Michigan Adventure

JD, having too much fun at the HearUSA

We started the morning a little groggy due to all the high falutin fun we had had the night before. Bunny cured that with a quick batch of french toast. We headed off to the family hearing aide clinic because Steph's aide had been having quite serious feedback issues. We figured it was the tube, but we couldn't find a hole. HearUSA is a nice little clinic about 15 minutes away, and they fixed her aide free of charge in about 2 minutes. Steph was quite glad to have her hearing back, after about 10 days without it.

Taking a break during the first lightning warning.

After HearUSA we headed back to Grand Rapids to pick up Judith and head on out to Michigan Adventure, a waterpark/theme park outside of Muskegan aboout 1 hour away. We spend most of the day in lines going down the waterslides. Unfortunately a thunderstorm came through and shut down the park for about an hour. I guess they don't want people to die from a lightning strike or something. I don't see what the big deal is, I'm sure kids get killed all the time on these rides anyway. We played around in the wave pool and generally acted like hooligans til they closed down the waterpark at 7. Then we migrated over to the main park and rode roller coasters. Stephanie wanted me to win her a prize, so I went to a "Guess your age" booth to see if they could guess my age within 2 years or I win a prize. He thought I was 34. I felt like I needed consolement after that, but I did get a consolation prize of a stuff pair of lips I gave to Steph. All was merry and gay til they again shut down the park due to lightning. Only this time it was freakin serious.

The weather moving in.

We sauntered towards the park exit and stopped to buy some funnel cake when the sky opened up and rain started coming down in what seemed like a solid wall of water. The wind whipped up into a howl and toppled a mobile vending cart onto the girl manning it. Her arm was pinned but once she was freed she seemed only minorly injured. Lightning streaked all around us seemingly every 5 seconds, though not generally near enough to hear. I ran out into the parking lot to get the car while the rest of my cohort stayed relatively dry under an awning. I became more drenched on that run to the car than I was during the entire day at the waterpark. After picking up the kids I headed out of the park and onto the freeway. On the freeway I had to drive at about 25 miles an hour and I kept cursing my wipers because they could not go any faster. Lightning struck all around and the wind did it's best to throw the car off course. At one point I drove right over a toppled road construction sign I didn't see til I was right on top of. We drove on for about 15 minutes and seemed to be clear of it, and so pulled over at a McDonald's to get a snack. While in the restaurant the storm caught up with us and if anything it seemed a little angrier. I again ran out to the car in the firehose like rain and got the car for the others. The water had already flooded up 6 inches around the car in the 45 seconds that it had been raining.

The Snoop gang.

The rest of the drive home was awe inspiring and stressful. I pulled over briefly under a gas station awning to avoid marble sized hail and then braved the freeway again. The storm followed us all the way back to Grand Rapids at about 25 mph. Lightning, sheets of rain, and high winds constantly astounded, soaked, and buffeted us. Stephanie kept trying to get pictures of lightning and the storm in general, but none really worked out. The whole trip was agonizingly slow, but exciting nonetheless. Coming into town, many roads were made rivers. Many intersections turned to white water rapids. Signs and tree branches were down everywhere. We didn't get back to Bunny's til about midnight, but she was up watching the storm. She agreed with us that it was truly awesome. By the time I got home, I was beginning to feel quite cold. I had been in my soaking wet clothes for several hours, and I wasn't feeling up to snuff. Changing into dry clothes helped a lot, and a blanket helped further. Steph went straight to bed and JD, Judith and I stayed up only long enough for 2 drinks and a little chit chat before we too headed off to sleepy sleep sleep land.

That is all.