One Week Before Finals#

About a week before finals season at Purdue, campus had that strange end-of-semester energy: everyone was half in grind mode, half pretending they were not. Hawkins Hall organized a Kings Island trip, and at first I thought, perfect, easy bus ride, no logistics, no thinking.

Then my motion sickness reminded me that buses and I are not close friends. So instead of boarding with the group, a few of us decided to road trip it. Slightly more effort, way more freedom, and honestly better vibes for a day that was supposed to feel like a break.

It felt like one of those college decisions that sounds irresponsible when you say it out loud but ends up becoming a core memory anyway. Kind of like my deep dive into meal plan optimization at Purdue, it started as "just a practical decision" and turned into a full experience.

The Road to Cincinnati#

We rented a blue SUV (I forgot the exact brand, which says enough about my car knowledge) and hit the road early. The distance was around 200 miles one way, so roughly 400 miles round trip. Not short, but very manageable with good music and people you can tolerate before 9 A.M.

One friend drove the entire day like an absolute machine. I started in the co-pilot seat, then switched to the back midway when playlists got serious and everyone started rotating commentary duties. Between music, random conversations about finals, and those weirdly philosophical highway moments, the drive itself became half the trip.

We stopped near Indianapolis for Dunkin', grabbed coffee and hash browns, and briefly tried to engineer a Shake Shack detour. Timing killed that plan, so Shake Shack went into the "next time" folder. We pushed on and grabbed lunch near Cincinnati before heading straight to the park.

Ride 1: Banshee#

Kings Island was packed. On the bright side, Hawkins Hall covered free tickets and meal vouchers, which I was genuinely grateful for because amusement parks can turn into a wallet demolition derby pretty quickly.

We started with Banshee. If you have never seen it, Banshee is one of the longest inverted roller coasters in the world, where your legs dangle the whole time while the train throws you through inversions, loops, and hard drops at high speed. Not exactly a warm-up ride.

The posted wait said 30 minutes. Actual wait was close to 2 hours. The line kept folding into itself in that spiral queue, and after a while nobody was sure if we were moving or just orbiting the same staircase forever. We all had that sunk-cost-fallacy moment: "We've waited this long, no way we're leaving now."

Meanwhile, people around us kept bailing and buying Fast Lane passes. Watching that happen in real time was a mini lesson in park economics. The business model is low-key brilliant: make normal waits painful enough that premium feels logical.

2 Hours for 2 Minutes#

While we were in line, my brain did what anxious brains do and started replaying every dramatic roller-coaster disaster scene ever filmed. I was literally thinking about Final Destination and questioning all my life choices in real time.

But once the ride launched, fear converted into pure adrenaline in about three seconds. The inversions were intense, the speed was wild, and for roughly two minutes I forgot about exams, deadlines, and the existence of linear thought. Then it ended.

And that's the funny part: I got off thrilled... and slightly disappointed. Two hours of waiting for around two minutes of chaos is a rough ratio, even when the ride is excellent.

Ride 2: Sol Spin#

After Banshee we took a break, sat down, and rationed vouchers. We shared Powerade because we were low on included drinks and already feeling cooked by the heat. Everyone was tired, but in that good way where the group starts joking about everything because nobody has energy left for drama.

Second ride was Sol Spin, a giant rotating arm that swings riders while flipping them 360 degrees. We expected about 15 minutes of waiting and got closer to 45. At that point we had fully stopped believing posted wait times, but the ride itself was still worth it.

By late afternoon we had only done two rides instead of the planned six or seven. Between heat, crowd density, and queue fatigue, the day became less about maximizing ride count and more about surviving efficiently. If I go again, I'm either reaching at opening time or buying Fast Lane from the start.

Cincinnati at Night#

After leaving the park, we drove into Cincinnati and had dinner at Ambar India, which tasted way better than it had any right to after a full day in the sun. We did a short city drive-through afterward and passed near the University of Cincinnati area before turning back.

As a Purdue student, I automatically compare campuses (friendly competition, of course). UC looked lively, but I still think Purdue wins on engineering culture. Also, for the record because people mix this up all the time: ECE means Electrical and Computer Engineering, and IE means Industrial Engineering. Different species.

On the way back I kept thinking about how these random college detours become stories later. Same feeling I had after writing The Silent Power of Human Touch: the smallest moments usually end up being the ones that stay.

Back to West Lafayette#

The return drive was quieter. Everyone was drained, phones were low, playlists got softer, and the road felt longer than in the morning. Gas came out to about $30 initially and another ~$14 later, which we split and logged through my custom expense tracker (basically my own Splitwise-style setup).

Overall: fun, exhausting, and definitely worth doing once before finals swallowed us whole. My main takeaway is simple-if you're going to Kings Island on a busy day, go early or buy Fast Lane. Otherwise you'll spend more time in lines than on rides, and the math gets painful fast.