Squeezing the last drops out of summer

Stephan and I spent the day yesterday at Indiana Beach, taking advantage of one of our remaining free days before the semester starts for both of us. It's an old-fashioned amusement park on a lake with a "sand beach" (ok, I would call it dirt, but whatever), water slides, roller coasters, classic carnival rides, and a surprisingly good restaurant overlooking the lake. The park was founded in 1926 with just a beach, boat rentals, bathhouse, and snack stand. The first permanent rides were added in 1947, and later, a ballroom. Though it's undoubtedly been through many updates since, Indiana Beach still has a laid-back charm that makes you feel like you've stepped back in time.We enjoyed the water slides, floating on inner tubes, and a few rides. Stephan doesn't like most rides, but we did the ferris wheel, antique cars, skyride, and bumper cars together, then I convinced him to go on the flying bobs with me. I knew I would be alone on the tilt-a-whirl, as he can't stand spinning, but I like being dizzy. We were supposed to take a ride around the lake on the paddle wheel boat, but lightning in the area canceled that, so we played some pinball instead. They have 8 pinball machines that I saw, and Stephan said he saw a few others in another location. Fun! I'm glad that pinball machines didn't totally disappear when video games were invented.Today, E. is coming over and we're celebrating Swiss National Day with some French/Swiss food and a small bonfire in a fire pit unless it's so blazing hot we can't stand it. When Stephan was a kid in Switzerland, they celebrated with fireworks, but I think we used all of ours up on July 4. Oh well.Next week, we're off to North Carolina to visit my family and for a mountain trip. Yay mountains!