We just got back from a visit to Dorney Park in Allentown, PA. We stayed in a hotel the night before and the night after, figuring it would be a long day and it’s a two-hour drive. You can tell we’re getting older. If I was in my twenties, it would have meant getting up early to make the 10:00 a.m. opening and getting home at midnight after a long day at the park.
The problem began when I volunteered to go on the ride that’s like a bungee jump in a chair. I am a very large woman and I didn’t fit in the chair. I was mortified and got off the ride, head down, gathering my flip-flops and slinking back to where my husband was waiting. I apologized to my kid, who didn’t seem to mind. After all, he had spent the morning riding the scariest rollercoaster rides and suddenly wasn’t feeling so brave.
There should be an added sign, along with the warnings about not riding a certain attraction if you’re pregnant, have a heart condition, or had recent surgery. WARNING: You May Not Fit on This Ride if You’re Over 250 pounds. It would save a lot of embarrassment. I volunteered to go on one other rollercoaster ride, convinced by my son that this one only had a safety belt. Once again, I found myself profoundly embarrassed by not being able to buckle the belt and slinking away. My son stayed on this ride and we waved at him as he whizzed by. I saw him through a veil of tears, telling myself that perhaps gastric bypass isn’t such a bad idea.
I did go on one ride—the log flume. No belts or bars and it was fun. We bought the picture of the two of us in the boat, getting splashed at the end. It was a blast. The ironic thing is twenty years ago, when I weighed 145 pounds and was at the gym five days a week, you wouldn’t catch me on an amusement park ride. I was a flight RN then, and had five years behind me as a trauma nurse, and I saw too many accidents to ever step foot on a ride. Now, my feeling is life is short and how bad could it be to be flying on a machine, upside down and turning around at eighty miles an hour?
We hit the wave pool and there I found all the other people who couldn’t fit on ride. We all swam around, gleefully, feeling at one with the other park goers. My son loved it, telling me it was like being in the ocean without the jellyfish and sharks. I looked around at all the kids in the pool and wondered how many of them had peed in the pool. I was glad I had my Menactra vaccine last month.
After the wavepool, my son and husband went on the water ride where you climb up about a thousand steps and go down a closed tube in an inner tube and come out at the bottom thanking God you were still alive. My son ended up going on it three times. My husband quit after two. You realize you’ve risked enough after two times, I suppose. I guess I could have gone on this ride, but the stairs would have killed me. I would have been especially thankful to be alive at the end and not being picked up by Lehigh Valley Medical Center’s LifeFlight. They’re a great flight program, but that’s not a ride I prefer to take.
We managed to hit the hotel’s pool while we were there, and found us alone in an indoor pool, with a water temperature between cold and the warm, physical therapy pool I use three times a week. My husband was too tired to come in, so my son splashed around while I did my PT exercises, which I hoped made up for missing my sessions this week. We ordered takeout from a Thai restaurant which was one of the best Thai food I’ve ever eaten. Allentown itself was a surprise- a lot of renovated mansions and trendy stores along the main street. Apparently, the amusement/water park adds a lot to the tills of the city. My husband and I spontaneously broke out in a rendition of Billy Joel’s “Allentown,” which my ten-year-old son didn’t get. You have to be of a certain age to get it. And a certain weight to go to an amusement park. Maybe next year, after my gastric bypass, we’ll try another one. You’ll find me swinging upside down at eighty miles an hour, praying that I’ll make it off the ride alive.
