Busch Gardens

Our vacations plans had to be scrapped this summer (I will explain in an upcoming post; I am just waiting to do so....I wish I could wait forever, but....life happens).

So we decided to treat the kids to a day at Busch Gardens. I cannot believe what a fun time we had!! We arrived around 11:00 am and shut the park down at 10:00 pm, which I never had any intention of doing!!! It was perfect, a little hot, but perfect! It made the frozen lemonades such a treat. We beat the lines to every ride and didn' wait more than 20 minutes for any one ride!

The boys wanted to ride Apollo's chariot right away, so Andy and I separated, he with the boys and me with Brenna. Brenna and I went to ride the "softer" rides. The first ride we did was some Pirate ride where you were on a boat that swung back and forth until it went really high and you were looking at the other end of the ride underneath you.




I decided my description wasn't doing it justice. Anyway, I must have been nervous, not having been on a roller coaster in years, because once the ride started, I couldn't stop laughing. In the middle of my laughing a memory came out of nowhere, ok I'm thinking my laughing must have brought this one out. Every year my mom would take us to Ocean City and they had this Pirate ride there. I remember, along with my twin Tiercy, we were the only ones on this ride and we choose to sit at opposite ends of the ship. As the ship swung higher, my sister Tiercy laughed or screamed so hard that the gum in her mouth fell towards me as I was right below her. I remember laughing about this until our stomachs hurt. Anyway, I felt like it was a good omen to the day to have this wonderful memory come to me.

After this Brenna and I went to a ride called DaVinci's cradle.



I might sound like a bad mom for saying this, but what I loved about this ride was that as it took us up and around to it's tallest height, I saw concern in Brenna's face. She was scared! I was so happy to know that there are things that make her, at least think about doing things twice! She is so fiercely independent and headstrong and adventuresome that I need to see things like fright on her face every once in a while! Again, I caught myself laughing the whole ride; I think this helped Brenna too.

Then we went on a third ride (all of this while we were waiting for they boys on Apollo's chariot). I don't remember what this ride was called and I didn't like it one little bit. But because it was so tame, I was grateful to learn that this ride and any like it were not for me. It was one of those rides where you are tossed and turned inside out and right side back again. It was a dizzifier (that should be the name of the ride), it made me soooo dizzy. Brenna however loved it! Luckily the boys met us at the end of this ride and we were off to the rest of the park.

I can only say my kids love, love, love roller coasters. They, including Andy, were extremely disappointed that the tallest coaster the Griffin was not operating that day. However, we all (Brenna's height permitting) went on The Dark Kastle, the Lochness Monster, Alpenghiest, the Big Bad Wolf and swings! It was so much fun. I really couldn't believe how much fun I had on the roller coasters. It has been years and now I don't know why! I did realize that I needed to have food in my stomach not to get woozy. It sounds counter-intuitive (unless you've had morning sickness) to eat when you are woozy, but it worked.

The last coaster I went on was with Tobin, his friend Drew and Noah! It was Apollo's Chariot, the tallest coaster that day. It wasn't until I was going up, up, up that I started to freak out. Tobin wanted me to turn around and see the whole park as we kept going up and up. I couldn't do anything, I was frozen in fear! All I could see was that we were going up into air.

At this point I must digress to tell you about a dream I have had for years (since college) that occurs when I get stressed. I dream I am driving on a draw bridge like the one I used to go over going to my Grandmother's house. As I am on this bridge it starts to open up in half, like a draw bridge would to allow for ships to pass through. Is this making any sense? Anyway for some reason I can never seem to figure out, I can't stop and I continue driving up the bridge. Only the bridge is opening towards the sky and I am driving up, up and up until I am driving straight up into nothing and the car starts to fall back on itself. Luckily (or unluckily I wake up before I fall all the way back).

So you can see why I wouldn't have thought this ride any fun. Tobin so badly wanted me to look around and I just couldn't do it! As soon as we crested the hill I felt a huge relief. I still kept my eyes closed but loved the feeling of coming a little out of my seat as gravity pulled us down the other side of the roller coaster! And then...it was over! The words of Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive" entered my head. Yeah, we were done! Time for the show where I would remain safely on the ground and the acrobats would be suspended in the air!!

It was fun to see my kids having such a great time! Thanks Busch Gardens. And thanks Andy getting us home safely long after the rest of us conked out!