"Staycation's all I ever wanted..."

I can’t believe it’s August. Where did July go? Oh yeah, now I remember, I spent it living in the CDC theatre. Thankfully, the first Pineda Conservatory season is finally over. Not that it wasn’t fun and rewarding and all that good stuff, but it’s nice to actually sleep where I’m paying (exorbitant!) rent. To celebrate, Trish, Juan, Val and I decided for a staycation close to home (redundant?), specifically Allentown, PA, where the Pineda brothers went to high school and Trish was born. Thanks to some useful gift cards from some of our summer kids, we bought two-day passes to Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom.

Trish and I in front of Dorney's Center Stage, which I'm sure can't hold a candle to our Center Stage

I still remember when Dorney was a dirty, nasty, ghetto hang-out for delinquent teens and white trash families. I mean, it was used to film scenes in the gritty original Hairspray movie for Pete's sake (the John Waters' one, not the recent squeaky clean musical version). That was back in the glorious 80’s (that’s sarcastic, unless you didn’t get it without the verbal inflection) and there was no admission and seemingly no trash collection either. Holy crap! Now it’s filled with roller coasters, landscaping and actual trash cans. It’s still a little on the white-trash side as far as clientele, but it’s cleaned up nicely and the stale scent of urine no longer wafts from the park’s pond. Another plus - tetanus shots no longer required, as they seemed to have replaced or renovated most of the ancient rides. Funny how the junkie, run-down, carni rides from my elementary school days are now labeled “Classic Rides.” I guess if you wait long enough, put a fresh coat of paint over something and hang a plaque on it, anything can be considered a “Classic.” I hope that works for me in a couple of years. Anyway, having gotten into the park early that morning, we had ridden nearly every coaster by lunch. Val only came close to barfing once, on the “Steel Force”’s 205-foot, 75 mph first drop (see the lovely stolen pic below).

By Saturday afternoon, the deceptively cool morning gave way to a scorching afternoon. We had the genius idea, as did the seemingly thousands of other park-goers, to head into the water park. Since there’s no physical gate between Dorney and Wildwater Kingdom, there’s no mechanism in place to prevent everyone in the park from leaving Dorney and heading into the water park - which is exactly what happened. We were soon jammed mosh-pit style with a sweaty mass of half-naked strangers hoping to get a toe in the wave pool. Ugh. Dehydrated and annoyed, we left for our luxuriously appointed room at the HoJo’s across the street (again, sarcasm). It actually wasn’t too bad, except that the hallway smelled like an old ashtray. The plus side? There was an indoor pool with hot tub! Yeah! Who needs an over-chlorinated wave pool full of toddler urine anyway!? We conveniently drove away the old couple that was already swimming there - can you say “scared of brown people?” - so we had the pool and tub all to ourselves.

Since we didn’t actually pay for the park admission, we felt no obligation to return to the park for the evening and instead opted for visiting the local Kmart (I spent nearly a hundred dollars on junk!), buying up candy at Josh Early’s (peanut butter truffles and dark chocolate pistachio bark, yum) and eating at an incredible hole-in-the-wall BBQ place ironically called The Ritz. They make their own BBQ, including a ham version that was deeeelicous and their own ice cream (you can see us enjoying above, as well as me showing off my fine fat ass). We even ordered two pounds of it to pick-up and take home with us the next day.

Since you can’t say you’ve been on vacation until you’ve thrown up your weight in junk food, we went to the 24-hour Giant supermarket and bought chips, dip, a lifetime supply of diet Turkey Hill iced tea and - wait for it - red velvet and peanut butter whoopie pies! We then spent the rest of the evening watching the Olympics, eating and sitting on the toilet. Now that’s what I call a vacation.

Sunday rolled around and we decided to hit Wildwater Kingdom before the forecasted thunderstorms hit that afternoon. We managed to get in all the major slides and water rides, eat tacos, pierogies and fries and get into a fight with a mentally-handicapped child’s parents. And all before one in the afternoon! A full day, if you ask me. Once the storm hit, we headed to the Flemington outlets where I again dropped over $200 in new work clothes. Since the weather was so bad, we just decided to head back to Jersey and pretend we were still at the HoJo’s. We loaded up on the junk food again, settled into our underwear and watched Michael Phelps and the rest of the relay team as they snatched up another gold medal. Go USA!