My blog was once a place where I’d post my thoughts on many things. From my family to sports to music to movies and the occasional rant, I was posting 15-20 articles a month at one point. That’s dwindled down to a handful of postings a year, though my lacrosse blog is much more active during lacrosse season. But one thing I still do is vacation reports. These are primarily for us so that we remember some more details about our vacations, but I’ve been told that others find them entertaining as well, so here’s another. I’ll have at least two more before the summer of ’16 is over, so be on the lookout for those.

In this installment, we find our heroes camping at Darien Lake amusement park in New York for a few days. We had been there before but not in many years and we’d never camped there. The campground is right next to the park and we had a pretty good spot so the walk from the park to our site was just a few minutes.

Sunday, July 24

Darien Lake is only about a two-hour drive from home and check-in wasn’t until 2:00, so we took our time in the morning and left home around 11:30. The intention was to cross the border, head to the Olive Garden in Niagara Falls NY for lunch (since we don’t have the Olive Garden in Ontario anymore <sad>), hit Wal-Mart for groceries, and then continue to the park. The grocery part was necessary because we can’t bring fruits, vegetables, or meats into the US from Canada. The timing didn’t work out as we wanted so we ended stopping for lunch at McDonalds on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. After a short border wait, we found Wal-Mart for some shopping.

Shopping took longer than expected so we didn’t get to the park until around 4:30pm. We found our site and got the trailer set up, but then decided to head into the park for dinner since it was too hot (around 32°C and humid) to cook. There are several places to eat in the park but only two were air conditioned so that instantly narrowed our choices: a roadhouse-type place called Beaver Brothers Lakeside Café, and an Italian restaurant called Maria’s. We asked the boys what they preferred and Italian was the response. Since we had skipped our Olive Garden trip, we were OK with this idea. We located Maria’s on the map and headed there. But as soon as we saw the building, Gail and I both stopped in our tracks. We both remembered, at the same time, that we had been very disappointed with the food at Maria’s the last time we were there. We turned around and went to Beaver Brothers, which we had also been to before but had no negative memories.

The food was pretty good and not crazy expensive, though we were less than thrilled with the service. The waitress was new, which explained some of it, but when you arrive at a restaurant around 5:30 or so and it doesn’t close until 10:00, being told that you can’t have soup because “they’ve put the soup away” is a little weird. I ordered fish (which was excellent) and a Caesar salad but was given a garden salad. It was fine so I didn’t complain. The boys both ordered pasta and were told they could have their choice of soup or salad (but they’d “put the soup away” so just salad) and also their choice of fries, mashed potato or mac & cheese. Then after we ordered they were told that because they got the pasta, they didn’t get the second choice at all, just the salad (on reflection, pasta with a side of fries or potatoes does seem a little weird). Then they never got the salad anyway. The waitress took responsibility and was very apologetic and the manager came by and took Gail’s meal off the bill so it really wasn’t that big of a deal in the end.

We walked around the park for a while and the boys did a few rides. We hung out for “Ignite the Night – Colorblast” which is a laser / computer animation / pyrotechnic / firework / music show which we really enjoyed. By the time we returned to the trailer it was quite late so we skipped the campfire and just went to bed.

Monday, July 25

Sometime during the night it started raining and while we didn’t see any lightning, there was certainly thunder – loud enough to wake me at least once. It continued into the morning before letting up around 11 or so. We checked the weather forecast and it called for further rain so we decided not to head into the park and were “rewarded” when it began to rain again an hour later. The rain was torrential for a while. Here’s a short video of the river that ran through our campsite:

 

During all this time we had both breakfast and lunch while playing Yahtzee and a number of card games. Gail and I play a lot of rummy while camping and the boys had just learned euchre so there were a few games of each of those. Ryan also taught us a card game called Coup that he learned at school but it was very complicated so we only played it once. Not long after lunch, the rain stopped and we headed into the park. We figured all the rides would be wet so the boys played Pokemon Go on their phones. This is a game which had just been released a month before. It’s a sort of augmented-reality geocaching-type thing where  Pokemon are located in various areas (like a geocache) and you have to “catch” them.

After a couple of hours of that and a few rides, we went back to the campsite for dinner. But just a few bites into our burgers, the rain started again. It was very sudden – we heard thunder off in the distance but it gradually got louder. Then we heard the rain in the distance just a few seconds before it got to us. We piled into the trailer quickly and a few minutes after that it was torrential again.

After it stopped, we went back into the park for some more Pokemon Go, a few rides, and the laser show. Again we skipped the campfire. Instead the four of us played a board game called Sequence before heading to bed.

Tuesday, July 26

No more rain but we slept in anyway. After breakfast we all had showers and got ready to head to the water park. While I was in the shower, Gail was back at the site and someone from Darien Lake came by with an envelope for us. Inside was a sheet of 2-for-1 coupons and a $50 Darien Lake gift card! We were pleasantly surprised but it turned out that it was part of the WagJag deal that we used to book the vacation. Since we had forgotten about it, it was kind of a free bonus so we headed into the park and used it to buy lunch. After lunch we went to the water park where we confirmed Gail’s main memory of the water park – COLD. We did one lap of the lazy river but couldn’t stay in the water long enough to do a second. The wave pool was slightly warmer but after 10-15 minutes we bolted out of there as well. We did a few water slides and Nicky and I did the “toilet bowl” (they call it the Tornado), and then Nicky did a slide called “Brain Drain”, where you stand in a vertical tube and the floor drops away.

Once we were done in the water park, we got dressed and then watched a live musical show called American Rock. Some of the singers had very powerful voices while others didn’t but we enjoyed the show. After that we went back to the campsite for dinner. After dinner it was back to the park again where we used one of our 2-for-1 coupons on the go karts (Ryan won but he did have a faster kart) (yes he did), did a few other rides until the laser show started (which is when the park closes). We didn’t stay for the show this time but listened to it on the walk back to the campsite.

Wednesday, July 27

Another late morning. We slept until 9:30, then had a quick breakfast before getting packed up. While taking down the dining tent, Nicky was bitten or stung by something, though he never saw what it was. Within minutes he had a red welt a few inches wide on his arm and not long after that he had itchy hives all over his body. He was breathing fine and the hives were not much more than a little irritating so we continued with our packing. There was a camp store not far away so once we were done, we picked up some Benadryl and that cleared up the hives. Something else to add to the packing list so we bring it next time.

We pulled the trailer into a special camper section of the parking lot and went into the park for our final day. The boys did some rides and Gail accompanied Nick on the Boomerang, a forward-and-backwards coaster that we always refer to as the Bat since that’s what it’s called at Canada’s Wonderland. Actually, Gail and I almost always refer to rides by their Wonderland names.

The biggest coaster at Darien Lake is the 200+ foot high Ride of Steel. Nicky wanted to do this one but as per usual, none of the rest of us were up to the challenge (Gail and I did it many years ago but… that was many years ago) so he went by himself. This turned out to be much more stressful for Gail than for Nicky. Here’s a picture of Nicky going up the first hill. He’s near the back with his arm in the air. The second picture is him near the top.

We bought a pizza for lunch which was very good and then did some more rides. We even managed to convince Ryan to try the Enterprise Silver Bullet. Nicky finished the day with the final coaster, the Mind Eraser. We left the park around 4:00 and headed back to the Olive Garden in Niagara Falls. This time the timing worked out and we had a lovely dinner. After a short wait at the border, we arrived home around 8:00pm, just in time for me to park the trailer, get changed, and head to my baseball game at 8:30.

Other notes:

• During the opening of the Ignite the Night show, the announcer said that the show is “live” so people’s whistling, cheering, and clapping would influence the show. We saw it twice and heard it a third time and it was identical each time. The fireworks must have been launched over the campsite since they were much louder there than at the show.
• Best rides: for me, Motocoaster. A twisty coaster where you sit on motorcycles (picture above). There’s no chain dragging you up the first hill; you are launched from a stop to top speed in a couple of seconds. Ryan said it was his favourite as well. Gail enjoyed the Boomerang, and Nick’s favourite was the Ride of Steel.
• On many of the rides (and this is true of other parks as well), the ride operator asked people to remain in their seats until the ride “comes to a full and complete stop”. I had to wonder why they needed the stop to be both full and complete. How would the ride come to a full stop that’s not complete, or a complete stop that’s not full?