darien lake visit

Allison, Jodi & I went to Darien Lake with Rand on Saturday, had lots of fun. We took the bus to Buffalo, where Rand picked us up. Were grilled quite a bit at the border ("Who are you visiting? Who's Rand? How did you meet him? What kind of shampoo does he use?" etc. etc.) Jodi pulled out a copy of our CD; the customs guard was impressed but didn't want to buy any CDs.

Darien Lake (a.k.a. "Fun Country!") was pretty crowded, surprisingly so for its second-last weekend. Lots of screaming babies and men with bared chests (mostly men who really shouldn't have been baring their chests). We didn't go on any rides (none of us could agree on any :)) but we did indulge in Icecream Of The Future as well as other park culinary offerings. The icecream was overpriced but very good, and consisted of frozen pellets of icecream. My favourite flavour was mint chocolate. We also hung around Adam's caricature booth quite a bit. I bought a tacky Darien Lake souvenir (a miniature plastic 99c license plate with my name and a Darien Lake logo...it's too big to fit through my portable scanner, sorry). We also played a couple of arcade games, and Jodi won an adorable white polar bear while playing darts! She's named him Arcturus, I think. After Adam got off work, we spent the evening at his place (yes, the infamous Ookla the Mok Secret Headquarters). Got to meet his two cats, Schroedinger and Einstein...VERY cute. Allison and Jodi were all mushy over them. Ok, so maybe I was a bit mushy, too, but that was mainly because of the allergy drugs I had taken just before. :)

Luis called just before we left to say hi; unfortunately he couldn't join us at Darien Lake because of work. :(
Drove to Rand and Tanya's place. They had kindly stocked their fridge with a variety of Ben & Jerry flavours, so we had a B&J sampling...my favourite was the coconut, though the Passion Fruit sorbet came in a close second. Allison seemed to like the chocolate bits in the Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz flavour the most. :)

Had Peanut Butter Captain Crunch with milk in the morning! The only time I get to have this is at Rand and Tanya's place since I haven't been able to find it anywhere else. Hung around gabbing with Rand in the morning (Tanya had to leave early for work), went for a walk in the park area near their townhouse complex. Went to the Factory Outlet Mall for lunch and some shopping, as well as more Ben & Jerry's. We all split a pint of Heath Bar Crunch (sorry, can't remember the exact name, but it was YUMMY).

Rand was a sweetie and drove Allison, Jodi, and I all the way home to Toronto. After dropping off Allison and Jodi, it took him a much longer time to get me home since the Don Valley Parkway (the usual route) was closed! Glad I brought my map...it seemed to take us ages to navigate home through the smaller roads.

Anyway, 'twas a fun weekend. :)

p.s. Hey, Inkspot was mentioned in the Sept/Oct issue of The Writer's Journal! (p16) :)