A Halloweekend at Cedar Point!

So although we’re still anticipating the snowmobile season, we got a chance to say goodbye to our Indian Summer with a trip to Cedar Point for Halloweekends on what better day to go, than October 31st. We piled into the Impala with a few friends on Sunday morning and headed down I-75 into Ohio to 280 east to Route 2, part of the Lake Erie Circle Tour.  Cedar Point is located in Sandusky, Ohio, and we’re lucky enough to be just over two hours away from the best rated amusement park in the world.

During this past summer, we rode out Route 2 on our bikes, taking in the scenic ruralness, small towns, farms, and of course the Sundance Drive In.  Reaching Cedar Point, I realize, as we drove across the causeway and into the near empty parking lot, that it’s been 18 years since my last trip here.  Through the gates, our first warm up ride was the Blue Streak, which has been in service since 1964.  It was then that I learned having a camera out on the ride is FROWNED UPON, and they started the ride again after confiscating it.  (doh!)   Sorry, everyone!

What a day! Bundled up in hats and gloves, the cold October day was certainly bearable, and between walking through the park and the adrenaline rush we got from each incredible ride, we barely felt the cold.  We also hit several of the haunted houses, which were pretty cool and very creative! What I thought was a neat idea, though sad, was the cemetery scene set up on the midway, with gravestones bearing the names of all the decommissioned rides, with their years of service, from their beginning to end.

The Top Thrill Dragster we saved until the end of the day, the best (and most insane) for last.  This ride shoots you from 0 to 120 mph in four seconds, then straight up 420 feet in the air and back down, totaling 17 seconds.  Walking through the park throughout the day, I would stop and gaze upward at this monstrous structure, undecided if I would give it a go.  I did finally go on it, reluctantly, but the experience was incredible. Being the last day of the 2010 season and a chilly Sunday, we waited at the MOST 30 minutes for the major rides, like the Millennium Force and the Top Thrill Dragster, as opposed to several hour waits during the height of the summer season.  This was definitely the way to go, though you chance the weather this late in the season.

Walking back past the Gemini, another childhood memory, we passed a display of a skeleton on a motorcycle, that would rev and pop a wheelie.   The sign next to it spoke of the Elmore Ghost Rider, the spirit of a World War 1 veteran who crashed his bike and was decapitated on March 21st, 1919, in Elmore, Ohio, not far from Toledo.  More information can be found here, or Google it for more detail.  That night on our way back to Michigan, we stopped for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings in Sandusky, and on our way out, I grabbed a copy of Funcoast.com, a tourist newsletter for the Sandusky and Lake Eerie coast area. In this Halloween edition, several haunted legends were listed, including the Elmore Ghost Rider, which is now on our calendar for March 2011.

Tired and sore, I thought of the park tonight, dark and quiet, all the rides at rest for the next six months as the remainder of the leaves fall and the snow begins to fly.  Lake Erie will soon turn frigid and ice over, icicles hanging from the enormous infrastructure of the park, as the wind whistles through it, dreaming of warm summer days when it all comes back to life for another season.