Silverwood Theme Park

Last Monday, we left our house at 4:03 a.m. and drove over 400 miles to get to Silverwood Theme Park by 11 a.m.  We made it with a few minutes to spare.

We were herded into this tunnel that connects the parking lot to the park with the rest of the people who had manage to arrive right at opening. Judging by how the parking lot had emptied by the time we headed back to our car in the evening, we are pretty confident we outlasted many of these early birds.

 

Following our neighbors' advice, we immediately made a beeline for the major roller coasters that all four of us could ride. This is how the kids felt as they anticipated their first roller coaster ride. 

Brielle was a brave girl to ride Tremors 2 times.  It was a pretty wild ride with many underground tunnels and crazy sharp turns. It was an old rickety wooden roller coaster that had me screaming the entire time. 

Needing a break from the wilder rides, Brielle drove this antique car while Isaiah

and I rode another roller coaster...and let's just say, we are glad she has another decade before she can hit the roads!!

The kids loved all the wet rides and, thankfully, the weather was just right for those.

Tired of getting our clothes wet over and over again, we decided to just go to the water park side of Silverwood called Boulder Beach and get our water fix and be done with it. Boulder Beach ended up being very similar to Calypso, the water park we went to while in Ottawa. We realized as we got in our swimsuits that it hadn't even been a month since we had been to a water park. Not ideal, I thought...you know, it might raise the kids' expectations to a level we can't maintain the rest of the summer...but we were there and so we might as well enjoy ourselves...and we did.

We went back to the main park to ride a couple more rides. There were bumper cars and flying elephants to try out.

 We finally called it quits a few minutes before closing time. It turned out to be a very full and very fun day! We can't see how it could have been better. 

We crashed for the night at the Motel 6 a little ways down the road, thinking we'd be pretty much sleeping the whole time we'd be there...so no need to go fancy. It turned out to be a decent setup...and would have worked out just perfectly...if it hadn't been for an 'alarm malfunction' that got us up WAY too early. What happened is I was relying on my watch to tell me the time throughout the night. Sometime during the night, I must have messed with the buttons and set my watch on Time-2, an option I didn't even know I had. It turns out that Time-2 was FOUR hours early. So instead of waking my crew at 10:30 so they'd get ready before checkout time (12 p.m.), I woke them up at 6:30. Since it was overcast, we couldn't tell the time of day just by looking out. We showered, ate breakfast, repacked our bags and headed for the car with only a few minutes to spare...only to find out that in actuality, it was only 8:00. We could have slept in several more hours!!! We might have even had time to swim in the pool. I was ready to head back to our room when we found out the truth...but Andrew decided that, though it was bummer we weren't as rested as we could have been, it was time for our next adventure. We drank our coffee and hit the road...exhausted but content...and ready to tackle another adventure together.