Holiday from Smiles

I am a little banged up today. In fact, I feel like I have just been beaten by someone using a pillowcase full of batteries. It is a result of a) lack of sleep; and be b) spending the day at an amusement park yesterday.

My fiancee and I had the opportunity to spend the day at Holiday World and Splashin' Safari yesterday. It is an outstanding place. It was, according to the place's commercials, was voted the cleanest and most friendly amusement park in the world. I believe that it is true. The place is spotless and every employee greets you and smiles. It wasn't the creepy kind of greeting, either; it seemed genuine like everyone wanted the guests to have a great time. We did.

Here are a couple of things that made the place unique and worthy of a visit. It had something for everyone. The rides ranged from an abundance of kiddie rides, to three of the best wooden roller coasters in the world. The park also had music and diving shows. The food was great and the prices at the stores and concessions were quite reasonable. Not only that, but there are "oasis stations" that offer free, unlimited softdrinks (including tea and Gatorade) all over the park. You would be surprised how many times we stopped at one of these throughout the day.

Spashin' Safari is a water park within Holiday World. It is bigger than we expected and offered a huge number of water rides. The park also offers free sunblock.

We had a great time - better than we anticipated. It was well worth the price of admission which for us was free. Why was it free? A neighbor of mine stopped me and asked me if I could use them. She also provided us with meal tickets to a picnic buffet at the park. It was a real treat. She asked me if I wanted the tickets (opposed to someone else) because I am the only one in the neighborhood that is friendly to her.

This is a study of human behavior. My neighbor is one of the few people in my area that is not Caucasian. Every time I see her out, I wave and she waves back with such enthusiasm that it looks like she is hailing a cab. I am the only neighbor that waves and speaks to her and her family. Not that the other neighbors are unfriendly, they just ignore her (and most everyone else for that matter). I wouldn't ever talk to the neighbors, either, if it were up to them. I force a "hi" or "goodmorning" on them just to let them know that people still speak to each other - or should.

My fiancee wrote a paper in one of her classes last year about how personality effects a person's good fortune. Her thesis was that friendly and outgoing people are "luckier" than the withdrawn because they put themselves in a situation to benefit from their social behavior. She was quite satisfied with herself when she reminded me of that paper as we headed down the road with our towels and complimentary tickets.