Riding the Wildebeest!

We just started a road trip to Illinois and Nebraska, and yesterday we spent the day at Holiday World, an amusement park in Indiana where Chris J. used to go with his parents, sister and grandparents growing up. Holiday World is in a town called Santa Claus, and as you might guess it is very Christmas-themed. In fact, the amusement park's original name was Santa Claus Land.

The main section of Holiday World is divided into four areas -- Christmas, Halloween, Fourth of July and Thanksgiving -- each with rides and other attractions that somehow involve those holidays, for instance a Tilt-a-Whirl where the cars are giant turkeys. There's also a water park called Splashin' Safari, with slides like the Zoombabwe. We weren't sure why the water park isn't holiday themed as well, just to be consistent, but it was still fun! We went on a Wednesday in the last week before schools in Indiana start again, so it was pretty crowded, but not insanely so. There were lots of families there with children of varying ages. One mother and her young son sat with us when we rode on the newest water ride, the Wildebeest, which they call a "water coaster." They sure liked it! Although Chris J. rode in the front seat of the four-person "water sled," which was a little scary. We also rode a bunch of other water slides, and went in the wave pool and lazy river. It was a good time and at a pretty reasonable price!

One cool thing about Holiday World is that they have free soft drink stations and free sunscreen, too, which we'd never seen before at the few other such parks we've been to. Usually they try to rip you off for soda, not offer it for free, and forget free sunscreen -- who has ever heard of that? Even the food we got there for lunch wasn't absurdly expensive, like you'd see at a ballgame or something.

All in all it was a very fun day. At the end, tired, we drove on a couple hours to the house in southern Illinois where Chris J.'s grandparents lived and where his dad and uncle grew up. Chris J.'s parents are there for a week, and we've joined them for a few days. Then we'll be driving to Nebraska to see Chris M.'s mom. So far, it's been very hot but very fun!