Jul 17, 2015 3 min read

I was at Kennywood last Sunday, and I’m still a little dizzy. Once again, it was Italian Day, my annual trek to the amusement park with my nieces, nephews, cousins and various relatives.

This year, they moved Italian Day from a Tuesday to a Sunday. It seemed like that wouldn’t make a big difference, and for the most part it didn’t. But Italians are a traditional bunch. It did cost slightly more. Those Giant Eagle discount tickets are only good Monday thru Friday. Caveat emptor.

Though I saw a few people I haven’t seen in a while, it wasn’t the best place to catch up. It’s hard to hear anyone over the roar of the Thunderbolt. I literally bumped into people I haven’t seen in a while … on the bumper cars.

Side note: I planned on traveling the park in order: Garfield’s Nightmare to the Jack Rabbit to the Racer and so on. It did not happen that way. One minute we were in Lost Kennywood on the Whip, and the next we were in line for the Sky Rocket. We traversed the park from stem to stern, and back again, ad infinitum. Also, it wasn’t hot enough to get wet on the water rides, and we all agreed walking around the park in soggy clothes and squishy tennis shoes is really annoying. I had to pitch the Nikes I wore last year; even after washing them they smelled rank. Picture it: Foot order and muck from the Raging Rapids combined to make some sort of ghastly swamp creature. My shoes could have picked up Adrienne Barbeau and carried her off.

But I digress, like I do. I rode way too many spinning rides (“spinny” as we say in our neck of the woods). I have to emphasize that I was spun around after eating fried hot peppers. I also ate Falagone, an Italian potato pie, a homemade Caprese salad, fried zucchini and a few other unpronounceable-difficult-to-spell delicacies.

We had a lot of food at our picnic table. We could have fed a phalanx of Navy Seals. Frankly, you needed the constitution of a Navy Seal to eat sausage and peppers and go on the Bayern Curve. That should be on their test.

At one point, on the Sky Rocket, I repeated a line made famous by George Jetson, “Help! Get me off this crazy thing!” The Sky Rocket does a loop-de-loop. I watched coins from someone’s pocket fly up out of the car and then come crashing back toward us, like in a cartoon.

Toward the end of the evening, my niece wanted to ride the Umbrellas. It’s another ride that spins around in a circle and goes up and down. I was relieved when they cut off the line because the park was closing.

The Carousel (the merry-go-round, as we say in these parts) was the last ride of the evening. Even though it spun at a much more reasonable pace, I sat it out. I got dizzy just watching my cousin’s kids on their brightly-painted horses, tigers and lions.

It was another enjoyable adventure. I’m still a little dizzy, though.