Our actual boat trip for today was only 15.1 miles to Cedar Point Amusement Park, which bills itself as the "Roller Coaster Capitol of the World". We launched the dingy (picture at right) and took a leisurely cruise up the Huron River. As a kid, our family had a part interest in a cabin a few miles up the river. We spent many weekends there fishing, swimming, water skiing and seemingly endless hours rowing boats. "Rustic" would be an over statement for the cabin, but for my brother and me, it was a kid's wonderland.
After 50+ years, I wondered if it might still be there, but the answer appears to be no. It was on the outside of a bend in the river and was subject to erosion. It had been moved back from the river at least once, but alas...
We went about 7 miles up river, and even though there has been development of some areas, much of the river is still natural.
Speaking of development, here is our pick of the "most outrageous" view of the day. This rather large and very pink flaming boat easily won the prize. From another angle, we could see that it is pedal powered, but it also has a mounting bracket for an outboard motor. Now if you are a real Red Neck, it comes on a 4-wheel trailer so you could pull it in parades with your lawn mower.
ha ha.
When we got back from our tour at 11:00 am, Lucky Us was waiting patiently for us in the Huron Boat Basin (picture at left).
We loaded the dingy onto the davit on the swim platform and left the dock more or less before the official check out time of Noon. As you can see in the photograph, the sky had largely cleared, and the breeze was a light 8 mph as we started our voyage for the day.
On one side of the main channel there were huge piles of gravel that I presumed had been delivered by ship. Gravel piles are inherently boring, but these were covered by very large numbers of my (least) favorite bird, seagulls...
We covered the 15.2 miles to the marina at Cedar Point in about 2.5 hours at a leisurely speed. The amusement park occupies about a half square mile at the end of a 5 or 6 mile long sand spit. The picture above was taken from Lucky Us as we rounded the end of the sand spit and are in the shipping channel into Sandusky Harbor. The spit begins about half way between Huron and Sandusky, Ohio. It goes slowly out into the lake and forms a large, natural harbor for Sandusky. Cedar Point Amusement Park (1870) is the second oldest amusement park in the US, and as I mentioned earlier, it has a worldwide reputation for its roller coasters. It has a total of 16 coasters, including 4 that are over 200 feet tall. It also is the most visited "seasonal" amusement park in the country.
They have a huge marina that has both seasonal and a large number of transient boats. They had a very nice pool and hot tub at the marina, but we also had access to pools at the hotels and to the beautiful beach on Lake Erie. The marina was about in the middle of the long array of roller coasters, which meant for exciting views, but that was about as close as we wanted to get to the actual rides... The rushing noise of all of the coasters made it sound like we were in the middle of a practice session for something like the many jets planes that make up the Blue Angels. The picture above shows "Famous Dave's BBQ Restaurant" along one side of the marina where we had dinner. I had a salad with chopped Georgia style BBQ pork. While a salad for dinner sounds healthy, this salad was waaaaay too good tasting to be very healthy. This picture and the following one were both taken at night. Night time pictures require a long exposure, so the camera must be very steady, but that is impossible on the flybridge of a rocking boat. Thus, the pictures are blurry, but they show something of the night time light show.
The last picture shows four lighted columns with a roof like connection at the top. The columns are round, and they have "cars that surround the columns. The cars are raised up and then dropped. We could hear the screams from Lucky Us. It is a very good thing that the rides were well lit because there was supposed to be a fireworks show at 11:00 pm. After a long day outdoors, it is very difficult to stay up late at night, but we stayed up because we had a prime viewing spot on the flybridge. HOWEVER, the fireworks never materialized...
Oh well, it was a small disappointment at the end of an otherwise great day.
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