We had such a blast on our honeymoon that we didn’t want it to end. After our mountain biking adventure, we hit the road mid- afternoon through Wisconsin. When we stopped for dinner in Milwaukee, we realized that it we still had another four hours to drive and were pretty exhausted from the day already. We traveled two more hours to the suburbs of Chicago in Oak Brook Terrace and stayed the night. In the morning, we decided to extend our honeymoon just one more day at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, IL 45 minutes north. 

We love riding roller coasters and had not been to a theme park in almost two years when we were season pass members at Cedar Point parks. The Hurricane Harbor water park was a minimal cost to add on to our tickets and it was to be in the upper 90’s so we booked them both for the day. The temperatures were definitely a culture shock for us from our 50-70 degree weather in the U.P.

Being a Saturday with beautiful sunny weather also meant crowds so we got a Flash Pass to be able to ride more coasters without long wait times.

The Flash Pass was new to us because we were given a pager to reserve which coaster we wanted to ride next and within about 5 minutes it would buzz that we could go on the ride. It also notified us when rides were closed or full of reservations due to long lines. This system was very effective and we were able to ride through all of the main coasters before lunch.

 

One of our theme park strategies is to jog to the farthest point in the park and work our way backwards with the rides when the park first opens.

People tend to get on the first big ride they come to when they enter and work their way around the park full circle. Because we did the opposite and began with X-Flight at the back of the park, we were able to ride it three times in a row with no wait at all. When we first lined up for X-Flight, I started to get butterflies since it had been so long since we were on a coaster and really started to question if I still liked riding roller coasters after all. All of that fear went away after the first drop and the G-Forces hit us in a smooth loop to loop that reminded me of one of my favorite rides called the Gatekeeper at Cedar Point.

 

 

 

 

Some of our favorite rides were Batman, Raging Bull, Demon, and Goliath. While we both like coasters, it is interesting how our preferences differ. Derek likes wooden coasters and large drops and Ashley likes rides that have a lot of loops and inversions. Superman was a ride that Ashley really liked and Derek could only ride once whereas Goliath, which has three Guinness World Records for the tallest, fastest, and steepest wooden coaster, was one of Derek’s favorites but not Ashley’s.

After a light snack, we dunked ourselves in a variety of tube slides in the water park before riding more coasters in the afternoon. The water park was very crowded and not as appealing to us as the roller coasters but it felt good to cool off in the heat.

When our day of thrill seeking was over, we enjoyed Japanese bento boxes at a local restaurant, Hayashi, before driving home. The bento box hit the spot with Agedashi tofu, shrimp and vegetable tempura, miso soup, chicken and salmon teriyaki, white rice, and a California sushi roll. The Agedashi was the first time we had tried aged tofu and it was a very delicious appetizer.

 

Our honeymoon trip to the U.P. was one filled with laughs, thrills, and adventures that we will always remember.

Charlie had a good vacation with Aunt Jackie and was happy to be home with us again. It’s good to be back and get into our competitive running again. We are so happy to be married and have all these undiscovered adventures left to explore in our lives together.

Our most recent bumper sticker from the honeymoon