Wow, has it been a busy few days.
Day 3 started with the need of a rental car. Plonker called Enterprise to schedule a car until Sunday morning and a pickup, but he had called Enterprise National, apparently, so he had to be transferred to the local office. Also, he was informed that they’re only open until noon on Saturday and that they don’t have after hours drop off, so we had to get the car back to them by noon on Saturday. Fine, whatever.
The local Enterprise had a car, but it wouldn’t be ready until 3:30. We planned on going to Erie, PA for CelebrateErie, but mainly for the Here Come The Mummies concert. Since it’s a 2 1/2 hour drive there from Sandusky (1 1/2 hours if we had just stayed home) it would work out fine.
Since we had a few hours to kill we decided to take a walk since the hotel is on a main business road, as opposed to the Camp that we stayed at last year, which was in the middle of nowhere on a highway next to a McDonalds. Neither Plonker nor I are shoppers (that’s what the interwebz is for) and since we hadn’t eaten (yet another free hotel breakfast missed) we decided to look for a place to eat.
There were mainly your normal chain places, but we tend to like to go to the local joints while on the road. I can (and do… a lot) eat at the chain places at home. Before arriving we really wanted to eat at Andy’s China Dragon…
Nothing says “Authentic Chinese” like Andy’s in the former Taco Bell!
But the only Chinese food I really like is Chicken & Broccoli, and a scan of the menu online didn’t list it, so we didn’t go. We did hear good things about the place, so, go? I guess? Let me know how it is.
We realized we were pretty close to Chet and Matt’s, and since we weren’t going to do the challenge anymore we decided that’s we’d still have lunch there. So in we went… through the wrong doors. We entered the lounge side, which had no one in it, so we scooted through the dining room to the proper entrance. Since we didn’t enter in that doorway the bell didn’t ring, so it seemed most employees didn’t realize we were new customers. They were pretty busy and we’re rarely in a rush, so we waited. when the rush of leaving customers died down we were seated, and offered the buffet which we took.
Plonker generally doesn’t like buffets, and, although I still eat at them, I try to stay away, mainly because I’ll eat too much and the food is generally not at good. But the buffet was pretty good. It’s a fairly thin crust pizza, if you like that – and I do. Plonker decided that after tasting it that it was indeed good and that we should try the Challenge Saturday.
By the time we left it was 2:15 with a 45 minute walk back to the hotel, plently of time for the 3:30 pickup by Enterprise. Only, Plonker then said the car was ready at 3:30, but they were picking us up at 3. So we had to quickly waddle back a few miles, bellies full of pizza.
We made it back in time to head to our rooms, flirt with the front desk girl, and have new keys made for Plonkers room (dumbass). Plonker signed the paperwork, got full coverage insurance on the vehicle, and we took off to Erie.
Riding in the car with Plonker is… an experience. Especially when it’s not his car and with full coverage. Normal Plonker driving is 90% handless normally. In a rental throw in high speed gear shifts, parking brake application, and hairpin turns.
Although the car didn’t have GPS, the routing from Sandusky to Erie isn’t that difficult, so we made it without dying, killing anyone, AND with the car still in one piece. Parking was a little difficult, with the fest blocking the main street, coming in from a different direction, and me not knowing jack shit about Erie. We did find a “PNC Customer Parking Only” lot.. Good thing Plonker is a customer, right!?
This was Plonker’s second Here Come the Mummies show, although he’s been trying to get to more, work usually screws it up. If you’ve never seen them, or even heard of them (you’re probably never heard of them) go to a show. No, go to a show. Now. GO. Stop reading this, go to the tour page, and find a show close to you. Or travel, it’s worth it. You can listen to them on youtube and soundcloud, but it’s never the same experience as the live show. Yes, they dress as mummies. They play funk/rock/variety of genres of all original music. You can meet some great people in the audience. It’s, it’s great.
That being said, I can never find people willing to go to with me (preferably beautiful women). Plonker agreed we definitely need to find women to go to these with us (as most AT the concert were either old or with boyfriends and that’s no bueno), so that’s why we will be holding friend Auditions! Keep your eyes open! The audition process will be grueling and we fully expect less than 20% of all applicants to drop out before the end.
After the kick ass concert the 3 hour drive back to Sandusky consisted of Taco Bell and HCTM car seat karaoke performed by yours truly (that may or may not be one of the physical challenges of the audition process). I passed out a couple hours later to wake up early for Cedar Point.
During last years non-bike-ride Sandusky trip Plonker couldn’t fit on Top Thrill Dragster, Wicked Twister, Raptor, or Millenium Force. This year he could ride the Raptor, so some improvement has been made! Luckily the lines weren’t bad at all being as it was the end of August and a Friday. There was NO line for Top Thrill Dragster as an example. I think it took longer to walk from the entrance to the station than I spent waiting to be seated. Good times.
I noticed there were a lot of Amish. Just strikes me as odd.
Valravn was pretty cool. The wait was one of the longest of all the rides that day, with Maverick being the longest (because that ride’s the best). Valravn was, in my opinion, overhyped. It had pretty cool drop, and broke some records for being the first in a few categories for a dive coaster… FOR A DIVE COASTER. Compared to other coasters it’s pretty tame. Instead of having the car 3 rows with 10 people across and had it like a regular coaster you’d probably say “oh that’s all that was?” I mean, I’m guessing the technology is different in the way the coaster works? Maybe? Engineers might get hard-ons over it, but if you took a Ford Fiesta and threw a Mustang body on it and made a few tweaks to the undercarriage – it’s still a Fiesta. Same with Rougarou. It’s the same coaster as the Mantis, with a paint job and different cars. The Mantis was a stand up coaster and I never had the opportunity to ride it. When I DID have the opportunity my buddy that day refused based the the lameness factor. The switch over made it a floorless coaster, but it’s still not that thrilling. But not everyone likes the high thrills, I suppose.
We ate at TGIFriday’s and had full racks of ribs, but, lamely only one adult beverage. I’m going to say the waiter was trying to flirt with Plonker, it’s funnier that way. A couple cute girls came in that we had seen multiple times throughout the day and were sat by us. The one had a rock on her finger bigger than Plonker’s head (very, very large) so that was the end of that. Back to the park to walk around for 7 more hours.
The plan after the park was to go to Toft’s Ice Cream Parlor as the park closed at 10 and Toft’s website said it closed at 11.
Nope. Closed at 10 also, didn’t update the site. Stopped at the same bar as day 2 and had some foods and a couple drinks.
Saturday comes and we need to return the rental car by noon. I also want to ship all my shit back home, as all the extra weight really made riding difficult. More so on the balancing than anything. I repeatedly fell over while trying to get on the bike, usually at intersections with many, many witnesses. After a stop at staples, the gas station, and some wrong turns, we made it back to Enterprise… where we learn that they do have after hours car drop off, so our last day in town we’re carless. Luckily one of the Enterprise people offered to drop us off at Walmart (where were headed anyway) on his way home for the day. I picked some essentials that I had already dropped off at Staples for shipment back home (because we make horrible decisions) and went back to the hotel.
Chet and Matt’s Pizza Challenge was next, and yes, we still have very little appetite. Like one normal persons meal for the day is good enough (one Fujupz meal is usually enough for 2-3 normal people). No guts, no glory. Now, if we weren’t complete morons, we would have had the Enterprise driver drop us off at the pizza place, walk to Walmart then to the hotel. They’re located in that order. But, we didn’t. Plonker found an Uber driver, who was a pretty cool guy, and he took us for pizza. Plonker offered him to come in for pizza for when we failed the challenge, but I think he thought we were joking.
We called ahead so it wouldn’t be long for the pizza to come out. I think it was Chet that was talking to us and going over the rules, one of which was “don’t get sick in my restaurant”. We told him about the bike ride and how a side effect of that was the loss of appetite, but we said fuck it, we’ll try it anyway.
Fuck
I, myself, have been know to eat full 16″ pizzas, and almost 2-12″ pizzas.This is 29″. It doesn’t sound like much more, but when you do the math it has nearly the same area as 6-12″ pizzas, or the equivalent of 3 each.
We failed
To be fair, we knew we’d fail. And to be honest we were all surprised we got as far as we did. They were getting worried about where they keep the shirts and other winnings since it’s been so long since they’d had a winner. Maybe next time, when we drive to Sandusky, we can attempt the challenge again.
Until that day.. I don’t want to see pizza ever again.
