Sketchy Hotels, Zombies, and Waffle House....

This weekend my cousin, Kasey, and I roadtripped for one last use of our Kings Island season passes for the year. It was Halloween Haunt at Kings Island which we weren't thrilled about being two girls who are big chickens when it comes to anything remotely scary. However...we were determinded to brave the Haunt and get in some night rides on our favorite coasters one last time for the season! So, we rolled into the Kings Island area around 9 and decided to just find a cheap hotel for the night. Our first try at a hotel...sketchy, very sketchy! So we moved on...next hotel, less sketchy, but way to expensive for one night. Finally...on our third try we found someplace suitable. We checked in and headed off to the park. We had barely even entered Kings Island when Kasey mutters to me that one of the scary people was following me...awesome...Here I am 30 years old and my heart is racing because some young college girl dressed up as a zombie is following me. Rationalizing it now I realize how silly it sounds, but at the moment I just kept thinking "just keep walking, just keep walking, maybe she'll go away". Thankfully she did after Kasey was clever enough to stop dead in her tracks and make the girl run right into her. Haha. We had a great night after that riding the Beast and Diamondback at night in the frigid air. After the park closed we were starving...as is common at 2am...so we decided to try to find an Ihop (what else could you want at 2am?). No such luck...closest thing we found was a Waffle House. We decided to give it a shot....Oh boy were we in for an experience! Neither one of us had ever been to a Waffle House, so we were a little taken aback by the open, see everything we're doing, kitchen. It was quite busy, so I'm sure that played some into what we were seeing, but we were not prepared for what we saw. The waitresses were yelling and screaming, even at us. The cooks were yelling at the waitresses. There was chaos everywhere! We finally placed our orders, only to hear them shouted at the cooks standing two feet away. Had I known, I would have just shouted what I wanted to the cook myself and saved a step. We sat at the stools looking straight into the cooking area and became more and more nervous about what we were about to eat. The cook was touching raw eggs, then meat, then bread for toast, and then drinking his own can of pop while stiring the eggs all without gloves! We prayed we were not about to consume something that would give us salmonella poisoning! We got our food finally, and to our surprise it was actually quite tasty (but who knows, that could be because it was 2am and we were starving) and we didn't die of food poisoning! However, we didn't leave completely unscathed...we were splashed more than once with dishwater by the waitress that was doing the dishes just on the other side of the counter. And, her response to our being splashed...laughing at us. After our Waffle House experience we went back to the hotel where we became slightly fascinated by the wall of mirrors at the head of our beads. These mirrors strangely looked a lot like two way mirrors...you know the ones where people hide on the other side to watch and on the mirror side you can't tell there's anyone there. So, us being mature adults decided to mess around a couple minutes making faces and posing sillily at the "people on the other side of the mirror", knowing full well there wasn't really anyone there. What can I say...it was 2am and we were slap happy. We finally went to bed, got some sleep and got up the next morning for a quick trip back to the park for a few more rides. Neither Kasey nor I had brought shampoo or conditioner assuming the hotel would have some in the room, but we were wrong. We managed to find some at the front desk. Kasey then realized there was also no hairdryer in the room and proceded to attempt drying her hair at the in room heater/air contitioner unit. I managed to come to her rescue by getting a hair drier at the front desk. We then realized that it was 10:50 and we had to check out in 10 min. We rushed around, packed up and left in a hurry, only to later discover after we got home that I left my beloved pillow at the hotel. We went back to Kings Island for a few more rides. Stopped for lunch at a Quaker Steak for something different and were both sorely disappointed with our meals, and proceded to make the drive home. And so....that was our fun filled weekend trip to Kings Island. Never a dull moment for us girls!