Elitch Gardens

So, Friday would be another big driving day. Oh, but first, the last night we were camping another huge thunderstorm hit. It was even worse than the first. We had our kids asleep in the trailer and were outside playing cards. We could see the lightening a distance away, and hear the thunder occasionally, and the storm kept creeping forward. At around 9:30 we had to take our card game inside due to the rain starting. We were able to leave a couple of the windows down for awhile to watch the storm. It was the constant lightening again and the rumbling thunder that never ended. But soon the rain picked up and we had to close all the windows. It's a good thing that tent trailer is water proof!
We decided to try to sleep around 11:00. Try is the key word here. The storm was right on top of us and extremely loud. The rain hitting the top of the trailer was deafening, yet we could still hear the thunder crashes over it. The children stirred occasionally, making sleep even more difficult. And my bladder was so full! But there was no way I was going out into the torrential rain to walk to the latrine. Finally, at 2:30 or so the rain abated and the lightening and thunder were more distant, so I went to the bathroom and we finally got to sleep.
So, on the road again! We left as early as we could manage and planned to drive the 12 hours to Denver. But I guess that was too dull a plan for us. We were destined to more excitement than that. We stopped for gas around 2:00, (by the way, the farther east we went the cheaper the gas got. The cheapest we saw was $3.29 a gallon, and that was for super, or whatever, and grade 85 wasn't available there, I think it was 89!) and while filling up Chris noticed that the new trailer tire was falling apart! There were patches of tire missing and more ready to come off. Great! We were in a tiny town about 40 minutes out of Topeka Kansas. We were advised by gas station attendants to go to Mapleton, another tiny town a couple miles away and we needn't use the freeway. They had some sort of automotive place there. We called them and learned that they didn't carry the trialer sized tires, but the lady we called was in Topeka and on her way to Mapleton and could pick up some tires for us. Yay! So we parked the car at the shop and walked to the tiny, over-priced grocery store that must have been this towns pride and glory, got a loaf of bread and some lunch meat and took it to a park. All of this in easy walking distance. Anywhere in this town was easy walking distance. The park was actually really cool too.
It wasn't until 5:00 that we got on the road again. Now our plans had changed. We didn't want to drive the rest of the way to Denver and have to set up the trailer and stuff, so we found a cheapish motel in Liman CO and stayed there. The next morning we got up, showered in the nicest shower we'd seen for awhile and drove to Denver. It was about 1 1/2 hours away.
We were so excited to go to this amusement park. I felt like a little kid. It was right in the middle of down town Denver. So we pulled in, paid ten bucks to park and impatiently got out the stollers and sunscreen and cameras and all that stuff. We got in line to buy tickets. It would be $30 per adult and the kids would be free. We only had one couple in line in front of us when we were approached by a man with his two kids. He said he had an extra ticket that we could have if we wanted. Well, yeah! We thanked him and considered our good fortune. Not a minute later another man makes his way up to us and offers us 3 more tickets for free! What luck! Thank-you, Thank-you! So now it's our turn to buy tickets, but we just march on past the booth on the way to the entrance. We had to go through metal detectors and have bags checked before we can proceed.
Our first ride was the Ferris Wheel. It took forever! The kids quickly got impatient of waiting in line and when it was finally our turn Morgan was still grumpy! He was supposed to be enjoying this! 45 minutes later we got off the ride. Not a good start.
Now the plan would be that one couple would go off and go on two rides while the other took the kids on some. Then we would switch. Aaron and I rode first. We went on two pretty awesome roller coasters. Then it was lunch time. For an unimpressive hamburger and a few french fries we paid nearly $10. Ouch! And the food lines were as bad as the ride lines!
When Chris and Tine went on rides we took the kids to the kid area.

I don't know if you can see it, but Morgan is in there grinning his cheesiness.

Then had these huge play areas. Glorified playgrounds, (except one was filled with soft balls that you could shoot out of air guns or put in suctiony pipes that would pop the balls out in funny places.) After a few rides we let the kids play in these. Morgan and Emmy were in the one with slides and playground stuff and Kaien went to the other. I was watching the little ones and Aaron was with Kaien. After awhile Aaron came to where I was. Without Kaien. Apparently Kaien was mad at Aaron because he got in trouble for hitting another kid and when Aaron turned his back for a minute to find a bench Kaien took off. Aaron looked around the big enclosed room for him and when he knew he wasn't inside he came and told me. Uh-oh. I searched for him around the kiddie ride area but didn't see him. So it was time to call his parents. Telling a parent that you lost their toddler in a huge and crowded amusement park isn't something to look forward to. Aaron called them on his way to guest relations while I tried to push Morgan and Emmy in their individual umbrella strollers. No easy task. But then Aaron was there. When he called Chris he learned that they had Kaien and were on their way to us. Apparently Chris and Tine were running from their ride to where we were waiting because they felt bad about how long it took them to get through the line of the second ride. While running a man stopped them and said that he saw their son with a security guard heading a certain direction. (We all wore our reunion shirts so the man recognized the shirt.) They were of course surprised, and went on to get their child. And they didn't even act like they hated us or anything.
We only went on a couple more rides before we realized that the kids were too cranky and stressful for us to want to stay longer. We were SO happy we didn't have to pay because it definitely wasn't worth $30 to us. We learned that having kids in an amusement park isn't fun and not something we want to repeat in the near future.
We didn't think we would be leaving until around 9:00 when the park closed, but it was like, 5:00. So we went and got dinner and then just drove the 8 hours to home. We arrived at our house around 5:00 in the morning and tried to get some better sleep. But of course the kids were awake at 8:00.
We unloaded and loaded and then Chris and Christine were on their way back up to Caldwell Idaho. The End.