by Crazy Ivan
Alright, so I'm willing to admit that over the last few weeks I've spent way too much time on this blog waxing nostalgic about the good ol' days at Dollywood. It's gotten to the point where I'm sure most of you are sick of hearing about how happy I am to be headed back there. I told myself last night that I should find something other than that park to blog about tonight.
But then I got there and we rocked it out just like the good ol' days and I was flooded with nostalgia like I hadn't been since I knew we were coming. It was exactly how I remember it. A long, grueling, hot day littered with the coolest, salt of the earth people that you can ever hope to meet. I saw a few old friends (I did live in the area for two years before joining Myachi) and I saw a couple of maniacs.
Keep in mind that it's been six years since I've been here, so the kids I met when they were 12 back then are going into college in the fall. The kids I met when they were sixteen are taking their kids to the park. As you can imagine, it was pretty surreal.
I spent all day being reminded why I fell in love with this job all those years ago. Don't get me wrong... it was really, really hard work today. My body is aching from head to toe and the sunburn doesn't help matters. But there are so many people to play with and they're all so ready to play. We meet so many awesome maniacs (shout out to Allison and her whole mission trip, Tom and his cousins from Indiana, David and Brian and the Barnett family from Florida) and we get to see them over and over through the day, so what starts as a quick sale in the morning turns into a kid coming back 9 times through the day and hanging out for an hour and a half the last time.
Bones and Bamboo had a great time. They were walking out of there saying "I can't believe we just worked 13 hours and I'm not tired". They were full of energy all day despite playing some 30 games of Fu a piece out in the sun on the black top. I swear, there were times when Bones was sweating so bad I wondered if he would wind up nothing but a puddle by day's end. They were busy for about 90% of the day, but we did find time to get them a few free minutes to ride one of the world's best wooden roller coasters. They also got to see Dolly Parton herself at the tail end of the Kid's Fest Kick Off Parade.
Pinky also had a blast, though she was so busy cashing out customers that she barely got to play at all. Kid Myach was in classic Kid Myach form so nobody got by him all day. There were times when he was teaching so many people that Bones, Bamboo, Pinky and I were struggling to find somebody that Kid wasn't already playing with.
The people that run the park and the people that work at it are some of the nicest and most considerate people in the world and I forgot how friendly people are down south (easy to new when you live in New York City). All in all, despite how sore I am, I'm really looking forward to the rest of the summer and I regret that it has to end in less than two months. Not sure how many 13 hour days it's going to take to knock that out of me...
Alright. So I'll totally blog about something other than how glad I am to be at Dollywood tomorrow. I'll teach a new trick or talk about something collecting-related or explain some weird nuance of MYACH. I promise.
So jealous.
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