Back from the North

Almost 23 hours after Cedar Point closed for the season, I am back home finally, so I will review what I did.

Friday, Prep football at Paul Brown Stadium: Colerain defeated Oak Hills 58-7, and St. Xavier remained undefeated as they beat Moeller 31-7.

Saturday, I arrived at Geauga Lake at around 1 pm, and they were somewhat surprisingly busy - and the coasters only ran one train, which wasn't terrible until later on in the evening. But always a great time at the Lake.

Then I drove 1.5 hours west to Sandusky and checked into Hotel Breakers at Cedar Point. That park itself was packed, but I got six great Gemini rides, a round on White Water Landing, and two front seat rides on Mean Streak, my first time at night.

Sunday was a very long and memorable day. I got an extra hour of sleep thanks to the return of standard time, 2 rides on Millennium Force for early ride time, several sky ride laps, and attended the recording of a CoasterBuzz Podcast, their second podcast with a live audience (I also attended the first, at Holiday World, Oct. 1). Special guest was Cedar Fair CEO Dick Kinzel, whom I had the chance to meet in person for a photo op after the recording.
I met with some good old friends (unsure if the pun is intended,) Marshall, Kathy and Fred for dinner at the Midway Market buffet, and also rode Disaster Transport with Marshall in front.
Some more Gemini was in order, a very last ride on White Water Landing, and a trek to the front of the park (with the aid of Sky Ride) to get my 'last ride on WWL' photo.

Since I stayed longer than I intended, and became a Chatty Cathy (or Carl, to be gender correct) I was totally worn out, so rather than endure what might have been a hazardous 4 hour drive home, I did a little homework to find a hotel room that was nice but not a lot of money, and stumbled upon the Microtel in nearby Huron for only $40. There weren't too many guests staying, so they were happy to get a few, like myself, even for much less than what they would charge mid-summer. Yet it was nice for a budget-type place, with free continental breakfast, indoor pool, free wireless internet, and lots of cable channels. 20 years ago, the perks were color TV, HBO and ESPN - now it's internet and (gasp!) Fox News. Because I like choice.

At around 9:30 today, I finally left the hotel and went south, first stopping a bit north of Columbus at Polaris Fashion Place. There's 7 department stores, the place is huge, and a lot of neat specialty stores, and very plush for an indoor two-level mall. Not long after, I drove around downtown Columbus and the surrounding area - lots of neat buildings and districts, new and old, from German Village to the Arena District. The huge old Lazarus building, which closed last year after 90 years as a department store, is being gutted and renovated into an office and retail complex.
City Center mall is still, but barely, alive with some of the decent stores and restaurants still there, like Kaufmann's and Max & Erma's, which I had lunch at, people discussing sports, such as that drunk-ass that ran onto the field at Paul Brown Stadium and stole the ball right out of Brett Favre's hands near the end of the Bengals-Packers game yesterday.

Before I finally made it home, it was Cincinnati Rush hour. I think they should just move the Tyler Davidson Fountain to some place like West Chester, Sharonville, or Springdale, since that's where all the action is...


I should later on have more specific trip reports, especially about Sunday at Cedar Point, and the Podcast.

"No, Caller, I don't mean throwing all your CDs into the Portable On Demand Storage container you rented!" - as Mr. Obvious might say