New shade

I was right. These shade structures are at the farmers market area and cafe.

In life news: Early this morning, I found a song I had been searching for since 2003. Fourteen years later, I have it! Below is the long story and a link to it on YouTube.

I worked at Cedar Point in the summers of 2003 to 2005. The park had a collection of music it played on the midways, and I made a list of the songs in the order they played because I knew they'd bring back memories. I found most of them, even some instrumentals that were really hard to locate. This was before Spotify or Soundhound. Thankfully the Weather Channel kept a list of the music it played. Yes, I found one song that way. I ended up with a soundtrack of about 80 songs from the various midways.

But there was one instrumental that eluded me. I don't know what it is about this song, but it made me so happy and just said "Cedar Point" to me. I searched for it every summer after coming home but couldn't find anything. This was becoming my White Whale.

Around 2005, someone posted on a Cedar Point forum asking about the park music. I shared my playlists, which they loved. This person had a bad recording of this song. It had people talking, coaster noises and other background sound, but it was the song I needed. I saved the MP3 and uploaded it to music-finding and tip-of-my-tongue forums. Nothing. (I have since lost the MP3.) Sometimes late at night this music would pop into my head and I'd do another long internet search but couldn't find anything.

That changed tonight. I tried humming and whistling it in Soundhound and got nothing. In desperation, I Googled "cpmysterysong.mp3," the name of the file this other person shared. No results. I tried "Cedar Point mystery song."

There was one result. A blog post a man named Tom made in 2006. He described the song and said he emailed the park asking if they could help, but he got no reply. Then he saw a reply several months later with a short list of songs that could be it.

One of them I already had -- an instrumental called "A Little Bumpin'" by Lee Ritenour. Another was a little familiar, "Goin' on to Detroit," also by Ritenour. The park listed an album by The Rippingtons that might have that song.

Tom looked it up and found the song. It's called "Hideaway." It's a smooth jazz sound with a little bit of tropical and steel drums. And it's my song. I'd been looking for it for 14 years. It's all I've wanted. Now I have it. It's like an emptiness in my brain has been filled.