Holiday World and Indiana Beach

The next morning the club headed off the park for a morning behind-the-scenes tour and as it was only down the road Jeppe and I decided to have a lie in. Partly because I'd been to the park before so wasn't overly interested in doing the tour and also because the night before we'd stayed up quite late, not in the bar but in the laundry room. We had a wonderful plan of washing and drying the clothes then heading to the bar whilst they were running. The plan went well up until the point we left the bar and realised I'd not hit the start button on the dryer. So I had to spend an extra hour waiting for that!

This is Santa's Lodge where we stayed. We stayed towards the back where it is quicker to walk than to drive a coach.

Santa's Lodge is easy to find, just look for the Santa

Indiana is quite a beautiful state, and rather disappointingly not Eerie at all.

You lied to me!!

The last time we were here we had to have a police escort to stop traffic so that we could walk to the park because doing so just isn't the done thing in car-dependent USA. I'm not sure if the club had this when they made their way to the park or not but we got the escort again!

This is the entrance to the park. Another little tip for those walking to the park is that you can only access it on foot from the car park across the road. Don't do as we did and try to walk up the road to the entrance, a chicken-fence prevents you from doing so. Fortunately for us a park employee spotted us wayward tourists and recognising our trip badges let us sneak in the side entrance.

Raven still running very well.

Divers still diving well

The Legend still running OK. I'm not really a fan of this one

Lunch was this way and we were joined by the Koch family for an informal Q&A session.




The Voyage was still as good as the night before

The old biddy with the turkey caller still looking as old as ever.

Saying farewell to Holiday World we then boarded the coach and headed North through the state of Indiana. Whilst still quite hot the humidity had dropped caused by a storm front that was making its way across the mid-west.



It soon became apparent that the weather had had an effect on the area.

Starbucks was offering a special on its Coffee Float

Eventually we arrived at Indiana Beach and checking into our chalet style rooms we headed into the park to enjoy the evening there. As all the coasters were running we decided to get them out of the way. Doing this would make the next day, also being spent here a little bit more relaxing.

The Hoosier Hurricane is the large out-and-back coaster that runs the length of the park.

You can ride it for $5 or if Supernanny thinks you've been good then you can cash in two gold stars for a ride.

A pano shot taken from the far bridge.

The Lost Coaster of Superstition Mountain, hereafter known as Loco Sumo looks like a school project and turned out to be the most fun ride in the park, once you got use to the bone rattling, which is actually true.

The wheel at the far end of the park from where we tried to get some nice photos of the Hurricane but the timing was always out and we'd be at the bottom of the wheel whenever the train came past.



Some shots from the wheel. In the distance to the left is the park's latest addition Steel Hawg, which was planned to be open but had fallen behind schedule and not finished.

The Hurricane in action, not from the wheel though.

If the ramp isn't suitable for wheelchairs how would they have got to this side of it to read the sign?

The most pointless attraction ever! A Russian swing leading to nowhere but water. I can only assume this is for some stunt show or something.

Having quickly covered the park we spent the rest of the evening in the bar and restaurant where I had a really nice steak and managed to lose the strap for my glasses.

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