Six Flags recap and others

Miles and Ella
Originally uploaded by Matt Stratton.

I took Monday off of work to go to Six Flags Great America with Carrie. Now, I’m generally not a big fan of Six Flags – I got spoiled a few years ago by going to the Anderson Consulting Company Picnic with Jay and Clint – they basically rent out the whole park for their employees, so you can just walk onto any ride. After doing that a few times, you really lose interest in going there to wait in line.

Well, the weather on Monday was pretty terrible. We got to the park at opening at 10 am, and it was drizzling and overcast. Luckily, we’d brought ponchos. We went on the Vertical Velocity ride, which freaked me out a little, but was fun. Then we rode on Iron Wolf (translation – the “bang your head around while crushing your testicles” ride).

Pretty much every ride was closed after that, especially since it started raining harder. So we retired back to the car to eat our lunch. After lunch we hit up Space Shuttle America (a ride that was cool back in the mid-90s, but it is pretty lame now) since it was indoors. By the time we left the space shuttle ride, the rain had cleared up. It remained clear the rest of the day.

This was good – they opened up almost every ride then, and the longest line we waited in was for Raging Bull (ten minutes). We rode the American Eagle in the front car – twice. We also rode the Viper four times – three of them right in a row, without stopping.

I didn’t ride Superman (after three times around the Viper I was DONE with roller coasters), but Carrie rode it twice before we left.

After Six Flags, we stopped by Jay and ‘s house in Grays Lake to visit and finally meet their two children. It was really nice to see their place (I’d only seen the driveway before) and chit chat over some homemade pizza.

Pictures from Six Flags will come after I get them developed (we used a disposable), but I did get some cute ones of Miles and Ella, as you can see here.

And finally – today was the first day I rode my bike to work two days in a row. I like my new route, especially since it takes me past Blommer’s, so I get a good whiff of chocolate from that factory on my way in. The ride home last night sucked – I should NOT have taken the lake path, as it was SUPER windy, and it was all I could do to keep pedeling at a mere 7 mph. I arrived home soaked with my back full of mud. If I am going to continue to ride in the rain, I will need to get some gloves (my hands kept slipping), some rain gear, and some fenders.