And I wish we had more time to spend there but alas, our family schedule (along with our budget) only allowed this limited time in “paradise”. Anyway, here are some photos from our beach trip. enjoy.

we arrived there at 3:30pm (30 minutes after the gates opened) and surprise, surprise, the entire lawn area was already full. we took a spot under the pine trees next to the lake in order to get some shade which ended up being an OK spot. Still had a good view of the stage and was in a good position to hear the symphony over the noise of the crowd. and man did it get crowded. our area didn’t really get that bad until around 7pm when the symphony took the stage. every inch of space got used. it’s amazing how many people could fit into one spot. there literally wasn’t any space left for people to walk through. folks needing to go to the concession stand or the bathroom had to simply walk over people to get there. at one point when I took the boys to the bathroom, I could not, for the life of me, find my way back to our spot through the sea of people. Luckily the boys had a better sense of direction and led us back to our chairs but I personally would have ended up searching in the wrong section of the venue.

the fireworks display wasn’t the best I’ve seen in my lifetime but it served its purpose. I’d rate it better than the ones at the NC State fairgrounds though. all in all, we had fun. I could have done without the huge crowd but what are ya gonna do? The NC symphony was nice to hear and we packed enough food and drink to keep the boys satisfied.

Next time though, I’m bringing a large umbrella to shade ourselves from the hot sun. They don’t allow any “staking” or tents and such but holding or propping up a big umbrella for shade seems to be OK with the venue. The other thing I’d do next time is to arrive even earlier – maybe 2:30pm to try to get a spot on the lawn. but then again, sitting around the entire day for some run of the mill fireworks doesn’t really sound all that enticing, does it?

anyway, the boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves and that’s what it’s all about really – creating memories with your family, right?

This time around we went up to D.C. to visit with family. While there, we took advantage of the splendid weather and went museum hopping at the Smithsonian. Coincidentally it was time for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival so as you can imagine, it was pretty darn crowded in and around D.C. over the weekend.

random tidbits from the visit…

- can it be any MORE expensive to eat at Mickey D’s than at the Air and Space Museum? yikes. for a group of nine, it took a large bite out of the wallet!

- the kids loved riding the Metro even though it was slam packed. our six year old loved standing up while riding. in fact, he insisted on it even with a seat available.

- speaking of the Metro, from what I heard on the news, I think ridership on thurs/fri broke records. something like 900,000 trips were taken on both days. You may remember that the highest recorded riders was over 1 million trips on President Obama’s inauguration.

- with the huge crowds, we just did our best to see what we could at the Air/Space and Natural History museums. we barely scratched the surface since there’s SO MUCH to see there but enjoyed what all we saw nevertheless.

- barely got a glimpse of the hope diamond.. simply too many people congregated in that section of the exhibit. but the diamond/gem exhibit was probably the favorite part of the museum for the wife and her sister. heh.

- Roxy Paine’s Graft, a huge steel sculpture of a tree at the Sculpture garden was neat to see. it’s the first contemporary sculpture installed in the garden in the 10 years since it opened.

- definitely have to come back to see more of the Smithsonian. hopefully when it’s LESS crowded.

- before we left for home we made sure to visit our favorite korean noodle shop for some jja jang myun. for $4, you can’t beat the price PLUS it’s better than any I’ve tasted in the VA/NC area. definitely check out Choong Hwa Won if you’re any where near Annandale.

- another favorite eatery in the area is Spartan’s Family Restaurant (located in Burke, VA). Fantastic gyros, souvlakis and salads. it’s not much to look at but the food is always great.

here are a few random photos from the trip…

we have a sloped backyard so the kids had a blast with their sleds. we even purchased a zipfy mini luge a while back just in case we had snow like this and so the lil’ sled came in handy. it worked pretty well in the snow but it turned out that a cheap $8 plastic sled actually performed better.

plus, the black handle on the zipfy… at certain angles.. made it appeared to me (at least when I was riding on it) that I was “very happy” about going downhill on all this snow!

what do you think?

The boys’ favorite spot turned out to be the fossil dig area. I suppose that’s no surprise since boys and big piles of dirt have a long history together

meh. It’s too bad none of the dinosaurs were animatronic.

The Good
- Carowinds had an october special that discounted the adult ticket prices by almost 50%. awesome!

- Afterburn is a great coaster. Nighthawk made me disoriented. and the “Drop Tower” almost made the wife pee her pants.

- the younger set LOVED Danny Phantom’s Flyers. I think they rode that particular ride the most out of all the rides. but it’s a bit scary to think about the amount of wear and tear the riders must have on these cables that hold the individual carts. if a cable goes snap, that rider is a goner! yikes!

- found an ultra clean men’s bathroom in the park. it’s located at the far end of the park near the Jukebox Diner. some of the other bathrooms were a bit dingy and old. but for some reason, the bathroom near the Diner was clean and almost looked brand-new.

- the kids give thumbs up to the following: Flying Dutchman’s Revenge, Fairly Odd Coaster, Rugrants Runaway Reptar, Hurler, Carolina Cobra, Vortex, Afterburn and Danny Phantom’s Flyers

The Bad
- they have a go-cart track and a bungee/flying contraption thing-y but they both cost extra. harumph. they should be included with admission if you ask me!

-the following were pretty darn lame: Scooby-Doo’s Haunted Mansion, the Dora the Explorer train ride, the LazyTown Sporticopters.

- the “age factor” reared its ugly head again. man, I can’t keep up with my oldest son any more. He was having a blast riding all the thrill rides and after the fourth or fifth coaster, I was pretty much done for the day. ouch.

- most of the newer steel coasters were too short for my tastes. since it wasn’t crowded, we had the opportunity to re-ride ‘em multiple times if we wanted to. but man, if I had to stand in long lines for some of those coasters, I’d feel gypped afterwards.

- ugh, the food/refreshment prices are high. yeah, it’s pretty standard for amusement parks but still, feeding the family put the hurt on my wallet. ouch.

- the park closes at 5:30pm in the fall.

The Ugly
- what in the world possessed me to eat their BBQ pork sandwich for lunch? ugh. bad choice. it felt like I had a bowling ball in my stomach for the rest of the afternoon. avoid the BBQ at all costs!

- I’m guessing Carowinds is still in a “transitional phase”. From what I understand, Paramount is no longer running the park. The park is now with the Cedar Fair Entertainment Company. All the Paramount movie references are gone and the rides now have generic names like “Hurler”, “Afterburn” and “Vortex”. Surprisingly, the Nicktoons portion (the lil’ kids section) of the park is still around. but for how long? who knows. This might be the last year we’ll get to see the Nickelodeon characters in the park. sadly, most of the attractions in Carowinds are in need of a facelift. lots of rides showing their age. lots of faded colors and we saw a couple rides malfunction during our visit. yikes. hopefully things will improve with the new owners.

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all in all, it was a fun day out with the kids. It had been a long while since my last visit to Carowinds so it was great showing my kids an amusement park that *I* had gone to back when I was a teen.

Oh there is one ride that didn’t have long lines at least from what I saw. It’s the “Daredevil Drop” which is the slide with a straight 76-foot drop. I guess the height and the near vertical drop scares off most riders but you have to try it at least once. Once was good enough for me, thank you. whew!

The only snafu that occurred during our visit was losing my locker key. I had my wallet and car keys in the locker and was sort of freaked out when I couldn’t find the locker key. Like a dork, kept the key in a velcro’ed side pocket of my swimming shorts thinking it’d be secure but after a couple rides, it was gone. Thankfully the park staff was quick to help retrieve my items out of the locker before anything *happened* to them. what a relief! I’m definitely going to be more mindful of the key the next time I rent a locker that’s for sure. Again kudos to the helpful staff and also to the lifeguards who all seemed very attentive to the folks in the pool.

This Old Man gives Wet ‘N Wild a big thumbs up!

We’ll be heading back there real soon!

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