Day 2 of our
jaunt was devoted entirely to the modern-day “thrill” genre of leisure time activities. After last night’s
monsoon, we awoke to cloudy-but-non-precipitating heavens to start our day.
Sadly, this was not to be the story of our Saturday, but we left the hotel with
high hopes for many hours of nail-biting
excitement and…other amusing stuff. Some background: I used to experience—and
greatly enjoy--Busch Gardens on a
regular basis with my own parents and siblings while I was growing up. Even so,
I was a certified lily-livered kiddie ride devotee, paralyzed with fear at even the notion
of climbing on something as terrifying as a rollercoaster.
(For that matter, anything with a
hill of any height whatsoever was right out.) That is, until Dad somehow convinced
me (Cajoled? Shamed? Threatened? Tricked? Bribed? Any of these is plausible, I
just don’t remember which tactic he employed…) to give the Loch Ness Monster a shot. That’s right, the biggest, fastest coaster ever
built, at the time. With not only a ginormous mountain of an incline,
but loops. Two of them. Don’t ask me how I ever
got on that thing—but I ended up LOVING it. To this day, I fear heights in the Real World. After all, climbing
tall ladders or scaling very steep rock faces or walking along the edges of soaring
cliffs all could actually kill you. But
put me on an amusement park rollercoaster with twists and turns and all kinds
of crazy scary nonsense (including up-and-downs) and somehow it’s heartpounding in a fun way, rather than a “get
me a defibrillator, STAT” way.
So now I was
all grown up, returning to Busch Gardens for my first visit in decades, and the
moment of truth had arrived: time to introduce my own children to the joy of stomach-knotting
anticipation…followed by an intense period of screaming their heads off...and (hopefully) loving every second of the rush. Since we had gotten ourselves motivated and
moving in a brisk fashion this morning (the words “free hot breakfast” and “complimentary
coffee” tend to do that for us), we arrived at the park right about when it
opened for business. And fortunately for us, the rampaging hordes—I mean the
other people who planned to bask in the Busch Gardens environment—seemed to be
running slightly behind us…meaning for about 2 hours, we reveled in a line-free zone and leaped instantly onto
any attraction we decided to try. First up: Apollo’s Chariot, which would be Derek’s and Riley’s first “real”
coaster (not counting the adorable but…tame…Goofy’s Barnstormer at Disney 3
years ago). Nothing like kicking off your day with a major tummy-dropping,
sideways careening…warmup ride…right? Afterwards,
we assessed Riley’s reaction, which wasn’t difficult to judge, given the
beaming face, excited hopping, and enthusiastic burst, “That was GREAT!”
Obviously, then,
he was ready for the Big One. Bring on Nessie! Even Derek, though, admitted in the
long line (as those “others” had apparently caught up with us and wanted
to ride as well—darn them!) that he was feeling slightly nervous. His
expression—equal parts bravado and trepidation—told the tale. Did we listen
to his reservations patiently and reassure him gently? Phhh, we advised him to
suck it up, since there was no possible
way he wouldn’t absolutely adore it.
(Good parenting? Hey, we know our kid.) It was
just as exhilaratingly…terrifying as I remembered it. Wheee!!!! And yes, the next
generation embraced it just as much as we thought they would.
Then there was
an ominous announcement over the
loudspeaker, broadcast to the entire park. Something about “severe weather
headed our way” and “operations being temporarily suspended”, and advice to "wait it out". R-A-T-S! Haven’t we been wet
enough already on this trip? Well, the Weather
Gods’ answer was: “definitely not”, since the skies opened up again and dumped
torrents of rain down onto the suddenly sloshy faux-European landscape. We
managed to find a couple of indoor things to do (strangely enough, all
utilizing 3D technology): a simulation that mimicked flying over various iconic sites (Coliseum, Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, Alps, Blarney Castle, etc.); a “haunted
castle” deal with evil ghosts popping out at you and chucking sharp,
lethal-looking (animated) weapons; and a Pirate-y movie. Afterwards, Derek gave
this opinion, “I don’t really like the extra
Ds…too much going on.” Here’s my counter: it sure does beat having sopping underwear….again. Can’t really
argue with that one, huh? And some of the covered options still were available to us--so we whirled in dizzying rotations on the teacups, and battled centrifugal force on the "Trade Wind". (Around AND up and down...really, really fast. My fellow passenger--Derek--remained glued to my side despite his repeated best efforts to painstakingly inch his way back over to his part of the car. So naturally I briefed him on the physics of the matter as we whipped around the track. Good times.) Having traveled in circles for two rides in a row, Husband and Derek both firmly announced that they were "finished with spinny-things" for the rest of the day!
After that,
during an apparent brief reprieve from the downpour, we heard the sweet sound of
metal clacking on rails again…the fun had been re-started! Since I was now fading
from lack of food, I chose to search for sustenance rather than stand in line
for one of the coasters. However, the dry period lasted less than a half-hour, as
my family came to find me when everything shut down once more—without having
had a chance to make it on the ride. Bummer. On the plus side, I had retreated
into the Festhaus in Germany (ironically, to eat French fries, not…bratwurst),
and when they located me, they were just in time to see a bonus Fairy Tale Show! Whoo hoo! (Yeah,
imagine Derek’s utter ecstasy at the
frolicking Hansel and Gretel…and evil witch…and gnomes—not making that up…) But
even the singing and dancing (and the fact that our clothes had finally,
mercifully, dried out) couldn’t fully revive our flagging spirits at that
point. And it continued to rumble and rain. So we finally gave up, counted
ourselves lucky to have experienced several super-cool thrills and chills, and abandoned
the splash zone for our climate-controlled, comfortable hotel room.
Thus ended
Day 2 in Williamsburg: drippy but delightful.
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