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After our alpine slide experience at Kentucky Action Park we drove to Lexington, Kentucky and, wanting to rid ourselves of any vestiges of white trash appearance or behavior, spent the night at downtown Lexington Hyatt. Much to my surprise we were right next door to none other than Rupp Arena, basketball home to the University of Kentucky Wildcats! Being a former mascot for the University of Kansas Jayhawks, it gave me untold satisfaction to see that one of our biggest basketball rivals played in such a butt-ugly building. The drive from Lexington to Huntington, West Virginia took 2 1/2 hours and it was beautiful. Cindy said it was mind-numbingly boring which left me incredulous. "This is beautiful!" I said. "Yes, its very pretty," she said. "But after two hours, with nobody on the road, it's boring." She was right, this stretch of interstate between Kentucky and West Virginia is virtually untravelled, and even with all the pretty around us, sure enough, after 2 hours it was boring. I really like West Virginia. The topography is very beautiful and the people are down to earth and lack any sort of attitude or pretension. The number of industrial plants lining the Ohio river really bother me, though. It makes me think big money took advantage of a low income area. I'd hate to live downstream from whatever they're putting in there. We drove through the town of Ceredo hoping to see if Rocco's was open. Rocco's is the Italian restaurant we went to last year and is Cindy's favorite. I liked it but truth be told I thought she was playing a little bit of the homer with it. In all fairness it was partially my fault - I stupidly ordered the wrong thing. We also had a bad table right under the air conditioning and I was freezing cold! Rocco's looked deserted and no hours were posted on the door. Being just after noon on Sunday I thought there was a good chance it would be closed all day. I raised this possibility to Cindy and for a second I thought she might push me right out of the car. "We're coming back," she said with a steely resolve that left me just this side of scared. We pulled into the Camden Park parking lot and once again, this park was busy! I visited here for the first time last year and it was busy then, too. Rumors of a crumbling decrepit ghost park were obviously greatly exaagerated! As far as I can tell, the only thing that hurts Camden Park's appearance is the old shuttle loop coaster that sits rotting just beyond the parking lot. The Big Dipper is also in desperate need of a paint job but everything else is freshly painted, there are flowers and landscaping everywhere, and the rides look like they're in mint condition! Other than the two things I mentioned, this park is really in good shape! I absolutely LOVE the Spider at Camden Park. It is one of the top 10 best flat rides in the country. It's completely unpredictable, you don't know which way you're going to spin, but you're guaranteed to spin a lot whichever direction you go. And on occasion, you get a bona fide whirling - nonstop rapid spinning that might last for as long as several minutes! Cindy and I rode it nearly every time we passed it and started making excuses to get in line. "The line for Big Dipper is too long, let's ride the Spider." "I have to go to the bathroom, let's ride the Spider." "Darn it, the ice cream shoppe just closed, the only way to rectify this situation is to ride the Spider." I don't know what they do to make this ride run the way it does, but whatever they're doing, I hope they keep it up! The Tilt-a-Whirl is also very good. One thing I absolutely love about this park is that they run their rides till thy kingdom come! Actually I supppose this can also be seen as a detriment, as it's the reason we chose NOT to ride the Scrambler. Isn't that funny? "I don't want to ride the Scrambler, they run it too long." Oh, if only that were the kind of problem we had at every park! Camden has a fantastic collection of flat rides, they really do. Their Haunted House is very similar to Dr. Moriarty's Wild Ride at Conneaut - thankfully minus the gum wall. Unfortunately it's minus a couple of other things too. At one point our car turned a corner, there was a flash of light and suddenly we were faced with.....an empty shelf! EEEK! Speaking of eek!, I told Cindy I wanted just once to hear somebody go "tee hee!" I see people write that all the time and it just cracks me up! Nobody does that! So I said from now on whenever something funny happens I'm not going to laugh, I'm going to say "tee hee!" We started doing it on this trip and Cindy's voice goes much higher than mine, so she actually does a very funny "tee hee!" Tee hee! I really like Camden's Whip, I think it's my favorite. There were a bunch of little kids riding it, most of them with their parents. Cindy and I did what we always do, we put our hands and feet up in the air just before the whip. Pretty soon some of the little kids started doing it and by the end of the ride nearly all of them were. It was *very* funny watching the reactions of some of the kids faces as they got whipped around in their chair and struggled to upright themselves just in time to get whipped around again. At some point Cindy said she wanted a painted corndog. It is a tradition at Camden park to get a corndog painted with mustard. Cindy keeps saying she doesn't even like mustard, but I think this is some sort of ruse. Everytime I turn around she's eating *something* with mustard - painted corndogs, slawdogs with mustard and chili, mustard barbeque sauce.... I don't know why this woman is in denial about her mustard addiction but it really is putting a strain on our friendship. Just before we entered the park Cindy said "all I want is a corndog and a toilet. In that order. I want to take my corndog and eat it on the toilet." I about fell on the ground laughing." When she got her painted corndog she smiled and said "well, see ya!" and started heading for the bathroom. I really would like to be in the stall next to the woman who would hear someone going to the bathroom while eating a corndog. "Excuse me....are you EATING in there?" We decided to hit the Sky Ride, and while we were waiting I decided to ask the attendant about Rocco's. "Excuse me, do you know if Rocco's is open on Sundays?" "No," said the woman. "No?" No, I'm not from here." "Oh." The woman asked the other ride op "Hey, is Rocco's open today?" "No, it's closed," the ride op said just as we were about to board the ride. Cindy shot me a look and I thought she was gonna backhand the woman. "Stupid ride op," she muttered under her breath. "It's open, I tell ya! It's open! What does SHE know? We're going back there!" I said nothing and put both hands on the handle bar. Cindy later commented that she knew "perfectly well that first woman was not from here." Given the tension in the air I decided not to press the matter. We decided to ride the log flume for the first time. We were reluctant to do so last year because some people looked wet. Well, I don't know why but we rode it. And of course we got wet. Cindy said she'd always been reluctant to ride because she worried about the quality of the water. After she took me over to the picnic area near the Tilt-a-Whirl to get a look at the Ohio River running next to the park I understood why. The stench coming from that river was nauseating! Fortunately it didn't permeate throughout the park, and the water from the log flume wasn't stinky. The wait for this ride was the longest of the day, and it gave Cindy a chance to go through the five stages of grief: anger, denial, bargaining, rejection and acceptance. By the time we boarded the ride she had come to terms with the fact that we would not be dining at Rocco's that night and was now prepared to come up with a lesser but acceptable alternative. We only rode the Big Dipper three times. It's a really fun ride and I would have been happy to ride it some more, but I was really enjoying doing all the rides at Camden. The Big Dipper still has the last two rows blocked off, leaving only the front seat of the back car available. I don't know why they're doing this but it seems to be a permanent arrangement. The Lil Dipper is in fine form. I've come to acknowledge the fact that it is a kiddie coaster and not a junior, so I guess this is one kiddie coaster I enjoy riding. While we were waiting to ride someone in line yelled at their brat for getting carried away with excitement. The kid was talking a mile a minute, yelling at Cindy (in a kidding way) for taking his seat and going on about getting the ride started! I got the impression the father doing the yelling came very close to laughing, which would have destroyed his credibility and given the brat permission to keep babbling away. We rode the Hot Cat, Ferris Wheel and Paratrooper and then we went back and rode everything some more. My feelings about Camden Park are now firmly entrenched. This is a VERY well run, VERY fun park, along the same lines as Conneaut Lake Park in Pennsylvania. The people who work here are enormously friendly, and I get the feeling they see their park with a mixture of pride and insecurity. I overheard one guy telling another that he thought they should tear all the rides in the park down and get some good ones. I think people like that, and those who see the park as being old and unhip, should see the park for what it IS rather than what it ISN'T. And what it is is fun! Our fun at Camden now over, it was time to take that long, five mile death march to Ceredo, where Cindy would see Rocco's closed and drive our painfully small rented Metro through the restaurant's solid brick walls. I pulled a Mom and grabbed the edge of my car seat and made that annoying hissy breath moms make to let you know they think you're driving too scary. We approached the corner to Rocco's and I saw no cars parked on main street, not a good sign. I was just about to tell Cindy "if it were open there'd be cars parked here" when we pulled up to the intersection and the street with Rocco's came into view. Cars! CARS!! PEOPLE!!! PEOPLE GOING INTO..... IT'S OPEN!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!! I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!! THANK YOU GOD!!! We screamed and hugged each other, you'd think one of our schools had just won the national championship! Rocco's is open! We will have fine Italian food! We will have the best bleu cheese dressing ever created! We will have the tastiest red sauce ever made! We will have the best table, the best music, and comfortable room temperatures! There will be wine and merriment! Rocco's is open! Let the feast begin! Tee hee! And now I can honestly say I've dined at the best Italian restaurant in America. Up Next: Paramount's Kings Island