Kings Island - Thursday July 8

After Old Man's Cave we drove to Mason, Ohio to stay for the night.

We were once again in no man's land with the cell coverage. So much so, that I couldn't get any at all. Which also meant that I had no google maps or google navigator. I actually had to crawl in the back of the van and pull out the 10 year old atlas I had in the car. There was no easy route south to Cincinnati. We didn't want to travel all the way back to Columbus just to take the interstate down so that meant back roads. We did finally make it late that evening.

On Thursday morning we were up early. The park opens at 10 am but I signed us up for the character breakfast at 9am so that we could already be in the park when it opened.

Outside the entrance.


Batman refused to take a picture, so this is what I got.

Getting ready to eat breakfast.

They remodeled the kids section of the park to made the entire thing Snoopy. So the character breakfast were all the Snoopy, charlie brown characters. And we ended up seeing every character except for Snoopy that day.

Cool picture sitting at our breakfast table with the tower in the background and the King's Island Logo in front of the water.



Grandpa slipped in there for a picture. lol.

Batman thought it was cool that he had a blue blanket just like his.


Fantastic breakfast. It was a buffet with everything. Bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits, gravy, fruit, muffins, pancakes and drinks. It was a good thing too because we didn't eat again until 5pm!

Off to the rides!

Bumper cars!



The roller coaster that both kids could ride. It was fun and we did it a few times. But they really wanted to ride the big ones! They kept seeing the huge hills and the cars going down them and wanted to do it too. So in a few years (or a few inches) we can ride the big ones.

Ahhh the water. This was in the kids area and it had water spraying out and little falls and I thought, oh, i can sneak through with the kids and avoid most of the water.

Wrong...... There was noooo way you could get through without getting completely soaked!

Grandpa took them through as well.

Then off to see the Charlie Brown show.


Yep, Ladybug ended up on stage.

After the show it was about 1pm and we headed over to the water park area. As you know me, I planned ahead, I had a bag to put in a locker and plenty of quarters not knowing how much they cost. Well, turns out lockers do not take quarters anymore. It was $15 per locker and the locker was sooo small that we couldn't fit our stuff in there. And I in no way brought a lot of stuff. I was down to a small shoulder bag, a couple of towels and a change of clothes. So $30 later I had two lockers and we were ready to go.

If I lived closer, we would have a year long pass just for the water park. There was so much for the kids to do. Tons of slides for them to go down and water play areas and the wave pool which they loved and pirate ships with waterfalls and more slides. We stayed for fours hours in the water area. Now they did have a couple rides that they couldn't ride because of height but we did everything else. And Grandpa and Ladybug even took their turn at the Pipeline.

I am not sure what they call this but there were serious people there riding the waves. You get on a boogie board on your stomach and then ride the waves, you can stay on your stomach or sit up on your knees. Ladybug was just tall enough to ride and I told her no because it was the top level 5 thrill and looked like it could really throw you around. But she begged so I let her. It did throw her around but she stayed up longer than grandpa. lol. She was glad she tried but didn't want to do it again. lol.

Here is what the website says about it.

Pipeline Paradise

The only surfable wave attraction in the Midwest! Guests ride a body board over a thin sheet of high-velocity water that flows over a stationary, padded wave form creating a surfable wave.

By this time we were all hungry. It was 5pm and the kids were exhausted from playing and swimming all day so we headed to the best sounding food, a buffet. We got inside where there was an air conditioner, cooled off, filled our bellies and were all ready to go again!

So off to more rides.

I had made a list of every ride that the kids could ride and we made our way down the list.


This is from the top of the tower.

It started raining just a little and there was a bunch of lightening in the evening for about an hour so we caught a show and did a little walking and then rode a few more rides. We closed the park down at 10pm with fireworks and a walk through the night time light spectacular.

Old Man's Cave - Wednesday

Wednesday morning dad got up early and met a friend for breakfast and then we headed south to Old Man's Cave, a place that we frequently visited when we lived in Ohio. Can't tell you how many time we went there. I remember going with family, friends our youth group etc.

That being said, I took 185 pictures and narrowed them down to about 85 over the next couple of posts so you may want to skim through, but for those in my family (Tracy) you can reminisce as you go.

Another point to mention, is I remember it being so much bigger and so much longer to hike than what it really was. Granted I was maybe 14 or 15 on my last visit. But I imagine from the kids perspective it was huge.



I actually went and bought another monkey. I sold his monkey in the last garage sale because he is four years old now and thought that he was big enough not to have it but he threw the biggest fit when he realized that it was gone. So off to target to get another one. But he really didn't need it much. He was much better about holding my hand but he still wore the backpack.

Sliding down the hill.

Dad couldn't wait to show the kids the cave we could crawl up into.


We had to jump puddles.

Well, some of us just ran threw them.





This was called the Devil's bathtub. If you fell in it, there is no way to get out because of how the walls have formed and they are so smooth. Hence the large log sticking out, I imagine someone did not follow the signs that say "do not get it!"

The steps.














This was actually Old Man's Cave. We climbed up to the top of it.

Bridge to pass over.

Heading into the tunnel.

From the top looking down.






The lower falls.

The signs at the entrance said "No wadding or Swimming". Well that was a new one because we had always gone in the water when we visited.




Dirty booties after slipping and sliding down hills.




Obviously no one paid attention to the no swimming sign because shortly after we arrived, several groups all arrived with their swimsuits on ready to go swimming.



Ok, just don't go too far into the water. I didn't bring the change of clothes because it said we couldn't swim.


Yep, in they went. All the way.

Grandpa had to go and rescue Batman.

Stairs heading back up and out.


A bug with a ton of legs that we found.


Another tunnel we got to walk through to get out.




Fun times! Then we went and found a place to eat lunch and then see the next post about Cedar Falls.