Blah Blog Blah: Sunday in Coney Island or How I Almost Became a Widow

What a wonderful day for Coney Island. Make sure you get there by next weekend, as it very well may be gone by next summer. Nobody seems totally sure what will be destroyed and what will stay, as the rumors change weekly, but you can be sure that condo construction is going to begin. The carousel is already gone, and many of the "throw a ball at the bottle" stores and flea markets are shut too.

Coney Island is still something of a throwback. It's dirty and old and absolutely wonderfully skeevy. If you can't bear the bathrooms you can still pay .25 to use the one directly under the Wonder Wheel.

We waited on line more than half an hour for a Nathan's hot dog and cheese fries. I know, stupid.

Then we visited the Coney Island Museum.

Sat in on the always fun freak show where I got called out for being too grossed out by the guy putting a 5 inch nail into his nose. And then marveled at the new Waterboarding exhibit.

Went on the Wonder Wheel which I didn't remember being only two very slow rounds, but still a load of fun the way the cars roll back and forth on a track.

And then... The Cyclone.

I hadn't been on the Cyclone since high school when George's car keys fell out of his pocket mid-ride, and miraculously we found them under the roller coaster. What a difference 28 years makes. It was ROUGH. We are so used to the new, metal and smooooth roller coasters, it is easy to forget that it wasn't always like riding Amtrak.I had to hold my neck in place so that it wouldn't break off and fall under the roller coaster.

But Slim got it much worse. His seat had a metal bar right at the tail bone and after the first giant drop, his coccyx slammed into it making his entire torso writhe in pain. And there were several more drops he had to live through. It is a LONG roller coaster. I really thought we would be spending the rest of the afternoon in the emergency room because he was holding his chest like he was having a heart attack. But after about 10 minutes of sitting by the side, and a beer at Ruby's, he seemed able to at least get back on the subway.