Valleyfair at 30

My memories of Valleyfair as a kid are good ones. The whole family loved water rides and we'd start the day by getting soaked in our jeans and t-shirts. There's just something about walking around wet all day long that makes you feel that you are living.

My memories of Valleyfair as an adult are less exciting. They involve chaperoning teenagers who are mostly good, but are sometimes interested in stealing or showing excessive amounts of skin or making out or all three. And it's my job to stop them, even though I just want to eat cotton candy on the Ferris wheel where I'm too far up to witness any rule violations.

So even though I had free passes to Valleyfair, it seemed to me that perhaps my chances for fun at such a place had long since passed.

I was delightfully surprised to learn that wasn't the case. First of all, best girlfriend, who was in a particularly hilarious mood, offered the perfect sarcastic company. She was making fascinating speculations about the teen workers who live in the Valleyfair dorms over the summer. Given what she suspected might be going on, I was decidedly pleased that I didn't have to chaperone them. Secondly, how can anyone go wrong when soft serve and corndogs are available (although somewhat hard to find). One can sit and eat while doing some fine people watching. Since it wasn't my job to ask anyone to cover up excessive skin exposure, I could merely critique it and move on. Finally, a ride on the carousel is still exciting even when you are 30. It's even better, really, because you are faster than all of the little kids and can get to the horse of your choice before they do. But I did wonder, why do all the horses look so angry?

All in all, I had a grand time at Valleyfair. And to commemorate the trip, best gf bought barrettes for us both with our names on them. She wanted to swap one each so that she'd have one with my name and I'd have one with her name, but that's where I had to draw the line. We are adults, after all.