Vacation Part IV

We ended up leaving Ohio a few hours later than we wanted and we had about an 8 hour drive ahead of us. So here we were, driving in the middle of the night, and both of us were nodding off to sleep. Yes, both of us! Since we had to fill up with gas, we decided to find a parking lot, stay over night and finish the drive in the morning. As we were pulling off the freeway we saw a sign, Lake Rudolph Campground . Why not stop there?

As we got closer, we could see roller coasters and train tracks. *I wish I could have seen our faces because, here we are in the middle of "no where", and there is a theme park of some kind.* As we pulled up to the gate, we were even more mystified because it was a totally fancy front gate. We found out that the campground has over 100 sites, a private lake (no need for a fishing license), miniature golf, and a theme park, "Holiday World" , right next door!!!! The kicker was the whole town has a Christmas theme. Even the Catholic church, down the street, was named St. Nick!!!!

We ended up staying 3 days!!! It was sooo relaxing and the kids had a blast fishing. Papa forgot to pack the fishing poles. So, being the great fisherman he is, he gave each of them a stick and tied some fishing line to it ~ viola ~ home-made fishing poles!!! The kids loved them!!!! They caught so many fish we stopped counting. They almost caught some turtles too!!!

On the campgrounds, they had this mining trough. You buy a bag of dirt,take it to the trough and sift through it to find all the buried treasure.

~ Little Squirt ~

"I found a real Arrowhead, and it even has a price tag!!"

~ Checking out what they found. ~

As a side note, one of the roller coasters from the park goes right by the lake. Every time it would pass by, the kids would think it looked fun. Mind you, they have never been on one before, but they still thought it looked fun.

Since we were there for Mother's Day, I got to choose what we were to do that day. I didn't even have to think about it. I wanted to go to amusement park. Well first we had to go to church in the morning, so we checked the times. There was a 10:30am Mass that we decided to go to. Since we didn't want to unhook the motor baby we decided to walk there, it was only down the street. As we are getting closer to the church we see alot of cars in the parking lot.*uneasy hahaha* The Mass started at 10 o'clock and we are now 15 minutes late!! No worries, we will just slither in the back and no one will notice.* another uneasy hahaha* We are greeted very nicely at the door and then the doorman points to the only seats available. The seats right in front!!!! *memories, sweet memories*

After Mass, we walked back to the campground and got ready for all the fun we were going to have at the park. First thing we wanted to do was go on THE roller coaster that went by the lake. The roller coaster was named "The Raven", forever to be forged into the minds of both Bumbles and Little Squirt.

We stop at the front of the ride to make sure the kids could go on the ride.*Stand tall kids, so you make the height requirement. Little Squirt, stretch your neck alittle more, there you make it.* There were no lines *yipe!* so we were all running to the roller coaster. Yes, even Papa! We decided to sit in the back because you become more weightless. We buckled in and the roller coaster starts its climb. Click....click....click....I think it was right about here when we both thought what have we done. Down we go, up again and down, right by the pretty lake.....Bumbles is now crying and Little Squirt has buried his head into Papa's arm. I failed to mention that all the roller coasters were wooden, including this one, so the bumpy-jerky ride added to the experience. The ride came to a stop and the kids got off quivering, shaking and crying. The only rides they would go on after that were the ones for the babies.

After a few hours and a couple of funnel cakes later, they were both trying all kinds of rides. *Thank goodness, we thought we had damaged them for life.*

We walked back to our site and fished the evening away.

It ended up being a very fun and unexpected stop on our trip.

* Notice "The Raven" looming in the background?*