More Flags.... More Fun?!?

This past week i didn't write for my blog because my family took a couple of days and went to Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. And except for a couple of minor inconveniences, we had a lot of fun! Of course the one who was most excited and couldn't stop talking about going to Great America for about a month leading up to it was our youngest, Levi.

The most interesting thing to me was the difference between Great America and a trip we took as a family a little over a year ago to Disney World... Now don't get me wrong, Great America was a ton of fun, and Disney was simply fantastic but in many ways the differences were pretty startling. For one, Great America is a place that a typical family could basically afford... my understanding is that the prices for Disney were increased this year... while the prices at Great America decreased! As a matter of fact you could purchase Great America tickets on-line for the typical admission price for a child! Which we did! Very nice!

On the other hand the difference in the parks was very obvious as well. While bands of pre-teens and teen-agers freely roamed Great America, unfettered from parents... at Disney, everywhere you looked it was family after family after family. Not only did you see tons and tons of roaming bands of young people at Great America... but the cleanliness factor was stark. Ask anyone in the church office, i am a freak about bathrooms being clean. i am absolutely convinced that the level of cleanliness of the bathrooms in a public place (like Great America or Disneyland or a library, school or a church) can tell you a whooooole lot about a place! And frankly in the bathrooms at Disneyworld the operative word was "spotless"... at Great America... mmmmm, not so much.

It was sort of weird to me... going to Great America brought me back to my High School days here in northern Illinois. Getting a chance to go to Great America was what you lived for! Back then it was a place of wonder and amazement... but i have to admit i sort of accidentally slipped into my evaluation mode and felt a bit sad that it seemed to have lost a lot of that luster in the intervening years...

It was still fun to go, ride the coasters (it was definitely affirmed *again* that i am too old for wooden roller coasters) and watch my kids have a blast! So maybe there slogan is really true... more flags... is more fun!