we just went to all the offices to say "one of these is where he used to work." One of the receptionists asked if she could help us and we asked some history questions she didn't know, and she tried to get someone who might but they didn't (because this was at least 50 years ago and things had changed since then). There's also a bit of gray area on if we REALLY were allowed to be there since all the doors were locked except for 1 and there was a guard to turn people away, but we didn't get kicked out so there's that. This is funny, in the corner of one of the windows for one of the offices was a very interesting sight.
It's now Sunday, our day at Holiday World, but since it's Sunday and we're all Catholic we had to go to mass. Holiday World happened to be very close to Arch Abby, a really big place where many priests live and learn. It's this giant place with a small hospital, school, large grounds, and of course the church. Normally I would just talk about how cool it was, but that's not where this story starts. The Arch Abby is like "not on a main road" and is "so large it has multiple entrances," and GPS can get confused on "where the entrance is" and "where the mail goes." Our GPS took to the very back at the hospital place, and we couldn't find the entrance. We got out and wandered around, found our way in the prayer garden and saw where the church was, but we couldn't find a way to get to the doors from where we were. We saw a line up of priests and monks in a glass hallway that led to the church, but couldn't find our way, and there were some that saw us and wondered what we were doing. All this resulted in us wandering around for like 30 minutes and resulted in us being late. Eventually we just got back in the car, followed streets to what seemed like it would be "the other side of the property," and eventually found "the main entrance." We rushed to the church and then made our best guess on what door would be the least disruptive. We went in what we thought would be "the back" and would be "least disruptive" but it ended up being "the front" and it was "most disruptive." Whoops. We missed the first 2 readings but we did hear the gospel, homily, and communion. Here's where things got even more awkward. The church isn't "a normal church" with the alter up front and then rows and rows of pews behind it; there were like "2 alters" with 3 rows of chairs on either side, and not a lot of chairs, and since we were so late there weren't any available chairs for all of us together, so we kind of scattered and one of us had to stand because there weren't any more chairs. The priests were not exactly happy with us. It was a really nice place though, but if you ever go there make sure go to the main entrance and not the back, and if you find yourself in the back follow the streets around until you find the front.
Now that mass is over we went to Holiday World. We got there basically right when the gates opened, and we went right to the Santa statue to get a group photo with it since it's been in the front of the park since forever (my grandma and great aunt have a picture with it from when they were teens). We weren't the only ones with this idea, and because I was kind of fast to get in I got in line for everyone. We got all 15 of us together and was able to get someone to take our picture. After that we went to a "haunted house" thing that was right close to the front of the park. Holiday World is a small family park and doesn't go hard core like Cedar Point, and so the "haunted house" was mostly "cartoony Halloween special" spooky and not "actual horror movie, legit try to scare you" spooky. This was mostly 3D paint and optical illusions, with the craziest thing being this "spinning room" illusion. It was like "walk on a cat walk, 360 projected screen with a spinning image," and it throws off your balance and you start walking sideways. I thought my family was just being dramatic when they were "falling over" but then I did it and yeah, you start to fall over because of how it messes with your senses.
Everyone has different interests and we didn't want to force everyone to stay together at the detriment of everyone's entertainment, but we did want to do something together, and so we were going to do the original nursery rhyme train (from back when the park opened, we have super 8 film video of my aunts and uncle riding it). It was kind of on the other side of the park, so we all walked together to go to it. After all the walking we got there, and it was closed. We were all "Wally World" (because my family loves National Lampoon's Vacation and if you know you know). After that disappointment we went to Thanksgiving land where they had a new ride, Good Gravy. It's like a roller coaster thing that launches you over some humps and turns before going up a hill and then dropping back going in reverse. The line was so long that it was out the queue and was like a 2 hour wait. Mskate has diabetes and can get a disability pass with it, so some of us were able to go past the line, but only some of us. I rode it and it was kind of lame. Like, it's supposed to be a "thrill ride" but it wasn't all that fast and wasn't all that wild and was just tame, and it took longer to load and unload than the ride, and because it was a "back and forth" ride instead of "run a loop" ride there could only be 1 train, and "potential-kinetic energy, dissipation of energy through friction, relative to inertia" stuff the train was only like 8 rows (16 total), so it just lead to "not a very fast line." It wasn't a "bad ride," but it definitely wasn't "wait 2 hours." So that's my review of it. Mskate and I want to get lunch now, but thanksgiving is "traditional thanksgiving dinner" foods and neither of us care for that much so we had to go all the way back to the front so mskate and I could get food at Kris Kringle Cafe. I got a barbecue bowl, which was pulled pork and mac and cheese, and maybe something else but I don't remember. It was pretty good.
We're close to Halloween land since that's close to Christmas, and so we rode the 2 roller coasters there; The Raven and The Legend. Both of them are wooden roller coasters, which means they are kind of rough. With mskate's disability pass we were able to get right on, and the funny thing is I kind of got stuck in ride cart. For some reason there was a divider between the seats and I don't remember it being like that before. Now here's the thing, I'm a little big but not that big, but for some reason these were "extra small" or something, and I swear this was new since my mom and aunts (who at one point were all bigger than I am now) could ride it without problem when I was a kid. I don't know, just kind of embarrassing. We then rode the hallowswings (big spinning swings) since they were right there and it's a fun ride. Again, weirdness because I could fit in the swings without problem and they aren't super big, but for some reason the roller coaster carts were small. I think around this time we did the other "haunted illusion house," but this was more of a maze. It starts with "go in a room and you need to find the flaps with the opening behind it instead of the wall," and a room with "door to nowhere" except for 1 that goes forward, and I think there was a mirror maze, and some other illusions that were "find your way out." Pretty fun. After this mskate and I go to the gluten free stand since mskate is gluten free. She REALLY wanted a funnel cake since she can't get funnel cake normally (because gluten), but unfortunately they were running out of batter and she had to settle for chicken nuggets.
With Halloween mostly used up, we went to 4th of July land and rode the liberty launch. This is one of those "reverse drop" rides where instead of "taking you to the top of the tower and dropping you" it starts you at the bottom and shoots you up. We tried to meet up with the family around this time, seeing if anyone wants to join us and the disability pass, but no one wanted to. After the Liberty Launch we did The Revolution; it's one of those "spin you around and feel the force of spinning push you against the wall" gravitron rides. I remember when I was a kid vikingpoak and tanman rode a rapids ride and got soaking wet, and then they rode that ride over and over again and dried off. Just a funny little story.
After 4th of July we went to Thanksgiving and rode The Gobbler Getaway. This is one of those "shoot the targets, get points" ride, kind of like Buzz Lightyear in Disney. The story of the ride is that the turkeys ran away and you have to use a turkey caller to get them to come out of hiding (shoot the target and then they pop out when the target is tagged), and SPOILERS, at the end you have pizza and the turkeys you caught put on a show. I think we rode that ride a couple of times. In Thanksgiving there's a roller coaster called The Voyage, but it's REALLY intense and jerky, and I'm like "I'm going to sit this one out," as did mskate. While we were in thanksgiving we went to a gift shop and found some things on sale. We got some clearance cotton candy for my mom since she really likes cotton candy. I think we also got mskate a stuffed animal of the park mascot since she likes stuffed animals. We went to the front of the water park since it's all part of the same park and included in the price. Back in the summer vacations we would spend the heat of the day at the water park and it was really fun, but because it was cold it was all closed so no fun there. They did set-up some trick or treat things for later in the day, but it was for kids under 12 so not for us.
Our next adventure was Holidog World, little kid land. There was nothing for us there, but mskate wanted to see what we were missing out on. It's inside the loop of the train. I want to say there's a kiddie coaster, a car ride, a splash pad, and a play structure, with a meet and greet stage for meet holidog. Since we were close to the gluten free stand we checked if they had more batter, and they did. Mskate was able to get her funnel cake, yay. The next ride we did was the antique cars, and we kind of met up with the rest of the family around this time. We went to the Christmas restaurant again and I had some kind of special sandwich. We went through the optical illusion house again and got our pictures with holidog and the cat character. That was the end of the day at Holiday World, we were only there for maybe 6 hours but it's not a very large park so we were still able to do everything we wanted.
After Holiday World we went to the hotel and had a little birthday party for everyone since there are like 4 birthdays in September - November (this was after Drury Inn dinner). We were able to get a conference room and had everyone together to have dinner, drinks, and cake. My uncle got candles that said "it's your day" and there was some trouble with the lighter, so we had to use the match book that I keep in my camera bag. I honestly don't remember where I picked up the match book since it doesn't have a logo, but it's been in the one pocket for years and has come in handy a couple of times. It was a fun little party, and afterwards we made sure to clean up really good. After the birthday party we were able to see MMT and her boyfriend Cowboy (not sure if he is one, but he's southern and wears a cowboy hat, and so he is "Cowboy"). This was really great because I haven't seen MMT since my grandparent's 60th anniversary party and have never met Cowboy despite hearing about him often. I would have met him at my grandma's 90th birthday party, but I was in Hawaii for my other cousin. It was a short little visit, but still good. After that we went to bed for the next day the trip back, and said our goodbyes until the next time.
Leaving was pretty uneventful. We packed up the car, checked out, and drove home. It was a really great trip, always fun to see the family again, even if it didn't end up being a whole lot (because they're all night owls and mskate and I are early birds, or something like that to where our schedules never intersected). It was also a good way to "end off" the craziness of all my grandparents and vacations for 2024. I use "sarcasm quotes" because as I write this my grandma is now on hospice, and we don't know how much longer she has, and that was a crazy adventure with all that went into it, but I already wrote that on my other blog. There was maybe a 2 month period where things were kind of calm, but then it hit the fan again. I hope you enjoyed my crazy long blog of everything interconnected. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
