Grampy Lash

This past weekend Claudia and I accompanied Rachel and her Mom & Dad on a trip to Holiday World; a not so quaint amusement park located in southern Indiana. One of the first things we discovered was that the three and one-half year old primary reason for going had grown about four inches in the past year. Last year, Rachel was about three inches shy of passing the “you must be this tall to ride” benchmark for stepping over the threshhold into the world of some adult rides – with an adult. This year the top of her pretty little head was a whole inch above the mark.

After a warm up ride on the merry-go-round, Rachel was ready for the big time stuff. So, she, her mom, and Grammy headed for the Spider ride. This thing looked like a giant Starfish with little spinning buckets mounted atop the end of each tentacle – and spin it did. Rachel gasped for breath, Mom squealed, and Grammy turned cadaverous. When the ride was over, Rachel said “Let’s do it again!” as Grammy made a bee-line for the Ladie’s room while trying to hold down her Hostess Crumb Cakes from breakfast. Fortunately, Grammy did manage to keep everything down; but she was also done as far as the rides were concerned – and she used to be quite the amusement park rider too.

Rachel rode just about everything allowable on the adult rides that day, and she always came off saying the same thing: “Let’s do it again!” She had a great time. She even enjoyed riding the shuttle bus that carried us to and from our place of lodging.

The next morning, as we were just kind of relaxing at the old camp site, Rachel asked me to take a walk – with her on my shoulders – another one of her favorite rides.
“I want to ride the bus!” she says from somewhere above my head.
“Okay, we can ride that to the park.”
“I want to ride the merry-go-round!”
“I’m sure you will get to ride the merry-go-round.”
“I want to ride the roller coaster!”
“Your mother was right. I think we have created some sort of little monster.”

“Tell me Rachel, what is your favorite ride?”

“I want to ride in Pop-paw’s car!”

“Now… that’s my kind of ride Boo-boo,” I replied while trying to catch my breath.