Day 19: Mogcoaster 🎢

Rest day in Bowling Green, KY — 0 mi, 0 ft

Picture this. 

The room is gloriously silent. No 6:00 am alarm, no sound of sleeping pads being deflated or sleeping bags being rolled up. Your arms stretch out — you’re greeted by an infinite spread of soft mattress on either side, and maybe even some more. This is a perfect rest day in Bowling Green, KY.

None of this would be possible without the amazing Airbnbs generously donated to us by Lindsey and Adam, supporting our stay before our learning festival tomorrow. We were seriously spoiled, and I felt like a true queen in my queen bed. Probably the longest amount of sleep I’ve gotten thus far, although there aren’t any significant numbers to compare to.

After waking up at 10:15 ish and laying in my bed for a little bit longer after that, I finally got up and headed over to the adjacent townhouse to reapply my bandages and wait for our breakfast to arrive. Nunu and Aarushi had to head to a nearby bike shop to drop-off Aarushi’s bike to be fixed (still suffering post-tree crash) and of course, pick up coffee on the way. They went to Spencer’s Coffee, which is apparently universally a local favorite, and I can totally understand why. This perfect day continued in the form of an iced dirty chai and breakfast bowl (hashbrowns, peppers, an egg, and miscellaneous deliciousness), and we were seriously munching like kings (a common theme of the day). While eating, I also got to meet Noah, Tatiana’s boyfriend, for the first time. He had driven a crazy 10 HOURS to come meet her, and it was awesome that he got to join us for this rest day!

Our plan for the day was this local waterpark called Beech Bend about 20 minutes away, found by Nunu the night before on her usual search for swimming opportunities and volleyball courts. We drafted an elaborate plan to reduce our per-person price with some season pass purchases that allowed free guests and certain perks, the math of which I never fully understood but appreciated since it brought down the price by a decent amount! We loaded into the minivan and started making our way there. 

Once we arrived, we were greeted by an expanse of cars on all sides, divided into two sections. It seemed that the plot on the left was the location of a drag race, filling the air with sounds of engines roaring as they blasted down the strip, which was quite cool. On the right, bright colors and rollercoasters pointed us towards what was closer to our idea of fun, which seemed to be the same as maybe every other family in the area. Great minds think alike! We parked and got in line for entry, ready to execute our plan to take advantage of the season pass deal, but ran into some hiccups that Noah and Tatiana handled. Since they met as TAs of a negotiation class, I could tell that they had us covered as the responsible adults and let them work their magic!

Since Beech Bend is both a waterpark and an amusement park, we decided to do the waterpark first and then dry off for the other rides. We all changed, crammed our valuables into a tiny $13 locker, and set off for our first water slide. This one used mats as the protective medium for sliding on, and we realized at the top that we could all double up and of course, promptly dropped our individual mats in favor of that. Drew and Nate went first, and after hearing their screams echo the whole way down, I knew we were in for some fun slides and was honestly a bit nervous. To preface, this was my first time at a waterpark — my idea of fun typically involves much more relaxing and a lot less adrenaline. My hesitance was only overcome as I saw a child half my height get in without a second thought, and from that point on I was (mostly) okay. Carmen and I went down together, which is when I learned that Carmen was much more chill about these rides than I was — she was COMPLETELY silent as I was screaming, prompting me to ask her to scream with me mid-slide so I wouldn’t feel alone. I’m not sure how successful that was? We then rode the rest of the slides, switching up the pairings so that we all rode with each other at least once.

At this point, I noticed my supposedly waterproof bandage peeling off and revealing my pretty gnarly dog bite to the world. I then embarked on a search for first aid, which was concerningly harder than I originally thought. I ended up asking a lifeguard (who couldn’t be more than 14) for a bandaid, causing him to blow his scary high-pitched whistle and signal 3 whole lifeguards (this time not 14) to start walking towards us. Fearing that they thought it was an emergency, I quickly emphasized that I just needed a bandaid and wanted to know where I could get one. This 14-year-old sternly told me “It’s no problem,” so I stood there awkwardly as I waited for the lifeguards to come up the hill. I got my bandaid and met back up with the rest of the group, who had explored the floatie-based slides for the first time. This is when I realized Carmen had been waiting for me this whole time, which I really appreciated and felt bad since I had to go on a longer hunt — thanks for waiting!!

This is when stomachs started grumbling, and the food kiosk started to call people over. I was still full from Spencer’s, but the rest of the team + Noah got an assortment of funnel cakes, burgers, hot dogs, fries, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. It looked quite good, and it was all quickly devoured.

To let the food digest, we went to the lazy river as one long human chain, each person holding onto another and slowly drifting without a care in the world. We cycled around peacefully once, but the second time around was different — the wave pool turned on. Suddenly, we were thrown into a relentless battle against each push of water, and our ability to maintain our chain was seriously tested. Thankfully, Noah was holding onto my floatie, and he was extremely responsible with the two he was holding onto. The same could not be said about everyone else… I had to use both hands on Aarushi, who never escaped my grip (perhaps my biggest achievement of this trip), but there were multiple separations and desperate yells as we continuously broke up, reunited, rinse and repeat. We probably looked INSANE to everyone else enjoying the wave pool normally, but we were in our little world, where staying together seemed to mean life or death. In my head, our group were shipwrecked pirates fighting a relentless storm. It was quite easy to forget that the pool had a depth of not even 4ft!

After being battered, we returned to the river and decided to do one more lap for the waves, since we somehow enjoyed that more than any other ride in the park. We strategized the best formation to withstand the waves and came prepared. I was holding onto Nunu and Carmen this time, but I soon realized being responsible for two people is a wayyy harder challenge. Nate, at the end of the chain, realizes just as we enter that the only one holding onto him is Nunu, who was allegedly the worst one at holding on. I’ve never seen Nate panic more. He tried to paddle towards my floatie to circle back up and create another connection, but there is unfortunately no handle there for him to hold onto. He slips away from me, and I feel a hand try to grab my foot to no avail. In the meantime, I’m trying to hold onto Carmen for dear life, but I already felt the formation start to crumble. Things fall apart, I think I kick Nate in the face, and many “hand of gods” — as Carmen put it — can be seen all around. At some point, I get separated and am left to drift away.

We hit up the floatie slides one more time since Carmen and I hadn’t been yet, and tried the scary red one. From the top, you could see the crazy height you got coming off the slide and into an almost vertical portion, and Nate and I (my buddy for this slide) got to watch as the pairs in front of us experienced it. Can confirm, it felt as crazy as it looked. Nunu and I went down the blue one after, which had a lot of bumpy back-and-forths.

We then decided to wrap up, get Dippin’ Dots, and head to the amusement park. Dippin’ Dots was another new experience for me! Definitely crunchier than I expected, and while good, the novelty quickly wore off. My ranking of the four flavors we tried: Rainbow Ice, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Cookies and Cream, Strawberry Cheesecake. 

Our first ride that we hit up was their largest rollercoaster, the Kentucky Rumbler. This is somehow the largest rollercoaster I have ever ridden. Noah, a fellow not-a-huge-fan-of-rollercoasters individual, and I sat together and made it a shared goal to keep our arms up the whole time, which we did! We then hit up the Starship — a ride that purely spins and demonstrates centrifugal force — which I, Noah, and Aarushi skipped to save our stomachs. Then we tried our hands at bumper cars and caused some carnage. Our third ride was a tall dropping ride that brought us extremely high up, or it at least felt extremely high. The drop also felt extremely long. There were a lot of extremes for me, if you can’t tell already. I watched the rest of the group enjoy an airplane ride, and then it was time for our last ride of the day. 

We revisited the Kentucky Rumbler, but this time with a different objective. Aarushi proposed that we all try to ¹mog the whole time, aka keeping a straight face (or if you’re Drew, an exaggerated facial expression I can’t quite describe). I already knew going in that I would be terrible… and I was indeed. I’m very glad that the final photos from the ride are not available to ever be seen again for my sake. If I had to declare a victor of the challenge, I think Aarushi took the crown.

Finally, since the park was closing, we had to make our way out, but not without a cheesy jumping photo obviously. For dinner, we decided on getting pho to satisfy our non-fast food cravings (although some people advocated for Wendy’s). It was a great dinner, except for the Thai tea that was a bit too sweet. Someone commented that it tasted like melted ice cream, which was unfortunately too accurate and slightly ruined the taste for me. 

While eating, Tatiana asked her semi-regular question of us, which was to share something that we were grateful for. Following such a fun day so different from some of the tense days preceding this one, many of us shared a sentiment that we were grateful for this being such a nearly perfect day. I echoed this, especially since I hadn’t had the best couple of days recently. To be 100% honest, while I have felt incredibly supported by the rest of the team as I have been healing from my dog bite, there are a lot of other things outside of their control that have been stressful to deal with. I have a couple of complaints about the healthcare system and some other systems. This day has reminded me of better days to come, and took me out of that bubble that felt a bit overwhelming. It’s a shame the next rest day is not for a while, but I’m sure that things will continue to look up 🙂 Until then, we’ll have this amazing day to look back upon, and we’ll have our season passes for the rest of the year. Let’s run it back at Beech Bend?

See you soon,

Caroline

¹ In modern internet slang, to mog (or “mogging”) means to outshine, outclass, or look significantly better than someone else. While it originally referred to dominating someone in physical attractiveness, it is now commonly used as playful banter across gaming, sports, fashion, and social media. (citation: Google AI Overview, 2026)