Vacation to Virginia: Day 5- Busch Gardens

After 2 full days of history lessons, we decided to take a break and hit Busch Gardens. Busch Gardens is Jen's all time favorite park. It has thrill rides, water rides, the best "melt in your mouth and all down your arm" cotton candy, entertaining shows, and animal exhibits. (Note: Jen has not been to Disney World, yet.)

When we first entered the park, we were welcomed by the scene of a European village.

We anxiously waited for the clock to strike 10am so we could enter the rest of the park...

the clock finally struck 10am and everyone made a mad dash for the rides.

First we rode the Loch Ness Monster. Jen promised Jacob that this would be an easy ride to break us in for the more serious coasters. She said it had a steep first drop, an exciting tunnel, and was an overall smooth ride. It's amazing what 15 years can do to a coaster...she was only correct about 2 of the 3 descriptions.



Then we rested a little and searched for our next coaster ride. We were determined to ride all 5 coasters but we carefully developed a strategy to slowly work our way up to the most extreme...The Griffon.

We stopped in Ireland...then we headed for the Big Bad Wolf (another one that Jen claimed was so smooth), The Alpengist (that truly felt like we were flying through the Alps), and Apollo's Chariot.

Apollo's Chariot was amazing! It was an extreme version of the Steel Eel and so much more. We flew through the sky, up, down, up, down, up, down, and so on, it was a pure adrenaline rush!

After several "are you sure we should do it?" conversations, we finally committed to ride The Griffon, the tallest dive coaster in North America. Jen reasoned that if we were going to ride it, we should ride in the 3rd row so that we would simply be looking out at the world rather than staring down to our death when the coaster dangles us over the ledge for what would feel like an eternitity. Yep, that's the coaster dangling people over the ledge after it climbed 205 feet! Then, after you finally get used to the hanging position you suddenly plummet to towards the ground at a 90 degree angle at 70 mi/hr. We only rode this one once.

We also rode some of the water rides: the Roman Rapids, a flume ride, and Escape from Pompeii. Now, we knew that Escape from Pompeii was based on the experience of people escaping from Mt Vesuvius but we didn't realize that the ride involved real flames! In the appearingly harmless tunnel portion of the ride we were surrounded by flames and falling structures. The flames were beside us and above us...we were definitely ready for the splash down after we escaped the heat of the flames.

We also rode a few 4-D rides: Corkscrew Hill & The Curse of Darkastle.

And we visited the animal exhibits. A rescued female bald eagle is above and a male bald eagle is below.

Blue and Gold Macaw

Rainbow Lorikeet

Kukaburra

Rescued Grey Wolf...doesn't he remind you of our "son"?

After a long, head spinning, action packed day, we called it quits early and headed back to the hotel. Fortunately, we knew that we would be able to return to the park the next evening to finalize our Busch Gardens experience.