Carolinas - So much driving

Has it been two days already?!

It’s been a little crazy. We left bright and early (read: 10 am) on Saturday, arriving at a campsite in southern Virginia around 7 pm, giving us enough time to get a good campfire going in the sunlight. I love camping, even if it is with a big motorhome. Due to being cramped in the RV all day, we ran around outside playing hide and seek and climbing trees and basically acting like little kids. Our drivers – Sven (he’s American – don’t be fooled by Norsk appearance or silly name) and Christina aren’t too much older than us and are actually quite a bit like us! We ended up being up until like 1 am, waking up around six, heading out at seven and then finishing up the drive to Charlotte.

We got to Carowinds for opening and decided to go right for the Wild Mouse since we didn’t get to ride that last time. It was a walk on and it was…well, Wild Mouse rides are pretty much all the same. We decided to circle around to the back of the park and get the most painful rides done first. Vortex was stop number two with a four train wait, and it was exactly the same as last time – terrifying. I just do not like stand up coasters, even if it is made by B&M. We didn’t want to get beat up by their mine train, Carolina Goldrusher, so we opted out. Carolina Cobra didn’t have a long line, so we rode that next. Only a five minute wait and it is still the best boomerang in my books. Carolina Cyclone was alright, but that helix gets me every time. They were running two trains, so the wait was less than ten minutes. It took us ten minutes to find an employee and find out that Hurler would be closed for the week because its chain broke. Awesome timing, self.

We were all getting pretty wiped out at this point, as the humidity was really rough, but we didn’t want to deal with waiting in line for a water ride or going to the water park. We ate some lunch at a generic burger place and drank as much water as we could while we figured out our next plan of action. We agreed to just plain skip the kiddie coasters, and while there was some disagreement about this, we also decided to ultimately skip Nighthawk due to the amount of damage we sustained last time. Nighthawk, see also: piece of crap. Amazingly, both sides of Thunder Road were running and it was a walk on, so we rode both, getting the credit for the one we didn’t ride last time. GCI’s retracking of that is really paying off. It feels like new – which is fantastic because it has some brilliant airtime.

We tried to put it off for as long as possible, but it was time… for Afterburn!! Haha. That ride is great. They were running two trains again but they were way more effective this time. Somehow, there was no line so we ended up riding twice in the front, twice in the back before a line managed to assemble itself. Bummer! The obvious choice for the next ride was Intimidator. It wasn’t even four o’clock yet and we’d done everything but the best, so we decided we’d marathon Intimidator. Too bad there was a line. It was only a stair wait, which was a huge improvement on last time, but they were running three trains again and within five minutes we were on the ride anyway. No assigned seating this time! YES. We spent the next hour getting off and then back on again, managing three back seat rides, two front seat rides and a middle seat ride. Well, Liz and I did. The guys did their own thing.

We stopped at my grandparents on our way through South Carolina and got some cookies and 

So, now we’re on our way down to Georgia. Last time I went down, we went to Myrtle Beach, then to Liz’s aunt’s house in South Carolina somewhere. So while I don’t think we’re going a vastly different way, I’m not sure what to expect. So far, though, it’s pretty much been woods similar to Pennsylvania.

 5. The view from the vehicle from Pennsylvania down through South Carolina. Sometimes, the trees aren't as low, but this is mostly what it looks like.