Darien Lake and the drive West

Our hotel was just behind a Tim Hortons so it seemed rude not to go there for breakfast this morning.  Tim Hortons, we have learned, are on every street corner here and across the border in canada.  But I'm not complaining, we are loving their breakfast wraps and English muffins.

With the car loaded we set of for our first coaster fix of the trip.  Darien lakes is just to the east of buffalo and a half hr drive through small towns and countryside brought us to the park before opening time.  We parked up in an almost deserted car park and purchase tickets.  We hadn't really expect much from this park, it used to be a six flags park, and after our experiences last year had nearly not bothered with visiting.  But so glad we did.  Park was very clean, gardens and borders kept beautifully and staff were friendly.  We didn't have long here as we had a long drive ahead of us later.  When the park opened we quickly made our way to Ride of Steel.  Great start, sat in the back 2 rows, the ride was smooth and exciting, with some good airtime on the return hills.  The wood coaster, Predator, nearby  was still closed  so we headed on round the park.  We rode Blast Off, a 185ft Tower sling shot ride before another coaster, this time Boomerang.  I will check out the stats for so easy of these rides, but despite the fact some of their coasters must be quite old, they all ran well and smoother than expected, including Boomerang.   The initial lift, backwards was very slow but the rest was great, although I couldn't get my over shoulder restraints undone and Stephen had to help Me!

The motocoaster was temporarily down, so Keith, Sarah and Stephen went on the corkscrew "viper".  My head still a bit disorientated from boomerangs backwards ride so I got myself a frozen lemonade (yummy!) and found some shade to wait for them.  They claimed this was probably the smoothest corkscrew they had ever ridden!

We could see across the park that the motocoaster coaster was running again so we headed over to join the short queue.  Once into the station we were strapped onto one of the twelve , 2 abreast motorbikes and rolled out to the launch section.  The ride occupies a very small footprint so the launch was quick and we were rounding the corners of the tight twisty track. 

Stephen and I queued for the wood coaster Pandemonium, but before we could get to the station, a girl passing out on the station steps closed the ride while the medical team attended.   We rejoined Keith  and Sarah, who were sharing and enormous mint chocolate ice cream, and decide it was probably time to leave as we had at least a 4hr drive ahead of us and it was approaching 2pm.  This was a park I hadn't expected much from but could happily have spent more time at.

After a quick stop to buy a couple of fleeces in the park shops, we were back in the car  with the sat nav was saying 7pm arrival.  Hmm bit longer than anticipated.   It was not until an hr later I realised I had turned off toll roads while we were in Toronto and we were going a long way round.  By the time we rectified it, it didn't make a difference to the arrival time.  Still we got to see some lovely small American towns, and field after field of Corn!   Actually quite pleased we went that way as the motorway scenery was quite dull.  

We stopped mid way for fuel, a stretch, and some snacks and eventually reach our Best Western hotel in Mansfield, Ohio at 7.30.   We checked in, had a quick refresh and went for dinner at Applebee's just round the corner.  No food photos taken unfortunately, but we had nachos and mozzarella sticks for appetiser then Stephen had a breakfast burger, Sarah pasta and chicken with honey sauce, one of her favourites from a previous trip, Keith and I had bourbon chicken and shrimp, plus unlimited hot tea and raspberry lemonade.  All as good as we remembered.

We called in  to Walmart on the way back to the hotel to grab some antiseptic cream, the skin under my eyes became sore due to the heat under the edge of my glasses. We also got some tea bags and clip on sunglasses as Keith has left his sunnies at home :(

Off to bed ready for an early start.