Unsetting the Sun

I gunned the engine on Todd’s car, racing to the peak of the Newport Bridge. The sun had just set, but I hoped that the gained altitude at the top of the bridge we’d see just a sliver of the newly set sun over the horizon.

“You did it!” Todd cheered from the passenger seat. “You’ve just unset the sun.” I clapped for a second then replaced my hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel.

It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. We’ve just celebrated our 12th Valentine’s Day together. We were drowsy from the weight of the Mexican food in our bellies and from the day’s activities.

The day started off with a fresh batch of heart shaped pancakes I’d made. We ate them in bed and let the dogs have whatever we couldn’t finish. Valentine’s Day is a family affair in our house, after all.

Before we knew it we were in the car and crossing over Narragansett Bay on the Newport Bridge. We arrived at the horse barn were soon we saddled onto our horses and headed for a ride on Third Beach.

It was a wonderful ride, but I’ve discovered that I really don’t like it when horses trot. It’s bouncy and jarring. It’s hurty where my butt repeatedly slammed into the saddle. Galloping, however, is great. The horse gets into a smoother rhythm that doesn’t send me bluntly bobbing up and down on the hard leather saddle.

Todd had a much better time on this ride than he did on the one on South Padre Island on our honeymoon. The last horse left in the barn was a young stallion that had been broken for about five minutes. Long story short, his horse pestered another horse into kicking him square in the chest. The force of the kick sent Todd’s horse, with Todd on the back, sprawling sideways on the beach. From there the ride went downhill.

Today, however, Todd and his horse—Jenny—were the best of friends. She listened to his commands, she did not ever send them ass over teakettle. He rode in front of me while I watched from behind. I watched him move up and down in his saddle while trotting and listened to him talk to Jenny and remind her that she’s a “good girl.”

He looked over his shoulder at me with a big smile on his face, and I could tell that my Valentine was having a wonderful ride.

This is quite possibly the best picture of Todd I've ever taken.  Happy Valentine's Day, Love.

You Know What I Love About Water Parks?

I love the rides, but water parks aren’t ALL about the rides for me. I love the easy access to junk food, because who doesn’t love instant access to dippin’ dots, or waffle cones oozing with frozen deliciousness. But it’s not just the ice cream either, and I can’t believe I just wrote that. I love ice cream. A lot.

It’s the people watching. I love people watching. And what’s great about going to a water park on a sunny day is that I can check out people all day long and nobody knows it because I am wearing sunglasses. Checking people out at an indoor water park is a lot harder. Nobody wears sunglasses at an indoor water park; I have to take care to keep my ogling subtle.

All day long at a water park I am surrounded by half naked people, and I am constantly fascinated at how each person I see has a unique shape. You could put two women in an identical bikini in the exact same size, and it will look different on each one. So, yes, I do stare at people at the water park. And it probably makes me look weird and pervy. But really, I am admiring the art of the human body and not only the sexual aspects of it.

Speaking of art, another thing I get to see at water parks on most of the half naked bodies are tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos. Every time I go to a water park I am constantly amazed at what people were willing to permanently etch onto their skin.

At Schlitterbahn in San Antonio I saw a man with the Ford logo tattooed onto his back. This dude liked his truck so much he got the swirly Ford cursive name on the blue oval tattooed across is back. There was no registration or trade mark on it, so I wonder if the company can sue him now? I didn’t see anyone with a Toyota or Honda logo on their person, and really wish I had so I could see Toyota tatt man and Ford tatt man duke it out.

At Six Flags in New England I saw a man with the entire cast of the Simpsons tattooed on the small of his back. Dude liked the cartoon, so he got it inked in. Every single character too.

At Wet N Wild I saw a man with a Care Bear on his shoulder. Ooooh, manly!

At Kalahari I saw a man whose arms were covered in various tattoos. On his forearm he had a bottle of booze next to a naked woman. Beneath them a ribbon swirled, on which it said “Stewed and Screwed.” Classy! Dude will never regret that one, I’m sure.

Todd and I struck up a conversation with a man in a hot tub at a ski resort once. He had some Asian characters tattooed on his forearm. Todd asked the guy what the characters meant, and the guy rattled off a bunch of things like “Strength, wisdom, integrity… blah blah blah…”

“So, how do you know it doesn’t say ‘American asshole’ on it, or something?” I asked, not being able to contain my inner smartass. Who am I kidding? There is nothing inner about my smart ass. It’s out there in front, snickering at just about everything I see. But I am always suspicious of things written in languages I don’t know how to read. (When we bought Sabine, her name was Tara Vana. Supposedly that means “Crazy Man” in Tahitian. But I know it actually meant “Loser American Dickweed.” That is the only thing that “Tara Vana” could possibly mean.)

The man chuckled and said “Well, I looked it up on the Internet before I got them done.”

Todd and I looked at each other, and I could tell we were both thinking the exact same thing, my inner smartass shut her trap before saying,“Yeah, because everything on the Internet is true, right?”

Kalahari

In the last few years we’ve come to consider ourselves water park aficionados. We tacked on a week to our honeymoon so that we could go to San Antonio, TX to visit Schlitterbahn—the nation’s largest outdoor water park. (Then we visited Schlitterbahn’s sister park on South Padre Island, TX too.) We’ve been to Wet n Wild, Six Flags New England’s water park, Six Flags Atlanta’s water park, Aquatica, Discovery Cove, Blizzard Beach, Six Flags Great Escape Lodge in Lake George, NY, and a few more I can’t recall at the moment. Before I knew Todd, I’d been to Action Park in New Jersey as well.

At Christmas Todd surprised me with a trip to Kalahari, located in the booming metropolis of Sandusky, Ohio.  Kalahari is the largest indoor water park in the nation.  It has a dozen or so rides, one of which is a water roller coaster that was clearly designed to mimic Schlitterbahn’s Master Blaster. There were two funnel rides, one was a tube ride, the other was a slide that ended in a funnel. There were rides on which we had to ride a mat, and there were others that we just rode on our butt. The park also included a giant wave pool beach under a specially designed ceiling that allows UV rays to penetrate so that park visitors can get a suntan while playing in the waves.

The only thing I didn’t like about this park was that the rides were all in complete darkness. The tubes were constructed of opaque fiberglass that didn’t allow light to penetrate. As a result we did not have a sense of where we were going as we slid down the tube. I’ve come to appreciate this variety at other parks, when only a few of the slides are in complete darkness. The innate thrill of not knowing which way the tube will bend, and whether I will be dropped down a steep incline at any given second, is an exciting change from sliding down the tube in the sunlight.

However, every single ride in complete darkness creates an unsettled queasy feeling, especially when riding backward. Toward the end of the first day I started feeling motion sick because my eyes could not detect motion in the dark, and conflicted with my body which clearly detected motion. I do not get motion sick. I am the kind of girl who can ride 7 different roller coasters in under 3 hours and still eat a funnel cake at the half way point. I am the kind of girl who remains at the helm, beer in hand, in 8-10 feet waves hollering at the heavens “Is this all you’ve got??” while my husband “feeds the fish” off the back of the boat. He gets motion sick. I do not. Yet, over the weekend I got my quease on while riding in complete darkness at Kalahari.

But there were other things going on a Kalahari that took the edge off the queasiness.  We headed over to the spa and took in a deep tissue couples massage.  We took advantage of the opportunity to play with a 9 week old Bengal tiger cub.  Twice.  We rubbed her belly while she tried out her baby tiger roar on us; the only response she received was 'Awwwwwww!'  We went to the hot tub bar, bellied up and received our fancy tropical drinks while soaking in a hot tub.  Then we carried the drinks outside--and that was the only time we'd been outdoors for the entire weekend.
But other than the complete darkness, I would totally do Kalahari again—maybe next winter to beat the February cabin fever.