Soak Up the Fun, Part ^

Vacation: Mt. Olympus
I picked up my little sister on Friday morning a little later than I wanted since my mom insisted on taking me to breakfast with my aunt.  At a place where the pancakes are the size of a serving platter and the omelets are large enough to feed a small family.  I'm not even kidding; the last time I ate there, it took me the whole weekend to finish it.

If you've never taken a 14 year-old to an amusement park, do it.  It's fun!
I wish we had done more water rides, but it was a little chilly, if you can believe it.

We did the water rides around lunch time, since that's when it was the warmest.  Otherwise, most of the day was spent wandering and doing the wooden roller coasters.  We rode Hades 360 three times.  It was a chilly Friday, so the park wasn't that busy, which is why we were able to do it.  The first time we went on it, the line was short enough that we ran back up to the top and got right on it again!  And of course we had to ride it once more before we left.  We probably could have gone back up and done it again, the line was so short, but we were hungry, thirsty, and going underground and upside down at 60 mph three times is probably the limit for one day.

My sister had never driven go-karts before, although she had been to the park.  I talked her into an easy track, and turns out she loved it.  I liked watching her do it more than I liked doing it myself, to be honest.  You could just see her feeling so independent and grown-up, smiling even when she didn't think anyone was looking.  To facilitate that trust and independence, I left her at the track closest to the wave pool and did some more wave pooling and floating down the lazy river.

One experience that really touched me was on another go-kart track.  I forget the guys name, and wish I had e-mailed the company about it as soon as I got home that night.  The way the go-karts work is each track has two sets of cars.  While one set is going around, they load passengers into the other set.  After the first set has pulled in, they release the second set of drivers and then instruct the first set to get out of their karts.

I think the name of the track was Poseidon, but while we were there, the guy did it a little differently.  There was a little kid, about 6 or so, standing there, waiting.  The first set pulled in, and instead of releasing the second set, a guy and his 10 year-old son were directed out of their kart, and that's when I realized there was an empty kart in the second set.  The guy got in with the younger kid while the 10 year-old held the hand of the employee.  Based on the kid's reactions to things, he seemed autistic.  He also seemed to be having the time of his life.  I thought it was the greatest thing in the world for that guy running the ride to not only make the dad's life a little easier and help him out so that both of his boys could ride in a go-kart with Dad, but the way he treated that boy...almost made me cry.

Having recently read a book written by a teenager with autism, I think that 10 year-old is going to remember the time he got to "run the go-karts at Mt. Olympus," and that Dad is going to remember how nice that employee was, and the little brother is going to remember that time he got to ride a wooden go-kart track with just Dad.  And I think I'm going to remember it all.