(no subject)

[stormdog]

posicat, wooisme, and myself were all planning to meet up at my office after I got done with work. From there, we were leaving directly for Noah's Ark. Since I'd forgotten to pack my camera into the pile of bags that were filling up the back seat of serinthia's car, that plan was subject to some minor reassessment.

Instead, Andrea and I drove straight up to our place, and Posi followed along behind, meeting us there about half an hour after we got there. The three of us did final gear prep (including spending fifteen minutes looking both at home and at my parents house for the sandals that I'd already packed into a duffel bag). akreaveter and his computer had followed me over on the return trip of my sandal search, so he got his tech set up on the dining room table while finding himself the willing recipient of much affection from our dog and cat who were happy to have their dragon friend over again.

The trip to the Dells was pretty much uneventful, though we did get in rather late. We were worried about the park closing before we managed to arrive, though in the end we had just about an hour to spare. As we were approaching Rocky Arbor state par, where our campsite was, I gave a call to uberhill to make sure that we everyone was on track. He and his traveling companion, Calik, had actually arrived a few minute earlier.

The guy at the gate who checked us in to our site and sold us a vehicle sticker was interesting. We were our typical weird selves around him and it didn't seen to phase him at all; that's always a good sign. He and Posi discussed the problems he was having with the computer in the old A-frame log cabin that served as a gatehouse and talked about the park a little bit; he seemed to be a pretty interesting sort. I bet a lot of the people who work in the park service are.

We found our site, disgorged boxes and bags from the minivan, and began setting up the campsite with some help from Uberhill, who came by with friends from their campsite just down the road. It was interesting; very much different from my last couple of experiences backpacking with my mom. She and I went out with nothing more than we could pack onto our backs. This weekend, we had a minivan full of things like an LED lighting system, table-mounting overhead line to hang cooking implements, tiki torches, and more. I have to say that, for me, it really is a bit more than I'd choose. There's something that really appeals to me about being minimalistic and walking for miles to my campsite with all my gear. I certainly can't say, though, that the geek in my doesn't appreciate the hardware, and Posi's ingenuity in designing and creating it all!

We all settled at the picnic table once the tent was up and the torches were scattered around the perimeter and lit. Puma was there too which was really nice. He seems like a really interesting guy and I so rarely get to see him, and the few times I do he's busy at cons. It's too bad. Anyway, I shot a few picture using Posi's tripod. I got the tent and the table and even the stars using 200 ISO with fifteen to twenty second exposures. Once I see on a bigger screen how they turned out, I'll post a couple.

We got up early the next morning (before any of the others we knew at the campground were stirring) and used the extra time to find some food to start the day with. We ended up at Country Kitchen to indulge in their breakfast buffet. It was surprisingly good! I can't decide if I prefer it over our Paul Bunyan's excursion last time, but the hashbrowns, french toast, sausage, biscuits and gravy, and other goodies were great water park fuel.

Speaking of which, we proceeded on from there to Noah's Ark where we were meeting the rest of the furries. We were rather early yet, so we took the extra time for a little driving tour of the perimeter. Wow; big! Andrea had never before been to a water park before today, and my experience with them was limited to a trip to Disney World with my family back in the mists of childhood, so this was pretty new to both of us.

We looked at the tops of multi-story water slides over the fence around the park as we found the parking for the group admission gate and took our spot. Though we seemed to be the first ones there, more furs were hot on our heels. There were far too many for me to remember and list here, so please forgive me if you were there and I don't mention you; we had a good sized group of about twenty or so I think.

Finally we decided that everyone was there who was going to be and we proceeded through the gate after Rebekkah, who'd collected all the money, bought our armbands. The first thing we saw was the wave pool. So, after going into the nearby locker room to change, we dove right in! Well, ok; waded right in. The water was chilly, and I'm never very good at acclimating myself to water temperature. I walked in at a slow controlled pace, along with the rest of our group (the core people who stuck with me through the day were Posi, Andrea, Uberhill, and Kellic) except for Posi who splashed through wave-crest after wave-crest until he was in deep enough water to fling himself bodily into a wave trough and be fully submerged by the next peak. It was very cute.

From there we moved on to a number of rides, the most exciting of which being "The Time Warp", which involved four people riding a raft through an entirely enclosed tunnel that emptied into a large bowl, around the periphery of which the raft would spin two or three times until it lost enough momentum and exited through the chute at the bottom. It also involved me clonking my head soundly against that of the girl sitting next to me. It really wasn't a good introduction, and I felt absolutely terrible as she walked away with her apparent boyfriend, holding her head. I'm not a big fan of thrill rides anyway, and that plus the forty minute line combined to prompt my decision not to bother with any more rides with lines that day. I didn't come to the water park to spend more than half the day in line.

From there, we went on to something called the Bermuda Triangle, which was a two person raft ride that managed to sour me even on larger rides that didn't have a long line. I felt quite sure that we'd almost gone high enough up the tube wall at a couple points for our momentum to push us up and over the point of gravitational equilibrium and that we were going to end up upside down under the raft at the bottom of the slide. I'm not sure how accurate that impression was, but it was enough to convince me to sit out something called Black Thunder, and instead spend the rest of the day moving between the wave pools (where I got a little too deep at one point and had something of a scare, but managed to get back out) and the little, not as scary slides called Slidewinders. And that's really okay. As the rest of the group went off to do Flash Flood and a couple other things, I spent an hour or so running the three different slides at Slidewinders over and over, trying various methods to keep my nose clear through the rough water at the bottom, and testing a sitting position versus a lying down position to see which was faster. Somehow, I was reminded of a video game, maybe something like Skate or Die, where I'd keep going through the low level rides and stunts until I gained enough levels and skill to move on to the tougher courses.

Oh, I forgot about lunch. The five of us drove out to look for something promising and ended up at a place called The Pizza Pub for their lunch buffet. (Yes, I've been to far too many buffets again lately. But I managed to not stuff myself to bursting and I'm going back to being more conscientious this week.) The pizza was decent for being buffet pizza, nearly on a level with Cici's.

After we were all done at the park, we went back to camp to change and shower. I didn't quite make it to the showering part; I was dead tired and couldn't be roused for anything. I woke up again once we got to the pavilion where all the furries were gathering for a cook out. Despite my usual habits, all I ate was hamburger. I guess I was full enough of pizza.

Sitting and talking with people was nice, though I had my usual problems in knowing who was who. At one point, someone had their hand on my shoulder behind me and I had no idea at all who it was. I get a little embarrassed in groups because of that sort of thing and I was feeling kind of peopled out anyway, so I hung back a bit. Still, it was nice to see people.

As the evening wore on toward night, rain began to come down pretty heavily and cold breezed picked up. Still being in damp swim trunks, it was a bit too cold for me to deal with and I went back to nap in Posi's van until we were ready to go.

Our campsite was significantly changed when we got back to it after dinner. Most significantly, our tent was now a square patch of canvas on the ground, with a few bumps where gear had been sitting inside of it. Oh dear. We thought that the tent might have been blown down in high winds at some point, but as Posi investigated, he realized that what had happened was that the sand the tent was in became saturated with water and the stakes holding the framework of the tent just popped out. Not that the cause mattered too much; we just had to figure out how to deal with the consequences.

We owe huge amounts of thanks to uberhill and kellicjtiger, who offered us shelter in their tent and car after we fished our sleeping bags and clothes out of the lake that the inside of our tent had become and packed them into the van to drive over to their site.

After some unsuccessful attempts to locate a hotel to spend the balance of the night in, the group decided that the best option for us was really to pack it in early and drive home, there to sort out our assorted possessions.

We got back home around three in the morning and promptly fell asleep, Posi staying in our living room. We sorted and dried after getting up around ten-thirty and spent the rest of the day alternately relaxing, doing a little bit of house cleaning, and napping in the air conditioning that the sheer humidity finally broke us down into switching on.

All in all, the water park was great, and the people were fantastic, but the camping just didn't turn out so well. Perhaps next time. We do want to do a next time.