Valleyfair

Oh man, my vacation to Wisconsin was really nice. The weather was perfect, 75 and rainy a lot of the days. Such a great change from the 110 degree weather here. Yuck! The highlight of the trip though was my sisters and I going to Valleyfair. A really awesome amusement park in Shokopee, MN which was about a 3 hour drive from my gramps house in Superior. We possibly could have gotten there sooner, but we got lost...lol. But it's a really nice park with some great rides. We went on a Friday and it wasn't busy at all. I think the longest wait was 15 min. being from Southern Cal. that was nothing. It was also really clean and pretty smoothly run. It also has a really nice water park, which I've been to before.

It has around 6 roller coasters. They are all great except for Steel Venom. That one is the Devil himself. It was the last ride we went on and by far the scariest, The Looping Starship comes in second. But Steel Venom is fast, jerky and it really confused me. My older sister loved it, of course, she always loves rides where death is a very real possibility. Yes, I thought that maybe that ride would take the best of me.

The Looping Starship is the Devil, Steel Venoms brother. These 2 rides scared the crap outta me
My favorite ride ever is here, move over Riddler's Revenge! It's called Extreme Swing. The Structure is 100' tall and riders are 125' off the ground at the top. It only goes 60 mph but feels a lot faster. We went on it maybe 5 times and I could have strictly gone on this ride and this ride alone. It's an absolute rush. Someone even ralphed on it while we were there.lol. That's great! Here's a picture of it. It's purdy!

My older sister has never been to the Six Flags here so my younger sister and I are going to take her at the end of this year. This park has over one hundred rides and 16 roller coasters. A few of which I haven't got a chance to test out yet, like Scream which you are "flying". Holy shit! I don't know if I could handle that and Tatsu is also a "flying" coaster where you are literally lying down. It is the tallest, fastest and longest roller coaster on Earth! Then there is X2, where you actually rotate on seats that extend on the side of the track. I have wanted to try this since I saw the commercial a few years ago. I can't wait for December!

RIP John Hughes

Oh man, I was quite upset late last night after my husband had read to me that the great John Hughes had died that day of a heart attack. Some of his movies including Curly Sue, The Home Alone's (especially 1 and 2), Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Uncle Buck have been near and dear to my heart since I was young. His movies just ooze a nostalgic feel and have such a deep sincerity and humor that, to me, a lot of films lack. I still watch Home Alone 1 and 2 and Curly Sue every Christmas. They evoke every thing that I love, some kind of magic warmth that I cannot really place my finger on. Maybe it's the fact that he lets you know a character and come to totally and completely love and understand them despite their faults. Like for example Bill in Curly Sue. Bill was homeless with his daughter, Curly Sue. They lived on the mean streets of Chicago-barely having anything to eat, she was spending nights in homeless shelters, not in school, out in the cold. In other circumstances you would think, like Grey did, that he was a complete douche for not getting a damn job and giving his daughter a better life. But it wasn't like that. Hughes let you see that even if a father could not provide adequate shelter for his child, he still showed love and tenderness towards her by letting her "eat first", which was a way Sue knew that he loved her, he was also always by her side and giving her constant cute morality rules like "no swearing, no gambling, no spitting, no punching, and no kicking" and also life lessons like "you can cry and not feel sad, just like you can feel sad and not cry." Bill said this to Curly Sue as he was begging her to hit him with a huge wooden board in the face so they could scam a rich person into thinking they hit him with their car and be guilted into giving them something. Such an original concept for a movie! Funny, charming and a little sad.

He did this with a lot of his characters, showing that everyone is human and needs and wants to be loved despite any flaws. Like all the characters in The Breakfast Club. He let you know each character very well. That is hard to pull off in a movie with so many personalities, but once again, he did it. You knew that even at first you also saw them as everyone did, as stereotypes, but after the movie went on a little but you saw that they were all just people and all the characteristics that stood out in one that made you label them a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal you were later able to see those traits in each of them.

Another one where he did this was Sixteen Candles. The dork wanted to be loved by Sam who wanted to be loved by Jake. They all seemed like total messes and in the end they all got what they really wanted, to be with someone--in the dorks case--the most popular girl in school.And what made the movie totally amazing was the journey all they went through to get what they wanted, even Long Duk Dong. "Ooh. Sexy girlfriend!"

I think I am going to take out my John Hughes dvd collection and have a movie party with myself tonight and watch all my favorites and revel in the fact that John Hughes was a writing God and swear to myself that I will make my future children watch all his movies, which I'm sure they will enjoy. RIP



"I don't care how much people bug me, I'd rather be with someone than alone" Kevin McCallister. The name of which my future son will be called...lol