Before I got married, I always thought that my wife and I would take a great big vacation to celebrate our first wedding anniversary, which would be October 4 of this year, only 3 months from now. Having been out of work for several months now with very few prospects of immediate re-employment, that obviously wasn't going to happen. Even so, Althea and I wanted to take some kind of vacation, even if it was smaller than we wanted it to be and more of a family vacation (Althea, her daughter Gracie, and I, and Althea's sister Claudia and her daughter Shanice all went on the trip) than a just the two of us vacation. We decided to take a 4th of July weekend vacation to Holiday World in Santa Claus, IN, and we stayed at the Jasper Inn and Convention Center in Jasper, IN.
The first thing I noticed about the trip up to Indiana is how long the drive was. After we got past the area of I-65 North in Tennessee and a few exits in Kentucky with only gas stations and hotels next to them, we got onto a rural highway that seemed to go on forever. At least we were able to drive 70 MPH for the majority of the trip, but the last hour or so of the drive to the hotel was on even smaller, rural back roads where the maximum speed was 55 MPH. Also, we found out the next day that Jasper is a good 45 minute drive from Holiday World, which is in Santa Claus, and that fact isn't exactly advertised prominently on the hotel website.
The Jasper Inn and Convention Center is a relatively nice hotel, but there just isn't very much around it at all. Besides a few chain restaurants, a couple of strip malls, a courthouse, and the other things you see in a very small town, there isn't anything to do except go to the hotel. We ate at the McDonald's next to the hotel, then we went and checked in. Unfortunately, we got to the hotel in the evening, and they had already shut down the pool, the jacuzzi, and the restaurants run by the hotel, which kept us from enjoying the main things about the hotel that led me to choose it in the first place. The room itself was pretty ordinary, and breakfast the next morning was OK. The hotel served its purpose, but I certainly wasn't blown away or anything.
The next morning, we drove to the park itself, and when I say this park is in the middle of nowhere, I mean it. One minute, we were driving through woods, grass, and trees, and the next minute, we were in the car line at the park. Parking was fine and plentiful, and we didn't have to walk miles and miles to the park. I also liked the fact that the park offered unlimited free soft drinks and Gatorade the entire day. It keeps everyone hydrated and healthy without making them so broke they can't afford to eat anything.
The roller coasters were fun and the lines weren't too bad, but I've been on much higher and faster roller coasters before. When it comes to roller coasters, for me, the coaster is more fun the higher and faster it is and the more loops it has. Still, given the rural location of the park and the big family focus of the park, I got about the medium-level height and speed on the rides I expected. As far as specific rides, The Legend was very fast, but it jerked me around so hard on wooden tracks (which are already jerkier than metal coaster tracks) I thought my ribs might break. Fortunately, my ribs didn't break, and I was able to get off the ride in one piece. The water park was an entirely different story. The lines for the water rides were ridiculously long, it took forever to walk anywhere, and they charged for using lockers. At least they provided free sunscreen to prevent sunburns.
Overall, I'd give the park a B+, the hotel a C (for closing down the best things about the hotel so early), and the drive a D (because it was so long an relatively uninteresting. Even so, the trip as a whole was fun, and I was glad to spend some time with Althea and the rest of the family, and I am glad we got to have some kind of vacation this year rather than none at all.
