Water, Inner Tubes, and Beer

My sister has a million and one stories that include her beloved Jeep, numerous tickets, accidents, and thefts. However, one of the best adventures Bug, JJ and I had was due to Whitney (What she calls her Jeep) breaking down and the events that followed.

We were about to kick off our summer with a bang. We had three weekends planned back to back of Wyandot Lake (Now Zoombeezee Bay), Cedar Point, and Put-In-Bay. We woke up bright and early to prepare for a day of fun in the sun and on water slides. We needed a few provisions before arriving at the park. So we loaded up the Jeep, took off the top to enjoy the beautiful sunny day and headed out towards the water park. Our first stop was going to be the liquor store. I had looked up directions for a store that was en route to Wyandot Lake. When we were about 4 miles away from the park, a burning smell started to come from the Jeep and she started acting up. Bug pulled over into the nearest parking lot, and we prayed that the Jeep would not break down. It stalled and after ten minutes of attempting to get it to start, we realized it was a lost cause. Luckily, we broke down right next to an auto repair shop. Bug and I pushed the Jeep while JJ maneuvered it through the parking lot to the mechanic's. They determined her alternator went out in her Jeep, and it would cost over $500 to fix. I started to make phone calls to my parents. My father is a mechanic, and is a genius when it comes to fixing cars. I am sure he has saved Bug and I thousands of dollars worth of repairs since we were sixteen years old.

Dad told us to forget about paying that much for the repair, and to just call a tow truck to pick up the Jeep and bring it to him so he could fix the problem for a fraction of the price. This made for a problem. We still had every intention of enjoying our day in the lazy river and the wave pool, but we were now down a vehicle to get us to our destination. If we paid to get the Jeep fixed at the shop we would have a ride. "No, Erin, call AAA and send the Jeep here. If you need a ride, your mother or I will come and pick you girls up when the park closes and take you home."

Great! Even better, this meant we could all three drink since there was no need for a designated driver. Now we just had to figure out how we were going to make it to Wyandot Lake. I highly doubted the tow truck driver would take a detour and drop us off at the gate.

"Let's call a cab," JJ suggested. So we called the local cab service and they picked us up from the repair shop after the tow truck picked up the Jeep. Although we were already running behind schedule, we still had one very important stop to make on the way to the water park. We had the cab stop off at the liquor store so we could pick up our bottle of Three Olives Cherry and six sugar free Red Bulls. We had our priorities straight that day! We emptied the bottle of vodka into one of our water bottles, and put our red bulls into a small cooler (do not try this now, they have become really strict) and finally entered the park. However, I think we may be the only ones who pulled up to Wyandot Lake in a cab that day.

We found our place on the beach, poured ourselves some drinks, and started enjoying our day. We rode some slides, ate some food, floated in the wave pool, and then found heaven on earth. We decided to take a nice relaxing float through the lazy river. As we rounded one of the corners, it was like the clouds opening to reveal the gates of heaven, it was "Crocktail Island." A nice Tiki bar setting with no kids. We anchored our flotation devices, and decided to see what kind of drink prices they had. In a matter of about an hour, the three of us had drained the Vodka bottle dry and needed some more refreshments. We sauntered up to the bar and asked what kind of beer they carried, "You can get 36 ounces of Miller Lite for ten dollars."

"WOW! That is a pretty good price, approximately $3.33 for a 12 oz. beer," we all figured out.

"That's not the best part," the bartender continued,"you get refills for 3 dollars all day long."

"Jackpot! We will take three."

We had found the holy grail of beer purveyors. They were pretty much giving the stuff away. We definitely got our money's worth, and proceeded to take NUMEROUS pictures of us with our dog bone shaped beer glasses, us and our inner tubes, us and our glasses with our inner tubes, and us falling OUT of our inner tubes holding our dog bone shaped glasses.


We were all well on our way to drunk, happy land when around 7pm I received a phone call, "Erin."

"Yeah dad?"

"Would it be possible for you girls to find a different ride, your mother and I are not going to be able to make it to pick you up."

"I am sure we can find someone. We know enough people in this area," I replied with confidence. We all three started to call our friends. After about a half an hour, the only possible ride we found was Bugg's boyfriend Ky. However, Ky did not own a car, so he had to find a car to borrow to come and pick us up. The park closes at 9pm. We left our fate in Ky's hands and then proceeded to continue our fun. When the sun started to go down, the water rides got a little too cold, so we decided to ride on the dry rides, aka the spinning machines. Wyandot Lake was not known for their dry land rides. There was one dinky, rickety, wooden roller coaster, and a handful of old county fair style rides that spin until they make you puke. We started out in the roller coaster ride. If any of you know me, you know I like to chat, JJ calls me "chatty Cathy". I was talking to a kid in front of me, and was still doing so when we boarded the coaster, or so I thought WE boarded the roller coaster. As the ride started, I hear an, "Erin look over here," from the line. I had aimlessly wandered off onto the roller coaster without my partners in crime. They were still in line waiting for the next car.

So what do our drunk butts decide to do next? We decide to ride the spinning rides and see how many we could go on before getting sick. The funny thing is, it usually only takes one of these rides to make me get sick when I am sober, but apparently I can ride them all day long when I am already spinning while I am off the ride. We were having so much fun on the rides that we lost track of time and apparently the ride attendants did too. We got off the "spinning egg" and saw Ky standing at the gate waving at us. We were surprised but excited because this meant we did not have to take a $50 cab ride home. I looked around the park and realized that is was not just empty, it was deserted. It was 930pm and we had been going on the spinning egg ride WAY past closing time.
Ky gathered us all up, thanked the park attendants for letting him in to find us, and tried to herd us into the car. However, we girls were attracted to a commotion going on in the zoo. We could smell the aroma of food cooking and what looked to be a big party going on. JJ went up to the ticket booth to find out what was going on, "The annual taste of Columbus," the lady told her. Once a year all of the local restaurants and bars hold a tasting. It holds a high ticket price of one hundred dollars a head, and most of the money goes to charity. We figured if we could get Ky to distract the ticket lady we could all sneak in. Well, we were wrong, and we were asked not so politely to leave the premises. Instead of partying at the zoo, we all headed back to our apartment pool and continued our little private party till the wee hours of the night.
Although things did not go quite according to planned thanks to the Jeep breaking down, we had what turned out to be one of our most memorable girls outings ever, and have TONS of pictures to remember the day from.