Justin's Stricker's Grove Trip Report

[Justin_M17]

Note: I will not be posting pictures due to the fact that all the pictures I have from the event were taken by numerous other people, and I wouldn't feel right putting their pictures in my own trip report.

This past Sunday was Family Day at Stricker's Grove, which is one of the few days that the park is open to the public. I had originally thought that I wouldn't be able to attend due to lack of a vehicle, but a friend of mine decided that me not going was not an option and forced me to allow her to come pick me up. Stricker's Grove, here we come!

I awoke to my phone alarm going off at 10AM Sunday morning. After a minute or two of trying to figure out what the noise was, I managed to reach over and turn it off. Rachel (StalkerChick) was supposed to be here to get me at 11 so I got out of bed and went through the typical morning routine; Picking an outfit, shower, shave, blah blah blah. As soon as I stepped into the shower I heard my phone (Which was at still max volume for my alarm) go off in my bedroom. I had a good idea of who it was, but decided to let it go since it was my text message ring tone and not a phone call. After the shower I went into my room to read my text, and as I expected, it was Rachel saying she would be 30-60 minutes late. No problem.

After making all the necessary preparations, checking, double checking, and triple checking to make sure I had everything, and of course checking KICentral, I went downstairs to wait for Rachel. I grabbed a couple pop-tarts to stand as my meal for the day because I had no plans of eating at the park, and sat down to watch the Music-on-Demand channel. After three or four songs I saw Rachel pull into my driveway. I quickly got into my shoes and went out the door just as she was coming on to my porch. After her quickly critiquing my choice in clothes for the day, we got into her car and set off for Kings Island!

What? Kings Island? This is supposed to be a trip report for Stricker's Grove, right? Well, it is, but Rachel and I had also decided to use today to interview for our positions as Haunt SCAREacters at Kings Island because since Stricker's Grove didn't open until 1PM and we thought that we'd be able to interview and still make it to Stricker's in time. Skipping over the events on our way to Kings Island, we parked in the employee lot and went in to the HR building for interviews. We had been worried that it would be crowded and that we would be waiting for awhile, but I was surprised to see that there were approximately eight people in the room, counting ourselves. We walked up to the front desk and were handed some basic information forms to fill out. After filling them out we handed them back in and went to sit and wait for our names to be called.

I will be skipping most details of this process for obvious reasons, but we were called back and were asked questions about our legal right to work in the US, and afterward we were sat against a wall to await our actual interviews. We weren't the only two people there of course, there was also one woman and two men (Who I think were brothers) who all looked our age, maybe a year or two older. Less than five minutes after we had sat back down, our interviewer showed up and we were escorted back to the area where our auditions would take place. I didn't get a chance to talk to the woman we were with because she was picked for the first audition. She had been in the room for a few minutes when we heard an extremely long, drawn-out, bloodcurdling scream. NICE! She came out with a smile on her face and told us that she had been assigned to Massacre Manor.

One of the brothers went in next. Rachel and I sat and chit-chatted with the other guy. Rachel was telling us stories about Haunt in previous years, and about how much fun it was, when once again an earth-shattering scream pierced the air. What on EARTH was our interviewer doing to that man?!? He too came out smiling, and told us that he had been assigned to Trail of Terror. It was the other brother's turn now. The first one sat and chatted with Rachel and I while waiting for his brother to finish, because apparently they were car pooling. A few minutes of talking, another scream, and another happy face delightedly informing us that he had been assigned to Urgent Scare. Now it was Rachel's turn. I was left sitting outside the door alone. There was no scream from her because she was a re-hire. Despite going in with the intention of being a roamer, she came out and told me that she was also assigned to Urgent Scare.

Finally my turn! I went in and shook hands with my interviewer and sat in a chair opposite her desk. I was asked for my best and loudest scream, which I was more than happy to oblige to! I was then asked for a maniacal clown laugh, which I had no idea about. And then, the highlight of my interview; a zombie walk. The man that came out of his interview before Rachel told us that he simply started doing the Thriller dance when asked this question. I began to act as if I was going to do the same thing, and my interviewer laughed and told me that would be all. She assigned me to Urgent Scare as well. SCORE!

Walking out of the HR building with our paperwork in-hand, Rachel and I debated on whether we wanted to go in and get a lap or two on Diamondback real quickly, but decided against it seeing as how we were already 30 minutes late for the opening of Stricker's. We got back into her car and she turned on her GPS, and we were off to Stricker's Grove! YAY!

Because Rachel's GPS fails epically, we wound up in a cul-de-sac in Mt. Healthy. That can't be right, can it? We stopped into a small gas station and called Angie (Gigacoaster2k) to get the exact address for Stricker's and were off again. Roughly 10 minutes after we set out again, the highlight of our drive to Stricker's Grove occurred. "You're The One That I Want" from the 1978 film adaption of the musical Grease came on the radio! And when that happens, what else is there to do but crank down the windows, crank up the stereo, and sing your hearts out?! Well, that's exactly what we did. People in cars at stop lights looked at us like we were crazy, but we kept singing, woot!

After one more wrong turn, and (As a result of said wrong turn) a small unintentional trip into Hamilton, we got to Stricker's Grove at 3PM. Finally! We paid admission, went into the park, and made a beeline for the restrooms, and the free cold drinks. Drinks in hand, we set off to find the rest of the KIC group, which didn't prove to be a difficult task. After saying hello to everyone, we got in line for Tornado and it's trimless excellence! We managed to do exactly what we had hoped to do, and filled an entire train with KIC'ers. Woot!

After Tornado we all went back up to the front of the park for drinks. We stood just across the midway from the restrooms while sipping at our drinks (Some of us were cool enough to be double-shotting their drinks!) and broke up into small groups having different conversations, but after the drinks were gone we were right back to being the ride warriors that we are! This time we decided to tackle the Flying Scooters. Neither Rachel nor I had ever ridden a Flying Scooters ride, so we were looking to anyone and everyone for advice on how to snap them and enjoy the ride experience that much more. Despite being told exactly how to do it, neither of us really got the hang of it. But we had fun on the ride all the same.

We had to ride the scooters in two groups. So we waited for the second group to get off the ride, and ran over towards Teddy Bear. A trimless wooden coaster with old-style buzz bar restraints, EPIC WIN!!! We got our ride on that, so we now had both of the new coaster credits we had came to Stricker's to get. Next up: Tip-top.

Our ride on Tip-Top was THE most hilarious ride on any type of ride that I have EVER had! Rachel and Angie were smart enough sit this one out, but me, Tom (CoastersNSich) and Kyle (kjkjkj) managed to talk/force Kyle's sister Ashley (Ashers) to ride with us. Now, Ashley doesn't handle spinning rides very well at all. Knowing this, I decided to spin our car for all it was worth! I was spinning the wheel in the center of our car, therefore making our car spin, Ashley was doing her best to stop me and avoid throwing up at the same time, while Tom and Kyle both had their cameras out and were POVing Ashley. It was SOO funny, even though she beat me up once we got off the ride and swore her undying hatred for me several times thereafter.

Anyway, after the train, Ashley definitely needed a break. And frankly, my stomach was begging me for a calm ride as well. So we all headed over to the ½-Mile train ride. It was a little rough, even for a train ride, but it was still a fun experience with KIC'ers. I still prefer the KI&MVRR by a VAST margin though. SG's train has nothing in the way of scenery, just a train ride across an open field with a boring square layout. At least the KI&MVRR has the trees, the fort & town, and the bear.

After the train ride, we went to the carousel since it was right there. It was a really fun ride. Not because of the ride itself, but because of the KIC'ers entertaining themselves! We did several "waves", and Rachel and Ashley were "demonstrating their professionalism" while riding their horses. All in all, a great way to liven up the ride. I didn't like this carousel nearly as much as the grand carousel at Kings Island though.

By this time it was nearly dinner time, and if you didn't already know, the rides at Stricker's Grove close for an hour at dinner time. But Kevin, Kyle, and myself managed to talk Rachel into riding the electric rainbow ride with us as the last ride before dinner. She had been dreading that ride all day, but she had told me that she would try it right before dinner so she'd have an hour to let her stomach calm down after riding it, so I made sure I called her on it. She insisted on holding mine and kevin's hands during the ride, which was fine until it started to tilt and she began cutting off my circulation. When the ride ended she had a little trouble walking the straight path down from the ride platform, but she was okay within five minutes, which is around the time that I regained feeling in my fingers.

Okay, dinner time! I wasn't ready to stop riding the rides but sadly I didn't have much of a choice. I hadn't planned on eating because I assumed that SG's food prices would be just as insane as any other park, but I was quickly proven wrong, which I was very happy about. I ended up buying just a hotdog, because Rachel and Ashley both informed me that i'd have to eat their chips for them. We wound up eating to music provided by a high school steel drum band, which was pretty cool. I had never heard anything like that before. It was good at first but nearing the end of the dinner hour it all started to sound the same.

After the rides opened back up our group seemed to split up. Me, Ashley, Kyle, and Rachel headed back towards the scooters, I haven't the faintest idea as to where everyone else went. We rode the scooters one time, and then headed back towards the front of the park to meet with Kevin and Tom who were in the arcade. Tom had to leave, so we said our goodbyes to him, and then decided we'd try the shooting gallery with Kevin. It was here that we made an interesting discovery. If you take a flash camera picture while aiming towards the gallery, it sets off all of the targets ! So we had a ton of fun just setting them off, and then decided that it was actually time to try our hands at shooting. I forget everyone's scores, but I do remember that Rachel completely whooped all of our butts.

We went from the shooting gallery to the Skee-Ball machines. I decided to opt out of these since I was never any good at them, but everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. While they were playing I took some pictures of this awesome little kid who would grab three balls, run up the machine, and attempt to throw them into the holes. He didn't even care which hole he threw them into, as long as he got it in there. Awesome kid

Before leaving the arcade we had to trade our tickets in for something. Rach and Ashley got some little barrettes for their hair, while the guys got deputy badges. They were the only deputy badges I've ever seen that featured two hula dancers and a horse on them. While wearing our newly acquired bling, we all headed back towards the Tilt-A-Whirl!

Me, Kevin, and Kyle rode in one car together while the girls waited for the next cycle to ride in their own car because they assumed (Correctly) that if we mixed and matched girls with boys that the girls would wind up spinning much more than they had hoped for! So the three boys got in on the first cycle and started our ride. We tried to get them spinning but we failed epically. It was a great deal of fun switching sides in order to get the car to spin more, but we didn't do very well at it. The girls were laughing at us the whole time, and so were we.

Then we got off and tried to film their ride on it, but once again, we failed epically. They didn't get spinning a whole lot because obviously that's what they were trying to avoid, but every time they did spin you heard them squeal. When they got off, they needed a smoke break, so we sat down and let them take care of that. Kevin also decided that he had to leave. So we said goodbye to him and sat on the benches by Tornado for awhile and talked while the two losers finished their cigarettes.

Once they were done, Rach decided that she needed more flying scooters. Who could've seen that coming? So we went over to ride those. All four of us failed miserably at getting them to snap, but we had a good time trying.

Next up was the Ferris Wheel, since we had been wanting to do it all day but never got around to it since we had an odd number of people most of the day and didn't want anyone riding alone. But now that it was just the four of us, we were set to go! Kyle and I got in first, with Rachel and Ashley getting the car opposite ours. I forget exactly what we talked about during our ride, but I believe it had something to do with how awesome the neighboring field looked from atop the Ferris Wheel. Normally I wouldn't complain about an extremely long ride cycle, but after roughly 30 rotations, it gets pretty old. And the ride op took an extremely long time to get people out of their seats and get new people in them, so even once the ride had stopped we were trapped in our cars for awhile. But he eventually got us down and out of there, and Ashley and Rach soon after.

At this point we hadn't had anything to drink in awhile, so we went back to get some more drinks. I asked for two lemonades but the girl working the window gave me three, but I happily chugged them down nonetheless. That turned out to be a big mistake later on that night, but it sure felt good at the time! After our drinks were gone, and we had spent a few minutes in the shade, we met up with some of Rachel's friends (Whose names I can't recall) and went to play a round of mini-golf!

Our game of mini-golf was definitely the highlight of my day. With seven players, an 18-hole round of mini-golf can take a very long time to get through, especially when not a one of the seven players have any idea what they're doing. In ten minutes we had played through the first two holes and were getting ready to begin the third when the man that was working at the golf course came up and told us that it would be closing soon and we had thirty minutes to finish the remaining sixteen holes. We knew that with only 30 minutes to play we wouldn't get very far playing the way we had been playing, so Rachel devised a new game that she has dubbed "Free-For-All Survivor Mini-Golf." Oh boy!

When playing Free-For-All Survivor Mini-Golf, each player takes his or her first putt, and then once the last person takes their shot the game becomes a complete free-for-all. Everyone is hitting their ball (And each other's shins) at the exact same time, which causes mass confusion and pandemonium, but it's surely a great time. We all laughed so hard during that game, it had to have been the best thing I've taken part in all summer!

When our time limit was up we had gotten as far as hole twelve I think. Even though we didn't finish the course it was still an amazing time. But by this time the sun had began to set and the park was very near closing time, so we decided that our group of KIC Coaster Dorks (Credit for the name goes to Ashers) would try for one last ride on both Teddy Bear and Tornado. We hit Teddy Bear first, because that was the first one we came to. It's a cool little coaster. But when we came back into the station, the ride operator messed up and let the first car get out of the station before he activated the brakes, which resulted in a double ride for us! Woot! When we stopped in the station after that ride, Rachel asked the operator not to send us through again because we still wanted to ride Tornado, but he smiled and said "Too late." Before sending us out on our third straight ride!!! It was epicness.

After our third ride, which ended roughly ten minutes before park closing time, we got off and sprinted towards Tornado only to find that the queue was now closed. What?! If you're going to say that the park is open until a certain time then you should keep the rides open until that time, not ten minutes beforehand. We were mad but shrugged it off. At this point, the rest of our KIC group came out of the exit for Tornado and informed us that they had gotten three straight rides on Tornado as well. Then we all headed out of the park.

Most of us had to go straight home, but a small group (Myself, Rachel, Kyle, Ashley, Kat (Violakat03), Adam (PKIboy), Sean (Beast Man), and Jared (Rotag1299) went to Steak & Shake because we were all craving burgers and milkshakes. Our 8-person, 5-car convoy rolled down the road, with Rachel in the lead (Oh god…) until we managed to find a Steak & Shake to chill at. The place looked kind of crowded, so we debated on going to the Skyline right next door, but ended up going into Steak & Shake anyway.

We all talked and told jokes as we sat and ate, but I decided to skip out on a meal since my stomach was beginning to get very angry at me for my consumption of mass amounts of lemonade, so I just sat there and laughed at everyone's jokes rather than eating. But at around 11:00 it was time for us to get out of there and head home.

On the way back to my place, Rach and I rocked out to some Offspring tunes provided by my iPod! I love Offspring, so that was an epic trip home. She stayed at my place again that night, but for the first time in this Trip Report, I'll spare most of the details. We were up until 6AM playing on the computer and watching Stepbrothers, and then the next day included a lunch at Skyline, laughing at her wincing at the thunder strikes of the storm, and a drive down to Kenwood mall so we could Build a Bear and do a bit of window shopping Fun fun day.

Even though Stricker's Grove is a very small park, with the right group of friends, it turns into an amazing adventure equal to no other! I'm very much looking forward to the next time we can go together And with that, I shall end this Trip Report before I end up writing a novel. Thanks for reading!

[rotag]

That was a good tr. I wondered what happened to ya'lls when everyone split.

[IndyGuy4KI]

Fingers had to be sore after that TR!

Thanks for the post!

[The Interpreter]

It was a very thorough and very fun to read report, too!

[kjkjkj]

Awesome TR Justin! Reading this TR made me remember how much fun we had that day and how funny some of the stuff was. Even though it was a long TR I still read all of it, because that was such a fun day and it was well worth the read! Thanks for writing it!

[Justin_M17]

Well Kyle, the only pictures I have of it belong to you, ashley, rach, and angie, so I didn't want to post them. Instead I tried to put as much detail as possible into the TR and it ended up being quite a bit longer than I had expected

[kjkjkj]

That's what was so good about it though, all the small details that reminded me of all the fun we had. I like reading long detailed trip reports, because it's like reliving the entire day.

[KIfan1980]

I'm glad you had as much fun as I did. Awesome day - although I preferred to start with DB laps versus your auditions. Too much fun!

[pkiboy]

Keith it was great riding with you at SG. We must meet up at KI agian for some DB rides im almost at 400 rides lol.

[KIfan1980]

I'll be adding to my 105 in a little over 9 hrs

[StalkerChick]

FYI i coined Coaster Dorks ash said coaster nerds... but mine has a better ring to it...

and on teddy bear at the end of the night he purposefully sent us on our 2nd trip it was the 3rd one it went too far so he said too late and smiled evily. i loved it!!