Vacation Day One: In Which C.J. Loses Her Ever-Loving Mind

Vacation Highlights, Day One:

1. The road trip was pretty smooth.

2. Or it would have been had I remembered rule #1 in the Mother's Guide To Keeping Her Sanity On Long Journeys With Boys: Always make sure every child has used the restroom BEFORE leaving.

3. Especially since boys will not only wait until the last possible moment of bladder capacity to alert you to the situation, they will actively seek to drive you insane by volunteering to hang their business out the window and pee while you drive.

4. I don't know if I've mentioned before on this blog that I have a serious bridge phobia.

5. I literally go into full panic attack mode when we approach a large bridge.

6. We had to cross one bridge to get to our first destination (Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana). My helpful hubby, noticing my distress, patted my hand and said, "Don't look at the bridge. Focus on the nuclear reactor over there instead."

7. Hmm. Worry about drowning to death in a car or think about radiation poisoning and giant mushroom clouds of doom? Such choices.

8. Of course, it wasn't a nuclear reactor. Just a factory with huge twin smoke stacks belching copious amounts of steam into the morning sky. I wasn't fooled. I went back to worrying about drowning.

9. Holiday World is a fantastic amusement park for the whole family. Cheap ticket prices (as far as amusement parks go), incredibly clean park, tons of rides for every age group, a huge water park (no purchasing separate tickets to use it either!), free sunscreen, affordable food, and free drinks all day long.

10. We hit all our favorite rides. The Scientist drove the jalopies and rammed strangers into walls on the bumper cars. Starshine rode the swings (and screamed the entire time that he was Superman). Daredevil and I rode a roller coaster called the Raven.

11. Yes, the title was based on Poe's poem. The little speaker boxes along the ride's line informed us of that fact and then cleverly intoned that we would ride it Nevermore.

12. I was very disturbed that people all around me were wondering aloud what "Nevermore" had to do with "Raven".

13. It was in line for the Raven that I realized I was an idiot.

14. Or seriously lacking in whatever area of the brain stores useful information like Wear Clothes In Public and especially Wear Clothes That Don't Have Holes In Them In Public.

15. You remember me mentioning a little trip to Starshine's karate class a couple of weeks ago where I realized after the fact that my capri yoga pants had a hole in the posterior region?

16. I didn't throw them away because they make excellent pajama pants. At least, that was my reasoning at the time.

17. So there I was, standing in line for the Raven, when it occurred to me that I was wearing those very pants.

18. I'd packed in a hurry, grabbed what was clean, and there you have it.

19. Luckily, in preparation for the water park, I was wearing a bathing suit underneath so no one was the wiser.

20. And no, I still haven't thrown them out. But I'm hopeful the knowledge that they are NOT to be worn in public has finally sunk in.

21. We had a blast in the water park, went on other rides, and then I lost my mind.

22. Really.

23. Oh, you thought that ship had already sailed but you were mistaken. It was docked and ready to go, but until last Monday, it hadn't officially left.

24. Holiday World has a coaster called The Voyage (pictured above). It's the second tallest coaster in the world.

25. In the world.

26. And I decided I had to ride it.

27. Not surprisingly, none of my family would accompany me.

28. I stood in line, strapped myself down, began the journey up the chain lift...

29. And since it's the second tallest coaster in the world, I had plenty of time to think about the ramifications of my (I now realized) rash decision.

30. I began chanting "Holy Crap, what have I done?" in my head and since it's the second tallest coaster in the world, had plenty of time to chant that multiple times before the coaster of death finally saw fit to fling me over the top and plunge me 185 feet toward the ground.

31. I don't mind drops. In fact, that's what I love about coasters.

32. This one plunged me up and down, wrenched me side to side, and then went underground and plunged me up and down in pitch darkness only to spit me back out for more wrenching side to side.

33. I was going so fast, I lost track of where I was in relation to the ground, the sky, and the people I flew by.

34. Oh look, that rhymed.

35. When the ride came to an abrupt halt (no easing us back into the starting gate for this coaster!), the teenage boy behind me informed his father he was probably going to puke.

36. My stomach sympathized with his plight.

37. I hauled myself off the coaster, gave walking in a fairly straight line my best shot, and limped my way back to my family where my hubby was eagerly recounting my misadventure on Twitter.

38. And so ended Day One.