As I told a girl at work today….. I really must love my nieces a lot.

Now, I enjoy spending spending time with them… I mean, hey, look at the trips I take with them.  However, this past Friday, I subjected myself to the Girl Zone.

I took off first thing in the morning, and went to my parents place.  Had lunch, and took off with my nieces.  We then picked up two of their friends, and headed to Toronto… to go to the Vaughan Mills mall.

Yes, me and FOUR sixteen year olds in a mall that has been specifically designed with women’s tastes in mind.  There is one store at the end of the rectangular-shaped mall that caters to the husbands and chaperones -- the Bass Pro shop -- the rest of the mega mall caters to women.

So, I suffered in the mall for about 2 ½ hours.  I walked around, girl watched (that there is reason alone for me to go there!), and even popped into the HMV store.  When asked if I wanted some help, I said no, I am browsing while four teenage girls do their shopping.  The sales help smiled and looked at me knowingly.

Why do I do it?  Well, yes I love my nieces a lot.  They also live in the middle of nowhere, and do not get to do the whole “mall crawl” with their friends at all.  It is an important social experience for them and their friends (who all know me).  I enjoy watching their excited smiles as they shop around.  And I know that they appreciate the experience.

It also gives them an opportunity to indulge in some fast food (Taco Bell for them), something that they rarely have.  It also gives me a reason to indulge in that, too… I rarely eat that stuff, too.

So, once dinner was over with…. We headed across the street to go to Canada’s Wonderland to open the 2009 season at 6:00 pm for Season Passholder’s Night.

Now, last year, this night was held on a picture perfect night, and it was the first day of operation for Behemoth, their new roller coaster.  It was a madhouse… like going to the park on a summer Saturday.  Behemoth had  a 2-3 hour wait at one point, even with three train operation.

This year, there was the threat of rain (which never materialized there, but my parents say they got it), and no new attraction.  As a result of that (and perhaps the crappy economy), the park was dead.  Using the skills I have picked up from years of park hopping with ACE, I figured that there was maybe 2000 people maximum there.

Behemoth had the longest line, at just under 10 minutes.  Now, one would think that I would marathon that ride under these circumstances, as I truly love the ride.  However, I was there with the 4 girls, and they wanted to do as much as they could in the 4 hours we had there (yes, a short night)…. And every other attraction was a walk-on.  Hard to argue with that.

Lets see if I can tally up a score:

Once:

Behemoth
Flight Deck
Psyclone
Sledgehammer
Dragon Fire
Spinnovator
KrachenWagen
NightMares
Vortex
Caroussel


Twice:

The Fly
Wild Beast
Mighty Canadian Minebuster


Not bad… when you take out the time that we spent having funnel cakes, and bathroom breaks (man, girls have to pee a lot!), we probably averaged a ride every ten minutes.

It was great having the run of the park… no stress of having to wait an hour for a mediocre ride.  No listening to the girls whine about waiting (I have really spoiled them with the ERT sessions with ACE).  Just a night of fun.

Summer has arrived!