Day Three--Santa Claus, IN to Monticello, IN

May 28, 2006

Central? Eastern? Central? Eastern. Arrggh!

After two days at Holiday World, yeah. We didn't get an early start on Sunday morning. We putzed more than usual, having juice, coffee, and biscuits from the Day's Inn continental breakfast area. When we finally got the car loaded, and our butts down in the seat, we were running pretty late.

Eh, we're on vacation.

So we started the drive to Monticello, IN and Indiana Beach.

Indiana Beach is a very special place for Dawn. It was the park of her childhood long before they installed two very nice roller coasters. There's camping, games, lots of rides, giant carp, bars, restaurants, a dance hall--anything that children or parents might want to do is there.

I've come up with several analogies to help me understand Indiana Beach...

It's like Atlantic City coughed up a hairball, and it was Indiana Beach

The Hamptons for Hoosiers.
I joke, but actually, we took a ride on the Riverboat around Shaefer Lake, and yeah, there's some incredible homes.


The Chicago Catskills

So we arrived in Monticello in the late afternoon. On the way in to town, I insisted we book a hotel for the evening. We saw the adoreable and clean looking Monticello Inn on the way in so we called--fortunately, they had rooms available and we made a reservation.

After the trauma of a missing driver's license and the application of sunscreen, we headed over "Indiana's longest suspension bridge (430 ft.)" and into the park.

We paid our way in and then wandered back and forth across the peninsula taking things in. We hopped on what is a pretty fun drop ride, the Double Shot. It was a nice first thing to do as it let me see the park from way up in the air over the lake.

The clientele is interesting. Lots of nice, normal families with kids enjoying themselves. Lots of kids who are too young to be wearing that (nose ring, belly ring, bikini, make up, tattoo), some trashy folk who had trouble reading the "shirts and shoes required" signs, a few scattered coaster dorks, and us.

We were both hungry after that, so we took in a corn dog. Then we were ready to ride!

We headed over to the hoosier hurricane, a very fun roller coaster that takes you around the park. We then rode the wonderfully named Cornball Express, an excellent curvy ride with some fun swings and hops.

We wandered some more, taking in some air conditioning and watching people play Fascination, a fun game involving getting balls in an appropriate order by dropping them into a box--its like tic tac toe in a sense, I still don't quite understand it. It's fun to watch because the ladies that manage the game have attitude and voices like a pack of cigarettes.

We bought a bag of popcorn and fed the hordes of gigantic carp that accumulate along the edges of the lake.

I think Dawn gets bored with me sometimes because I'm not too big on playing games.

We went on the park's two county fair style steel coasters, Tig'rrr and Galaxi. They were reasonably fun, though Tig'rrr beat me up a little bit. Galaxi was more fun. It has some genuine height and movement to it and some good little drops.

We played some skee ball and won enough tickets to get a giant gummi gecko. We ate him on the way to the hotel for the evening. He was sour, but filling.

We rode on the ferris wheel--it's a really big one! No restraints, big buckets, and a lot of noise. The height of it made me a little antsy, but it was ok.

Prior to the gecko, Dawn got tacos, and I got a nice amusment park hot dog and we ate over by the lake, bathed in the light of the ferris wheel.

Since Monticello is on Eastern time, it didn't get completely dark until almost 11. This was rather fascintaing to watch...the glowing orb of 9 PM sun, the glossy blonde-blue-orange 10 PM sunset...

We had one last late night ride on each coaster. It was really pretty to see the giant ferris wheel all lit up as we passed by it on the Hoosier Hurricane.

We left the park shortly before it closed. We drove out by the campground...through Dawn's memories, opened up the gecko, and headed to the Monticello Inn for the night.