We went outside with Dominic, who basically escorted us from attraction to attraction since we were tow of maybe ten people there. We started racing on go-karts, then did a rock climbing wall that Arielle went all the way up while Abe decided to stop pretty early on.
Our next stop was the trampoline, on which Arielle flipped a bunch of times and Abe tried to but just flailed.
The bumper boats had the squirters turned off, ensuring that we wouldn’t get very wet, and they were fun in part because it was so hard to drive straight. We did the go-karts again before taking a break to eat our prepared lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwich (Abe) and leftover tofu and string cheese and apple (Arielle). We went over to the other building, where we played laser tag three times in a row. Arielle demolished Abe each time, and we discovered that it’s a little ridiculous playing with just two people, each taking turns being comically vengeful when we ended up near each other and then had to scatter to make it fun.
We went downstairs and did a ten-minute virtual reality session. Abe choose Google Earth and got to visit Holliston, Massachusetts, Katonah, New York, Los Angeles, and Manhattan, though he found the controls confusing, which led to the ten minutes passing very quickly. He did, however recognize Arielle’s parents’ Prius and Camry in their Los Angeles driveway, which was cool. Arielle did a workplace simulation which ended up being pretty lame. The virtual reality was interesting to try, and we wouldn’t have paid separately for this if it hadn’t come for free because it was a Monday special! We went over to bumper cars, which actually looked a lot like the bumper boats, and had fun whirling around smacking into each other with very minimal directional control, again by ourselves like every other attraction. We went back upstairs and had to find an attendant for the Battletech game, where we fought each other. Arielle won 4-3, but that’s partially because Abe ran the wrong way for one whole life. She wasn’t hiding but chasing him and he never turned around, which was entertaining. That was hardly the most fulfilling moment of the day, so we played another game of laser tag. Arielle killed Abe again but it was our best round yet, only 2000 points apart and our best accuracy of the day. We added $2 to the $5 of arcade credit that had come with our all-day pass to play two last rounds of ski ball, and got a hammerhead shark and a rainbow fish as our prizes in exchange for our earned tickets.
We finished off the day with Dominic and one last round of go-karts. This was a day well spent – almost five hours there! We drove five minutes to Smith’s, where we picked out flowers, strawberries and a cake to bring to dinner and also found Abe’s beloved Sunbelt Bakery Banana Oat granola bars that he originally discovered in Oklahoma on the same trip that had taken him to Hinkle five years earlier. It was only five minutes further to Geri Lynn and Michael’s house. We were so grateful to have been invited over for dinner, and they promptly offered us some amaretto to drink, which Abe enthusiastically accepted. Michael was grilling a delicious cedar plank salmon, and we also had salad with delicious Italian dressing (obviously Arielle thought that), baked potato, sweet potato, acorn squash, and green beans almandine with three different flavors of ice cream and apple strudel to go along with what we had brought for dessert.
They brought out a giant container of Bailey’s and Arielle had it with tea while Abe had it on the rocks. We had a great conversation, talking about the movie business, celebrity stories, and plenty more. We said goodbye and promised to come back soon! We drove back to the hotel, made some phone calls and enjoyed the hot tub before heading to bed.
Approximate number of miles covered: 13
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