Kennywood

Well, we made it to Pittsburgh just fine. All except my left eardrum, that was. It didn't stop popping for over 24 hours.

There was a little bit of a miscue getting picked up at the airport. My Auntie Joan and cousin Julie accompanied my mom for the momentous occasion. It seems they went in one door and we came out the other. Aunt Joan noticed us and started yelling for them to come back, but it was too late. They had a nice sign made up welcoming Y to Pittsburgh and the family. We didn't get to see it until we were in the car.

We did get a nice view of the city coming through the Ft Pitt Tunnel. Babushka told him the city was just the other side, and when he saw it Y said, "Big city!" We immediately went to my mom's house for dinner. Even Uncle Craig showed up, bearing a football (the American kind). He doesn't normally do family functions, so that was a surprise. We all settled down to watch the Penguins win a great game of hockey later that night, too.

Thursday seemed a very good day to go visit Kennywood. I tried to tell Y it was a park with roller coasters, and he kept trying to bring his roller blades with us. Cousin Julie told him it's not that kind of park, but you'll like it anyway! Early afternoon, the three of us piled into mom's car and it took me 10 minutes to figure out how to get the seat to lower so that my head wasn't hitting the roof liner. Twenty minutes after that we were parking the car outside the gates.

Y's eyes were pretty big at that point. I don't think he'd ever been to an amusement park before. He told me he'd been to a water park, though. We started out with the Jack Rabbit. A quick old wooden roller coaster, but not too quick. Maybe 50 miles per hour at it's height. When the ride started, I told Y to raise his hands in the air. He said, "Why?," and I got to use that good ole parent stand by - "Because I said so!" At the end of the ride he said, "I no like!" What - you don't like roller coasters!!! No, it turns out he just doesn't like to raise his arms in the air.

We got a quick bite to eat and then went on this pendulum thingy that made me quite queasy. Food in the tummy combined with sinus problems - not the ride to go on. Don't worry, everything stayed right where it was supposed to be, but during the middle of the ride (with my eyes closed, concentrating on not puking) I heard Y say, "Mama, why you no like?" All I could think was in just a few more seconds, you may find out.

After that it was off to the Thunderbolt. You need a partner for that ride, so Julie and Y went together while I waited. The Thunderbolt is an old wooden roller coaster that goes about 60-70 miles an hour or so. Forty years ago it was voted one of the best in the country. Y was quite animated when they got off the ride. I asked him if he liked it, and he said, "Yes." Then he showed me what his face looked like during the ride: hands clenched on the bar and a look of sheer terror on his face. Man, if he thought that was scary, wait until we did the Phantom's Revenge!

We had trouble finding the entrance to the Phantom's Revenge, so we ended up going on the Exterminator first. It was the only ride with a line that day. We had to wait about thirty minutes, but it was a pretty good ride. It is an indoor, dark, roller coaster. I have to say, even I couldn't see everywhere we were going seconds before we got there (benefits of working in the dark for almost 20 yrs). The ride twisted and jolted you around so much, it's a good thing I don't have any back problems.

Finally we found the entrance to Phantom's Revenge. Literally, it took longer to walk to the ride than it did to wait to get on it. They had just finished filling one car of riders when we got up there and we had to wait less than a minute for our ride to start. Let me just tell you, this roller coaster requires a seat belt AND one of those bars that comes down so far that you can't breathe properly during the ride. That's okay, because I really didn't have much air in my lungs - I was screaming it all out. The Phantom's Revenge is a 2 minute ten second ride. It takes one minute for the chain to pull you up to the top of the first drop. Literally it's about 10 stories high, maybe more. I don't know. My eyes were closed. From there it is almost a vertical drop and off you go, twisting and turning for over a minute. My ears popped twice on the way down. I think we were going about 90 miles an hour at one point.

After that, we filled our day with the Turnpike (Y drove), the Gran Prix (bumper cars), the Racer, some space alien spinning ride that I refused to go on, and another turn at the Phantom's Revenge. The second ride was as thrilling as the first. Apparently a little too thrilling for one young rider who literally got the crap scared out of them, poor thing.

As we were leaving, Y asked, "We back tomorrow, Mama?" When I told him no, he said, "Okay, next year?"

Natalie
TX