Coup de Soleil

In French, the term Coup de Soleil means sunburn, but literally translated it reads: Cut of the Sun. The sun definitely did cut into my skin yesterday and now I have an itchy rash on my arms and legs, despite the sunblock I put on. I spent the day at Lagoon, an amusement park in Farmington. I am not a Lagoon fan. I actually got out of a free Lagoon chaperoning trip back in May. Well, the opportunity presented itself again. My sister-in-law had free tickets to Lagoon through her work. All right. I decided that if the tickets were free, I might was well give it a shot. Lagoon is no magical Disneyland, but when something is free and nothing else is going on, might as well.

I slathered on the sunblock, drank a huge bottle of water, put $40 in my shorts' pocket and headed out for a great time. Lagoon often puts in a new ride each year. This year's new ride is called Air Race. Everybody really wanted to try it out first. Everybody except me, that is. I told my brother repeatedly that I planned to avoid all the corkscrew and spinning rides, but we had no idea what Air Race was about. We got into the park and what do you know--no lines! Where was everybody? This was a Saturday! We walked right into the ride and got strapped into the contraption. Oh no! It was a ride that spun you in circles and held you suspended in an upside-down position for what seemed like minutes! I do not see how people think going on something like that over and over again is fun. I held my breath each time we went upside-down, so I was running low on oxygen. I got off and kind of hobbled to the next ride: Re-entry on The Rocket. Can we say scream for your life?!! I thought it must have been broken when we approached and saw not one single soul in line. Nope. They strapped us in and ran it for just the four of us. Each ride that we went to after that had no line or very little wait. It was crazy. Despite my protests, I got talked into The Samari--this was a similar ride to the Air Race! I didn't know how many of these thrill rides I would be able to handle without a break. I never thought I would ask for lines at an amusement park, but I was starting to feel like a lump of jell-o. I needed a line to wait in! Please! We took turns choosing each ride. The other three had all the corkscrews and whiplash rides covered. I chose the train around the animal park. Nice white tigers you get to see on that one. Too bad they are confined in tiny cages. I also picked out the Sky Ride (which actually turned out to be quite scary as it stopped abruptly several times. At each stop, I felt like I could slip right out of the chair from several feet in the sky. Ahhhh!)

My favorite ride of the day was OdySea. This is like Dumbo at Disneyland, only the whales and dolphins spit out water at you. You can control how high and low your chair goes and try to avoid the water sprays. It wasn't too bad and a little spray on a smoldering-hot day is nice.

After a while, I was really craving a frozen lemonade. It's all I could think about. We found a little lemonade stand, but they were out! She offered us a frozen pina-colada for $4. I guess when you're thirsty, you pay whatever it takes. She put in some frozen slushy ice and then dumped in pina colada snowcone flavoring. I thought it was pretty dang sweet and couldn't actually drink it all. What a disappointment! What is the best thing about no lines at Lagoon? Taking off for home at 6:00pm!! Driving away, I was very happy. I think I will save up my money for a Disney Park next time.