Valleyflunk

Tonight we went to Valleyfair. We planned to go after 5, for the half-price admission. $17.95 for five hours of fun. Well, I should've know we were off to a bad start when we didn't even leave Minneapolis until 4:35. Shakopee is a 25 minute drive when there's not traffic. And boy was there traffic. Crosstown was a complete parking lot; 169 was no better. It took us a full hour to get there. By the time we parked, paid and were through the gate, it was 6. Okay, I thought, four hours of fun. Not too shabby. We went straight to the Steel Venom, as it is closest to the front. We rode it twice, it shook us up, got us pumped for more rides. Then, as we were walking to the Wild Thing, lightning streaked across the sky. Uh-oh. Rides closed. It didn't yet look very threatening, so we headed to the bumper cars until it passed and rides re-opened. We bumped. It was fun. We waited. We had corn dogs (or Pronto Pups, as VF likes to call them). Waited. An hour later, rides re-opened. It was now 8:15. Okay, one hour and forty-five minutes of fun. So, to the Wild Thing. Rode it twice due to lack of lines. On to Xtreme Swing (very cool new ride last year). Also rode it twice not because there was no line, but because it's super exhilarating. Then, Power Tower once (ended up in this line for 15 minutes, because they only had one tower running). We were saving the new coaster, The Renegade, for our last ride. We were going to ride it as many times as we could before the park closed. 9:20. Plenty o' time. We head back there (it's way in the back), and the line is pretty substantial. We figured we'd only get to ride it once. At about 9:40, it started to thunder and lighning again. And they closed it. We didn't even get to ride it once after waiting for twenty minutes! We got bit by mosquitos, rained on, and all for eight stinking rides we've been on before. That is $2.25 per ride. Worst Valleyfair trip ever.

I realize this is less than insightful/beautiful/inspiring writing in any way, but I felt quite strongly about it, so needed to blog. Luckily, we are going to Six Flags on our honeymoon, so my roller coaster ridership will climb in a couple of weeks.