The Epic Summer Road Trip - Dorney Park and a British Pub: Day 4

Wednesday, July 8th

It is well known that Elias and I are amusement park people.  We may not go on the super thrilling rides, but we like going on twirly rides and eating all of the funnel cake.  So when we were planning out our trip in Philadelphia, we knew we'd have to make a visit to Dorney Park.

Dorney Park is located just outside of Allentown, PA, less than an hour from Philadelphia.  It opened in the late 1800's when Solomon Dorney would fish for trout on his property.  Trout was abundant on his property, so he began selling his catch to people who were passing through.  As the years went on, people would come from far and wide to buy Dorney's trout and make a day of it.  Dorney began updating his property to give visitors something else to do.  By the 1880's, Dorney's park had added a small zoo, mechanical rides, and a park.  I don't know if it was the first amusement park, but it had to be one of them.

We left Philadelphia a little later in the morning, as the park didn't open until 10a and it wouldn't take us a ton of time to get there.  Our original goal was to stop at Starbucks (yes, again) for breakfast, but there are very few Drive Thru Starbucks in the Philly area.  We kept looking for one on the drive north, but didn't see anything until about a mile outside of the park.  Meh.  We still went.  I mean, Starbucks is Starbucks.

He even spelled it for them.  Even better...this was my drink.

Once at Dorney Park, we had some decisions to make.  We brought our swim suits, for the Wild Water Kingdom portion of the park.  But ultimately, we never really went on that side.  While the day was warm, it was overcast.  And I am the person who seemingly likes water parks more than the rest of the people I know.  Elias wasn't super interested in doing the water park think.  It was no big deal, really.  By not going to the waterpark, we didn't have to worry about getting put back together after being at a waterpark.

We did walk through the waterpark.

As for the park itself.  We really enjoyed ourselves.  The park was very clean and everything was looked really nice.  It was pretty quiet on this particular day, mostly because it was in the middle of the week and slightly overcast.  There weren't a ton of individual families/visitors, but there were a bunch of day campers in from various locations.  The good part was we didn't have to wait very long to get on the rides.

Our favorite ride at Dorney Park was the Monster.  It's one of those rides that just twirl you around.  And it has now been dubbed "The Butthole Ride."  This came about when we were on the ride the first time.  As one of the arms lifted and we twirled, I said to Elias (in-between our fits of giggling), "This is one of those rides where your butthole goes up inside of your butthole."  And thus, a new name was born.

It was a little cramped in there.

We found a few more rides and road on Zephyr, a train that takes you through the history of Dorney Park.  It was a nice ride, but the conductor was WAY too loud.  It was a cool historical piece, though.

I'm not sure if this was the conductor we had, but it would shock me if there was more than one conductor.

And then, we had the funnel cake.

At the front of the park, there's a sign for Old Fashioned Funnel Cake.  You want to go there.  You want to order a Cookies and Cream Funnel Cake.  They will start making it and will give you a pizza size "To-Go" box.  And everyone around you will stare.  Why??  Because of this.

We didn't finish this.  Thank God we didn't finish this.  But we ate on it until we couldn't.

We didn't actually use this.  Because funnel cake isn't really transportable.  Especially when topped with ice cream.

We wandered a bit more around the park, again going on the Monster and the Swings.  We stopped at Dino's Alive for the first time in all of our years of visiting the parks.  And after a while, we decided it was time to head back.  We were hot and tired and sweaty and hot.  

We did go on this.

We did not go on this.

Just in case I wanted to know.  My foot is smaller than a dinosaur's foot.

BABY DINO!!!

Tyrannosaurus vs Triceratops vs Roller Coaster

From the time we got here on Sunday, we had been talking about visiting the Victoria Freehouse for a night of British Pubbing.  Obviously, Elias, being 19, he couldn't do the drinking he was able to accomplish in Europe.  But I could.  Yay!!

We had scoured the menu online a few days before, and we figured today would be a perfect time to get our British fix.  I mean, they have Scotch Eggs, so I was happy as a clam.

The pub itself was pretty cute.  Kind of a Hipstery place (so I was instantly comfortable).  And they had Magners on tap.  Done.

But there was a problem almost immediately.  We were told when we sat down of the specials of the day, AND that they were currently out of Scotch Eggs.  DAMMIT!!  This is exactly what I didn't want to hear.  I mean, I would still eat and drink, but we were not happy.  The server said they were going to be making new ones, but it might take a while.  Fine.  Keep putting food and drink in front of us and we'll wait for an egg.

I ended up with a sausage roll and Elias had a massive burger with a fried egg and bacon.  We were not going home hungry.  Though while the sausage roll was fine, it didn't hold a candle to the sausage roll at Pie Boss.  Dang Pie Boss has ruined me for all other sausage rolls for the future.

We lingered for quite a while, and the Scotch Eggs didn't ever materialize.  We ended up with a Sticky Toffee Pudding and a team in Trivia Night.

Now, I did not expect there to be Trivia Night here.  We were finishing up our food and the woman running the game started dropping off forms.  I asked Elias if he wanted to play and he was not down for this one bit.  I didn't think we'd do it, or even stay that long to play in the first round.  But we were waiting for those damn eggs.  I instantly dubbed us the Road Weary Travelers and began playing the game.  I did think Elias would be decent at Trivia, because he knows really stupid things and has been in school much more recently than I had been.  But the reality was that Elias was completely rubbish.  After the first round, we were in last place (though were tied with three other losers).  We played through a bonus round, but paid our bill in the middle of the second round (where I was doing significantly better with the questions).  It was time to go back to the hotel.  This time, we walked back in the twilight, where it was not at all creepy.

Elias needed a few minutes to talk to his mom, so he went back to the room, while I wandered a bit around Christopher Columbus Square.  We saw the square all illuminated when we arrived on Sunday.  We even walked through a little, but this was my chance to take pictures.

It really was a nice area for both tourists and locals.  The riverwalk area had a few food trucks and places to buy beer.  Then a few more food trucks on a pier.  And the park itself had areas for people to hang out in hammocks and play giant games of checkers or Jenga.  If we had more time (or weren't booked at 110% on our trip, we'd have spent some time there.  Instead, I was just able to wander.  It was a nice end to the day.  And it was a nice moment to have some alone time.  And during a trip where there are two of us spending all of our time together, alone time is appreciated.

Our time in Philadelphia was ending in the morning.  And we were ready to head to our next location.  Thanks, Philly!!  This was a blast!!