We eventually made it to the Fountain of Youth. Can you imagine going to St. Augustine and not checking out the Fountain of Youth!? I mean, I’m sure Henry and Chooch would not have lost any sleep over that. But I learned about this in fifth grade, therefore, I needed to see it.

I am just that kind of person.

I am also the kind of person who pays admission to tour museums and other places of historical import only to lose interest somewhat immediately and proceeds to skim the informational placards in an effort to get to the end faster.

It me.

I appreciate that this signage looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 1950s.

The lady at the admission booth liked my phone case! It’s my bread one from Brunch Brothers, in case Future Erin is here reading this and wondering, “Ha! Which one??” Queen of the Interesting Phone Cases.

It also me.

America’s FIRST colony!

It St. Augustine!

OK, I’ll stop with that now. I had a lot of sugar today.

I should also note that after we paid to get in, Chooch asked, “So what is this?

Like, a ride or something?”

OMG that would make this place so much better, if Sally Dark Rides came in, installed some track and pretzel cars, plopped down some animatronics and jump scares….It would have been worth the $20pp!!!

We did the thing. Well, Chooch and I did. Henry was like I’M GOOD. It just tasted like an extinguished match. So you know, sulfur.

It was just us and two old ladies inside, so that was nice! I was expecting it to be packed, like we would have to stand in line just to chock back some disgusting $20 thimble of water by choice. But nope, we marched right over and helped ourselves. The old ladies didn’t even know you could drink it until they saw us and then we had to point out the cups to them. LOOK AT US, Fountain of Youth docents, basically.

Chooch always has to take a selfie with my phone before taking the phot requested of him.

And then we always get the zoomie of Henry too:

Honestly, after doing this portion, I was bored already but now we had to walk around the land and look at the artifacts or whatever.

These things seemed significant, so I took a picture to show my Internet Friends.

IT YOU.

OK for real I’m done.

Posin’ with Ponce.

Apparently, the local peacocks like to chill by the gift shop so they have feed there that you can buy and even though there are signs everywhere that say FOOD IS FOR PEACOCKS ONLY DO NOT FEED OTHER WILDLIFE, the pigeons were like, “No, the sign spelled pigeons wrong. That food is for us.” This one lady had accumulated close to 10 pigeons on her person just by holding out a hand of feed.

Here’s Chooch half-assedly fending off the pigeons.

We spent more time here than anywhere else in the whole archeological park, not surprising. And before we left, there was a healthy crowd of about 25 people hanging out, feeding the “peacocks.” Good times.

In  the gift shop, I of course bought a tiny souvenir bottle of FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH WATER and Chooch bought a puzzle of some sort – there was a lot of back and forth about said puzzle between him and Henry but I wasn’t paying attention. I’m not sure what was so special about this puzzle other than it was Noah’s Ark which was appealing to Chooch because he evidently inherited the “I love Noah’s Ark but not the BOOK it came from” gene from my mom, who had so much Noah’s Ark shit around the house when I was growing up including a MASSIVE wooden Noah’s Ark with handmade wooden pairs of animals that she collected from a store called the Hobby Horse and then our German Shepherd, Rama, started using some of the animals as chew toys so that kind of put an end to that. Man, I haven’t thought about that in so long but it was actually epic. She had it displayed in the bay window in our dining room. She must have spent thousands of dollars on that in the end because she would make trips to the Hobby Horse to pick  up whatever new animal pairs the artist had recently crafted and then I would beg for rock candy even though EW and also honey sticks, which OK those were good.

They also had an old-fashioned ice cream parlor in that place. I had a love/hate relationship with it because it was “so far away” (like 25 minutes probably, lol) and also my mom spent so much time there and it was essentially a cross between an antique shop and a country store, so it was dark and wooden inside with like, lots of wreaths and Americana bullshit. And like, old skillets. I dunno. It was fine.

Wow. what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, Chooch’s puzzle. So he and Henry worked out whatever the issue was (I think maybe he needed Henry to transfer money to his PARENTAL CONTROLLED debit card lol) but then Chooch was like, “Hold the phone, this box is messed up. I need to swap it out” so he went back to get a new one. This is only relevant to the story because when we got home two days later, he opened the stupid thing to put it together and it was the WRONG PUZZLE – somehow a Santa’s Workshop one was in the box instead, lol.

There’s my bottle ^^^

The worst part was that after we left, we had to walk all the back to the car and I don’t know if I mentioned this or not but my feet were like blood sacks at this point?? My right foot was so fucked with bruises and my left foot had/has some METATARSAL thing happening, I don’t know if that’s true – I googled it and didn’t get very far in my research before becoming overcome with the woozies.

Henry started walking SO FAST and so far ahead of us limpers, because he was afraid of the meter running out I guess and as you know, he already earned himself a speeding ticket on this trip and was probably not trying to add a parking ticket to the collection.

Oh shit this reminds me that I forgot to tell his mom last weekend about how her perfect tree-climbing son got a speeding ticket.

Don’t worry, we made it back to the car. I think this was when we realized that Chooch’s Harry Potter chocolate frog was in the car and consequently perished because Florida.

From here, we went to Sarbez for lunch! Please read about that here. Then we drove around the St. Augustine Beach area which looked super cute and fun and I could see us potentially coming back there someday when we’re looking for a “slow vacation” and by that I mean a super fast-paced vacation with perhaps one day where we slow down and maybe dip our toes in water and read a book or something.  But just for a day. Then roller coasters.

Before venturing out of St. Augustine and Florida in general, Henry ran into The Kookaburra to grab us some iced coffees, which was funny to me since this trip made me feel a type of way about Australians and it ain’t a good way, pal.

My nails were fucked by the end of the trip. Actually, by the second day, who am I kidding. I even brought polish so I could redo them but I was so tired every time I found myself in the hotel room that this never happened.

WAIT PS PS PS!! I just realized that there is some Noah’s Ark art on the walls in the background of this picture of my brother Corey holding a very new baby Chooch at my moms house in 2006!

Enjoy.

Wow, hello. I’m back with more rollercoaster road trip recapping. You are so stoked, I can smell the stink of your stoke-ocity all the way from here.

The only other time I was ever at Sea World Orlando was in the early 80s. I remember approximately nothing about it, my brain being the ripe old age of 4, except for the fact that Richard Simmons made an appearance and I got on stage AND KISSED HIM. The only reason I remember this is because I was mocked mercilessly about it every now and then throughout the years by my family.

Sadly, there was no Richard Simmons to kiss this time around (though I could have my shot at Cookie Monster because the line was short but Henry and Chooch were being dumb about it).

Guys, did you know that parking at Sea World is like $30 or some other crazy outerspace denomination? Henry was all, “HAHA I WILL SHOW THEM” and ordered a Lyft to take us since it would only be $9 both ways. But then he forgot about the tip, so it ended up being wash in the end BUT it was nice being dropped off right at the entrance!

Side-note: you’re supposed tow ear your masks in Lyft vehicles. The first driver had his on which was awesome, but the second driver didn’t! Also, we were so giddy Monday morning waiting outside of the hotel for the Lyft. And by that, I mean, Chooch and I were acting like absolute crazy people while Henry kept hissing, “STOP IT.”

I know it was only our first full day in Florida, but I was feeding off the sunshine and theme park energy in a big way. I can’t believe I was originally opposed to this spring break back-up plan!

I already wrote about the two main negatives that we experienced at Sea World and there was only one other bummer of a thing that happened, pretty much as soon as we walked through the gate. Henry had realized that he left his dumb eyeglass strap thingie in the car, which was at the hotel, so he immediately set off to the nearest gift shop in order to procure one. Chooch and I wait for no one, not even The One Who Feeds Us (unless it’s Feeding Time), so we continued walking through the main courtyard area.

“Look! Sea World buddy!” Chooch called out, pointing to a squirrel frolicking in the landscaping along the path. We walked over to get a closer look, and it just so happened to be near a side path that was labeled “park employees only.” We weren’t even CLOSE to entering the path, still clearly on the main park-goer path, but an employee walking past at that moment still felt obliged to call out, “THAT’S FOR PARK EMPLOYEES ONLY.”

Um, OK thanks, we can read?

I started to explain that we weren’t going to step on the path (we still weren’t even close to it!??!) and that we were just trying to get a better look at the squirrel which you would think she would be understanding of considering she’s working at a park whose theming revolves around animals!?

She literally cut me off to call over her shoulder, once again, “THAT PATH IS FOR PARK EMPLOYEES ONLY.”

OK now I was pissed and offended, which is a deadly combo for me and makes me want to breathe fire. Normally Chooch would be like, “OK you’re overreacting”  but he was like, “Wow, cool” and I launched into my indignant tirade of injustice. I HATE BEING SCOLDED and it was exactly what she had done. She was carrying a clipboard with her and appeared to be in some type of supervising or management position and if you ask me, someone needs to knock her down a peg, looking at you, killer whales.

So now I had a bad taste in my mouth (probably from the fire-breathing) and I was concerned that it was an omen for the rest of the day. But luckily, with the exception of the Australian Piss Party referenced in link above, the day only got better from here.

Right after the squirrel incident, we came upon the entrance to Manta, a B&M flying coaster. The entrance itself was like the opening to a cave, and only continued to get more and more cave-like as we moved deeper inside. It was so dark and then suddenly:

Is this best queue of any roller coaster, ever? Maybe! It was so cool! There were several other aquarium windows as we walked through and since hardly anyone was every in line with us, we were able to walk right up to the windows and have it all to ourselves! Literally EVERY SINGLE TIME we rode Manta (at least 4 or 5 times!). This was such a fun surprise!

The other fun surprise? Manta was AWESOME. I generally do not like flying coasters that much. They can be extremely uncomfortable and unenjoyable but this one really took me by surprise! It actually ended up being Chooch’s favorite coaster in the park! (Not mine, though. I’ll give it the #2 slot.)

The only bad experience I had on this was maybe the third time we rode it – it was a complete walk-on in the back row, and most of the train was empty. The ride op at that time – TY, an older white man with a huge chip on his shoulder – walked around and SLAMMED down the restraints of each empty seat. Then he kicked (KICKED!!) in the leg restraints too flying coasters have additional restraints down there to make sure your legs and feet stay pinned back when the coaster is in flying position (i.e. when you’re face down and screaming your face off). I looked at Chooch like, “Wow he better not do that to us—OW! OMG!!” as Ty came over and practically smashed my clavicle with the restraint and then Annie Wilkes’d my feet.

So aggressive, I couldn’t believe it. I should have reported his ass! Along with the bitchy EMPLOYEES ONLY cunt.

This was also the coaster where I discovered that Sea World goers are super conscientious of filling all the seats, so people in line would turn around to see if there were any single riders available. I loved this. Nothing is more frustrating that when a pair of people board a 4 SEAT ROW and proceed to not move all the way to the end so that other people in line can’t easily get in to fill the seats.

Anyway, I really appreciated the couth and NOONCHI (Korean for personal awareness) of these riders which was almost negated by all the line-jumping going on (really only experienced this in line for that stupid Infinity Falls, but water rides always bring out the idiot GP). The only time the “fill the row” proaction was scowled upon was when we were waiting in line for the front row for Kraken.

There was a middle school-aged boy behind me and Chooch, and 2 pairs of people in front of us. The train that was boarding had one empty seat in the front. The boy noticed this and did the whole “Excuse me, pardon me” side-step song-and-dance until he was able to JUST BARELY slip through the gate before it closed and occupy the lone empty seat in the front row.

Did this affect any of us? No. Was this considered cutting NOPE. A park with super on-point ride ops will usually even have a ride attendant calling out for single riders, and some rides even have single-rider lines. THIS IS NOT A NEW THING. This is called FILLING THE FUCKING TRAIN AND MINIMIZING THE WAIT TIME FOR EVERYONE ELSE.

That being said, the wives in front of us got RULL bent out of shape about this. Acting appalled, suffering a personal affront, the whole deal. They were scoffing about the audacity, and grunting their displeasure, and then the one woman even went so far as to MOCK the kid’s appearance.  I was pissed.

“He was in a big hurry to get to the front!” the one WIFE said so since she mocked that kid, Chooch and I proceeded to spend the rest of the day mocking HER. Dumb lady.

“HE WAS IN A BIG HURR—stfu!!!”

Kraken was super fun though, although a bit rough (I’m old).

Don’t get me started on this fucking ride. Apparently, it’s similar to Busch Garden Williamburg’s Escape from Pompeii but this one is Atlantis-themed and I wanted to do it but when we were in line for it, it broke down. We stayed in line for quite some time waiting because the recording urged us to but finally an employee got on the speaker and was like, “Yeah, this bitch is fucked, guys.” You know, in so many words.

We kept trying to come back to it but the line was SO LONG every single time. Meanwhile, we were practically walking on all of the coasters. The park wasn’t even crowded but it was a hot, sunny day and bitches always tryna ride the water rides on days like that, you know?

You have just looked at two pictures of Henry walking like he’s on a mission.

OK, now that we got Manta and Kraken under our belts, it was time to find our way to Mako, a B&M hyper, because Chooch had already decided that this would be his 200th coaster.

#200!

OK. Bro. We all loved Mako but I LOVED MAKO ENOUGH TO MARRY IT, OK? Is Mako my new favorite hyper? I think so. Yes. Mako is my new favorite hyper. Chooch and I rode this at least 6 times that day and it was a walk-on every time except for when we waited for the front row and that was only about a 5 minute because ops were A+++ on this one.

My favorite was toward the end of the day. I wanted to go and ride it one last time before we left. We sat in the back with a young couple and it was just good vibes all around (probably because we left Henry behind lololol). When we got back to the station, it was practically empty. As we were about to leave, the couple we sat with asked one of the ride ops if they could stay on if they moved to an empty row (there were people waiting for the back row). She nodded and I was like, “OMG CAN WE DO IT TOO??” and she nodded again! So Chooch and I jumped in an empty row and got in another ride. When we came back, all four of us turned and looked the Best Ride Op Ever and she NODDED AGAIN without us even asking! So we ended the night with three back to back to back rides on Mako.

IT WAS DREAMY.

And a better experience than one of our earlier rides when we sat with two older thoosies  (that’s industry slang for coaster enthusiast, you guys, get on our level, god. I tell you guys too much sometimes!) and the one was pretty nauseating, like one of those guys who likes to expel random facts and comparisons loudly so everyone will be like, “OMG THAT GUY MUST RIDE A LOT OF COASTERS.” Like when he pulled his restraint down, he exclaimed, “Oh yeah, B&M clamshell!” (named for its shape, obvi) and I just rolled my eyes at Chooch.

We are not that annoying, you guys. (Lol, Janna is probably reading this and vehemently disagreeing while paging through a Cat Name book.)

The last coaster credit we needed was the brand spanking new Ice Breaker. The section of the park it’s in opens later than the rest of the park I guess, but the Sea World employee hanging around the entrance of Mako told us that this was the fastest way there so we hung around and enjoyed the scenery until the rope was dropped about 10 minutes later.

Aaaaand of course Ice Breaker wasn’t running yet, lol. We stood in line for a few minutes anyway but then made the unanimous decision to go do other things and come back because unlike Busch Gardens Williamsburg, it was our first time there so we wanted to see all the things!

LIKE THE MANATEES!

We did eventually go back later to ride Ice Breaker. It was the longest line we waited in for a coaster – a whole whopping 25 minutes. Henry had to pee first but we got in line without him, lol. Unlike other people, we did not invite him to cut the line in order to join us and he still ended up on the same train as us.

Chooch and I got the front row! The ride op was this super nice girl but she made me scrape my calf on the restraint (they were really awkward) and then I proceeded to have a bruise there for the rest of the week. Just add it to the rest! My right foot had the most purplest bruise of my life running alongside of it.

I feel like not many people would be ok with our versions of “vacations” lol.

Anyway! Ice Breaker was cool! A really interesting launch coaster but having just ridden Pantheon two days before this, Ice Breaker was a little underwhelming. Still good! But we rode so many incredible coasters on this trip that it did not end up in my Top 5.

Also, the ride op loved my Marcy tattoo so I forgave her instantly for maiming my calf.

This was before I ruined my shoes on Infinity Falls. :(

(I’m obsessed with these particular Vans though so I bought a new pair and am going to try and bleach the ruined ones and dye them neon orange, I dunno. And by that I mean that Henry is going to try. He’s the She’s Crafty one, not me.)

This is how far ahead of me Chooch typically walks, lol.

The penguin house was so much fun! We got to watch a bunch of them being weighed and it was so sweet and hilarious. This was also the first time I saw the WIVES WHO ARE AGAINST SINGLE RIDERS JUMPING AHEAD TO FILL EMPTY SPOTS.

A really nice British lady took this picture for us! When she handed me the phone back, she said, “I took three. I got all of your different positions!” I thought she was being sarcastic since I didn’t change at all while standing there, but then I looked at the pictures and sure enough, Henry the Stoop was doing something different with his arms in each one.

Additional things:

• The soft pretzels were SO GOOD.
• We each got a free meal with our ticket. Chooch and I were stuck with pizza but it was fine!
• There was some 20-something-ish girl there with her boyfriend wearing obscenely short shorts and Henry was PISSED about this?! He kept saying, “I’M SORRY BUT YOU SHOULDN’T WEAR SOMETHING LIKE THAT WITH CHILDREN AROUND” and this was extremely hilarious to me because he was actually seething. Meanwhile, I was like, “Ugh I wish my ass looked that hot.”
• It was near the end of the day when Chooch and I rode Infinity Falls and we were 100% soaked. Henry was so nervous that we weren’t going to be dry enough by the time the Lyft came but we were, calm down Henry. God, first the short shorts, now this. Homeboy was STRESSIN’.
• My overall impression of Sea World was that it was super beautiful and (MOST!!!!) of the staff was awesome. Of course, I’m uncomfortable with the whole animal portion of it, but can only hope that the animals are treated well and ae given the best lives possible. I would go back over and over again just to ride Mako and I am devastated that I live so far away from it. But now I’m feenin’ for Diamondback, my other fave hyper which is within driving distance.
• We only fought once and it was toward the end of the day when I think I was suffering from sun stroke and had to go sit down and then Henry was being SO DRAMATIC because he went to get water and I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. God, track my phone, why don’t you.
• Chooch bought a Mako shirt (Manta was his fave but he didn’t like the Manta shirts) and now I wish I had bought one too, or a coffee cup. REGERTZ.
• I know I have a picture of Richard Simmons on stage at Sea World somewhere but it’s sadly not in the photo album I thought it was in and I just want to get this damn thing posted because I still have so much more to write about the trip and I’m getting panicked because this is how I live my life: creating imaginary deadlines that affect nothing and no one but myself for absolutely no reason oher than I must be fueled by stress, that must be it.
• We were supposed to go to Sea World San Antonio on one of the earlier iterations of our spring break trip but I have a feeling this one was superior.
• Chooch was able to snag all 5 coaster creds here!
• We did not spectate the killer whale show (or as Henry kept calling it: SHAMU). I dunno, that doesn’t sit well with me.
• I wish I had taken more pictures. Oh well, I’ll just have to go back when the new surf coaster is open!

As the title suggests, Rita, this is Part 2 of our Friday in St. Augustine.

After doing all that other stuff, we found ourselves in the courtyard of the CATHEDRAL BASILICA OF ST. AUGUSTINE. Henry was like, “Ugh more god-stuff” but then went inside anyway because yo, that sun was cookin’ us.

You guys. This was America’s First Parish, founded September 8, 1565. Thank god I took a picture of the brochure that I donated one entire US dollar for (2 weeks later, Henry was all, “What is this Venmo payment for $1?????” like I went on a shopping spree at Tiffany’s or some such shit. Calm down, Hank. It’s called a CHURCH DONATION.).

(And also, I told him at the time of the Venmo’ing that this was what I was doing, so way to prove once again that you don’t listen to me, DEARHEART.)

Touring churches and shit was my favorite part of Europe vacations as a child. Not for religious reasons but purely art appreciation.

I just really like cathedrals/churches/cemeteries – all the good Cs, I guess. Yeah, and you too, Vitamin C.

Sadly, we only spent about 5 minutes in here because RIGHT AS I TOOK THIS PICTURE, Henry (the lump of which can be seen in the far left church pew) sneezed SO ROBUSTLY in the BONE QUIET CATHEDRAL that the echo kept pinging off the marble trying to find something to absorb it and EVERYONE (OK there were only about 6 other people in there not including us but still) whipped their heads around all Regan-like to see whose schnozz orchestrated such a jarringly percussive explosion of sonic weaponry while I quickly slipped out the nearest door.

Henry and Chooch joined me outside a few seconds later and Chooch and I both launched into YOU ARE SO EMBARRASING lambasting.

Honestly though!

Meanwhile, Chooch had seen a sign for some ghost hunting supply shop inside some building and suddenly had his heart set on purchasing a spirit box and an EMF reader. He actually walked away from us while I was still eviscerating Henry for The Sneeze and then we were like WHERE IS OUR SON so we frantically texted him and he popped out of a hallway of shops and actually made a very Henry-like exasperated motion with his arms.

“I told you I was going to buy ghost hunting stuff!” and that was when I had to admit that wow, I often block him out.

Anyway, the stupid store was closed so we went to a shop full of St. Augustine accoutrement. Henry is suddenly uber into buying souvenir hats?? And forcing Chooch to pick out shirts and hoodies?? Suddenly Henry is like, “LET’S SPEND MONEY” so I’m going to have to investigate this 180 degree U-turn from Tight Wad Town.

Then the dumb ghost store was open after all but Chooch came out empty-handed in less than 30 seconds. “That shit’s expensive,” he mumbled. I don’t know what price-points he had imagined….

Henry had to run and put more money in the frustrating meter before we could venture off to the FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH which I actually almost forgot I had wanted to do until I accidentally opened a tourist map and saw it on there. Phew.

When I looked up the Fountain of Youth to see how far we were from it, it told me that it was a 40 minute walk. Oh hon, no. Nope. Uh uh. Not after all the theme park marathon treks we had completed during the week. But then HENRY looked it up because I apparently cannot do anything right when it comes to direction things, and determined that it was only 17 minutes.

Therefore, we walked.

We passed the most beautiful, and also OG, Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum! It used to be some rich dude’s house. I don’t know the details. That is what Google is for.

Realty Cafe was on the way and I declared that it was COLD BEV time.

Hello, this place was so cute and the owners (seen in that $3.99 magnet on the left, AND YES I BOUGHT ONE FOR MY FRIDGE) were fabulous. Henry paused for a split second before ordering and the dude was like, ‘You want an iced mocha.”

And Henry said, “Yes.”

I got an iced chai latte.

Chooch got whatever this neon yellow liquid causing him to scrunch his face.

I lasted one minute into this chess match. I cannot concentrate on chess or most games, actually.

I’m not sure if this house was actually abandoned but it was pretty cool.

Almost to the Fountain of Youth!!

Wow. Look at that stride.

This wall was made of shells, I guess. THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH PROPERTY WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE.

I know you’re going to be SO BUMMED but I am going to end this here, and here is why: MY PERIOD STARTED TODAY AND I AM CRAMPY and also we just sat through an hour+ info session for Chooch’s study abroad program and I need to get up and move. Sorry, blog. I just don’t have anything else to give today.

The second park we went to on our vacation was Sea World Orlando (full recap when I’m not drowsy from hiking in the heat today). Their kiddie land second is themed after Sesame Street and honestly, despite my angry feelings toward Elmo (he ROONED Sesame Street, ok? ROONED it), I thought this was a lovely area.

We have to hit up the kiddie land in every park because they usually have a kiddie coaster and if we’re lucky (is that really it tho?), we don’t need to have a small child accompanying us.

Do you know how embarrassing it is to get turned away in front of small children and their parents for being too grown?

Luckily, the ride op was more than happy to have us board Super Grover’s Box Car Derby and even jovially insisted that we “PICK OUR FAVORITE CAR.”

I don’t even know who Abby Cadabby is (in fact, in my head I kept calling her Abby Cadaver, so…), but we chose her car because it was the last row. I guess if I was pressed for a re-ride, I’d have picked Oscar, or Count if he had a car.

I did, thanks!

When I came out of the bathroom (always feels weird using the restroom in kiddie land when I’m not there with a small kid but I digress), I walked in on Henry asking Chooch to take his picture next to Cookie Monster, so of course I needed to get in on this action too. But every time I asked Henry why he requested this photo, he got SUPER SHIFTY and kept saying DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT.

I had forgotten all about this until just now so naturally, I am back to worrying about it. DOES HE HAVE A MISTRESS? IS HER NAME COOKIE? IS HENRY A MONSTER FOR HER COOKIES?!

I’m spiraling.

I was distracted by CAROUSEL TIME though. There was hardly anyone on it and we walked right on! Later that day, we walked by and the line was like human caterpillar of screaming kids, so good call riding this early. Because you know we can’t pass up that carouselfie opp.

Lol, “we.”

Oh man, this carousel was so adorbs. Strangely though, there was some cutesy Sesame-ish announcement when the carousel started but then the ride itself was silent. No music at all! I wonder if they normally have music playing but something was wrong, because it seemed incredibly strange to me. I mean, even carousels that don’t have legit calliopes just play a recording of carousel music?!

I love forcing Henry to straddle carousel animals. I wonder if he was thinking of Cookie. :(

I would hate Pittsburgh bike lanes much less if they were identified as cutely as Sesame Street bike lanes.

OK, I’m effing exhausted and would very much like to go to bed early (I say that every night but still rarely go to sleep before midnight, hate that for me) so more Sea World content will come later. We had a wonderful day here (except for these two moments) and I would like to memorialize it all with a chaotic cluster of grammatically-fucked words. AND YOU KNOW I WILL.

Hello, I am here to tell you about one of my favorite moments of our vacation. To some people, it might sound like a horrible drag, but…just stick with me.

We got to Busch Gardens Williamsburg early enough that we were one of the first cars in line for parking. The lot wasn’t open yet so we had to wait for about 15 minutes. The thing about amusement parks is that there is so much waiting involved. I guess that can be said with travel in general. So much of our lives is spent…just waiting.

I actually cannot stand the anxiety that builds up like plaque in my heart while waiting for parks to open. Especially Cedar Point. And I even said that I didn’t want to do this shit on this trip, yet here we were. Not so much by choice but because we just left too early from wherever it was that we stayed the night before – I honestly can’t even remember now aside from the fact that it was one of the worst beds I have ever slept on in my life and I threw a big fit. The mattress was like a waterbed without the water! I felt like I was going to flop right out of it!

But I digress.

Of course, when the gates opened and the cars started making their way through, our line came to a standstill because as usual Henry chose the WRONG LINE. He always goes right to the one where someone in front of us doesn’t understand how to pay for parking or starts asking the attendant for, I dunno, Netflix recs. It never fucking fails. So Chooch and I were screaming at him and Henry was shouting, “IT DOESN’T MATTER! IT DOES NOT MATTER!” and some lady in the car next to us called out, “Oh, it matters!” sarcastically because her kid was doing the same shit to her and it was the funniest, heartwarming moment of Coaster Parent solidarity. I loved it.

So then we finally got through and parked the closest to the entrance we have EVER been. Like a row away, ISTFG. But as we’re walking to the entrance, Henry realized he forgot his man-purse or something and WENT BACK TO THE CAR. Chooch and I had our tickets so we were like, “Fuck him” and continued on in. It ended up not being his man-purse and now I can’t remember what it actually was. His eyeglass rollercoaster strap I think. Actually, who cares.

We were behind only ONE PERSON!!  And then somehow, even though there were 5 or 6 gates, we managed to be the FIRST PEOPLE IN THE PARK?? Yo. This day was off to a sweet start.

FIRST!

So, since it wasn’t 10am yet, we could only make it through this first area until we reached the “crossroads” where a park employee was standing sentry. We were still first in the now-larger group of people gathering at this point but weren’t allowed to go any further until the park officially opened. We knew that Pantheon, our most coveted ride du jour, was off to the left somewhere, so we scooted over to that side and stood along the wall.

HOWEVER!!! Some bitchass older man inched his way over so that he was on the other side of us. I was so pissed. Like, how are you just going to pull a bitch move like that when we were clearly at the head of the pack and did the work to get there first??

THEN!!! Two dumb teen boys casually did the “do-doo-doooo” whistle walk right past and got even further than the man did! I was outraged and started to stare them down and they knew it so they wouldn’t look at me. Chooch was like, “Please stop trying to fight with minors” and I was like, “FUCKING RUDE AMERICANS” like I’m not from here.

Because I’m not.

I’m from a beautiful country in my mind where I’m fluent in Korean, the sky is purple, the temps range from 55 to 85, and Josta is the national bev.

(Seriously, long live Josta.)

There was two younger people (like early 20s?) behind me talking about how they didn’t want to run, but they also didn’t want to get mauled over, and I started to really panic now because I didn’t want to run either and I hadn’t planned on it and had hoped that Busch Gardens was not a running of the bulls / rope-dropping type of park but then the clock struck 10 and it was MAYHEM, MARY. Everyone started running. Chooch was at the head of the pack and people behind me started to pass me up so my fight or flight response kicked in as a combination of both I guess and off I went too.

OK, I GUESS I’M RUNNING, I thought grudgingly.

The girl that was behind me talking with the other person about not wanting to run was also running but she FELL on the train tracks and her glasses flew off and I felt so bad but don’t bad enough to stop and help because I had about 15 kids and frat boys that I needed to gain on, and also I had no idea where I was running because this was only my third time at this park and I am awful with directions and also part 2,  I was wearing newish Vans and even oldish Vans aren’t great to run in so you can imagine my misery as my feet slapped the pavement with NO ARCH SUPPORT.

Eventually, I started passing people. Kids were dropping left and right. The two stupid asshole teen boys COULD NOT HANG with this 42-year-old track star, Lucy, and they too eventually dropped out of the race.

Turns out, it was actually kind of far to where the new coaster was, and I almost gave up because my vision was going gray and my lungs were SCREAMING, like they were trying so hard to assist with my breathing but also they’re like, “WE ARE 42 YEARS OLD, HON, CAN YA SLOW IT DOWN TO A JOG MAYBE?”

I vaguely remember sprinting (I can only imagine how I must have looked) over a bridge and as my vision was graying out and the cymbals were crashing in my ears, I looked up just as I was passing the last kid and now the only person in front of me was…

CHOOCH.

And right up past him?

PANTHEON.

We made it. We motherfucking made it.

FIRST! FIRST FIRST FIRST!!!

Well OK, I was second, but still Chooch and I were a team so I’m co-opting his win.

But, LOL, instead of the sweet horns of victory we were instead met with SAD TUBA as we saw a park employee standing at the entrance to the ROPED OFF PANTHEON AREA.

“Is it….closed?” I huffed, bent over with my hands on my aching knees.

“Unfortunately, we’re having some maintenance issues and Pantheon will be having a delayed opening today,” the young guy named EVAN said calmly. “You’re welcome to enjoy the many other rides the park has to offer, such as Tempesto and Apollo’s Chariot which are directly behind you.”

“Can we stay in line?” I wheezed, and Evan was just like, “I mean…” You know these people are instructed by the park to try to deter lines forming in front of closed rides in any way possible and some parks are actually SUPER FORCEFUL about this (COUGH*KINGS ISLAND*COUGH). But I was like, “No, I ran here. I am 42-years-old and blew past all those bitch ass kids, did you see me? Shout out to me, right? Also I  came here from *wheeze* Pittsburgh specifically to ride this *pant* so please don’t make me leave.”

Now some little kid had also made it over to us and his family caught up with him around the same Henry meandered over like fucking Huckleberry Finn strutted through a meadow I have no idea where I’m going with this but I was still bent over, huffing painful breaths of what sounded like PLEURISY* into my knees, and he started cracking up because it wasn’t even open.

*(I have been obsessed with pleurisy ever since I got my grubby little hypochondriac child hands on a copy of the Merck Medical Journal and then kept it on my nightstand for some light bedtime reading. I always think that I have this anytime I have even the slightest twinge in my chest!)

Sandals Guy was behind us from the beginning with his son and wife. I heard him talking to the parents of the small kid who made it to Pantheon after us, and he was saying that his family were big coaster enthusiasts but then said that King’s Island was owned by Paramount and that Carowinds was a “world class park” like OOOOOH-kay buddy boy. He eventually turned his attention to us and I told him we came from Pittsburgh so he started trying to get me to care about some cavern that his family had just went to and made me look at pictures of it on his phone and it just made me real uncomfy, swiping through a  stranger’s phone, you know?

Then I didn’t like him anymore because he was saying to the other family, “Wow and your boy here was the first one in line for this too! I saw him running the whole way here, like lightning!”

LIES.

EGREGIOUS LIES.

THIS IS ERRONEOUS.

MORE SYNONYMS FOR BULLSHIT.

Chooch and I locked eyes and telepathically exchanged hexes. Like hell that bitch kid was first! If he was first then why were Chooch and I at the front of the damn line? BECAUSE WE WERE THE CHAMPIONS.

WE RAN LIKE THIS WAS THE ORIGINAL MOTHERFUCKING OLYMPICS AND THE GODS WERE DOING THEIR ANCIENT-ASS VERSIONS OF TIKTOK DANCES IN THE CHEERING SECTION.

WE DID IT ALL FOR YOU, PANTHEON.

Meet Benjamin and Zach. Poor Zach was tasked with continuously walking the line to inform everyone that the ride was down and there was so estimated time frame. Benjamin was the more-senior ride op, from what I could tell, and he would periodically come down from the ride’s station, where maintenance was doing the damn thing, and get on the little microphone thing to implore us to move on with our lives and ride other things.

Every time he came down the sidewalk, the mom of the non-first kid would scoff in disgust, “Oh here he is again” and her husband yelled, “SAVE YOUR BREATH!” So after Benajmin gave his canned spiel for the 3rd time, an hour into our wait (oh, yes we had crossed the 60 minute threshold by now), he walked all the way down to us and said to me and Chooch, “You guys are die hards, I love it” and fist-bumped us (I felt SO SEEN) and then he goes, “Which one of you said ‘save your breath’?” and shook the dude’s hand! It was so funny, but I actually had really started to despise both families behind us after a point because while their little barbs were funny at first, it was starting to wear on me. Look, none of us woke up that morning wanting this to happen!

The one lady kept saying in her annoying South Carolina drawl that they were there yesterday and the same thing happened but it was because of a staffing issue, so every time one of these poor employees would try to say that maintenance was working on it, she would call out, “Yeah, OK we know you’re just waiting for more employees to get here!” so Benajmin was like, “Look, between just the three of us standing right here, we have enough people to run this ride right now, but we literally can’t until maintenance gives us the all-clear.”

She was such a fucking know-it-all! If any of these assholes were actually “thoosies” like they were pretending to be, then they would know that the manufacturer of this coaster is notoriously unreliable. (But fuck, Intamin makes some world class coasters though so I can’t hate them.)

This is my boy Evan, who was stuck having to look at us all morning and as if that wasn’t bad enough had to deal with people CONSTANTLY coming up to him and asking, “Is this not running or something? When will it open?” POOR FUCKING EVAN. We were like, “You should just start making things up like, ‘it ran out of gas.'”

I sincerely liked this kid and I hope that he liked us too because we were literally the only ones at the front of the line not being entitled dicks. I also appreciated that he was ONLY divulging behind-the-scenes info with me and Chooch. It made me feel like a VIP.

Like here in this picture, you can see the guy who told Benjamin to “Save his breath” BERATING THE MARKETING DIRECTOR. What the fuck is she going to do to solve this problem?? She is in marketing not maintenance!

Furthermore, I don’t know why this guy even gave a shit because he was barely in line. He left his wife and who I assumed was the older daughter to be placeholders while and his kid WHO WAS NOT FIRST kept running off to ride other rides!!

Eventually, the Know-It-All It’s-A-Staffing-Issue family of Karens called it and left the line after about an hour or so. Good riddance! Go find the nearest restroom to lodge your complaints up your asses. About 30 minutes later, the Sandal Dad family also called. The dad wished us luck and honestly I should clarify that none of these people were *that* bad. They were just middle-aged and grouchy, and I don’t care how many parks they allegedly attend, if this was true, then they would have more patience. Once we started really getting into park-hopping, we learned super quickly that you gotta walk into these parks with low expectations. If you go in thinking that lines will be short, rides won’t break down while you’re in line, and that you’re gonna collect every single coaster cred…

….don’t go to Cedar Point, lol.

We learned the hard way.

Now that the old asses were gone, we had young people behind us! I was so happy to have refreshing convo happening behind us. We now had the girl who fell and her brother, and a group of 3 young people: I think two of them may have been a couple, and then their third-wheel friend who was SO COOL. All of these people were in their early 20s I would and I was trying to breathe in their youth.

The third wheel girl cried out at one point, “OMG I love your nails! Did you do that yourself??” and I realized she was talking to ME, an OLD?! Then she told her friend to look at them.

“Yeah!” I said, fluttering my fingers. “Thanks!”

“And they match your shoes too! I love it!”

“I like to coordinate,” I blurted out because I couldn’t think of anything cool to say and couldn’t catch any of the current slang swirling around in my mouth fast enough to put sound behind it.

Chooch straight scowled at me and turned his back in embarrassment. I think his favorite part was when I thrust my hand toward the guy in their group (who earlier mentioned that he had waited 4 hours for VelociCoaster and it was worth it), and said, “Do you want to look, too?” and he goes, “Oh. Yeah, OK sure.” We were going on 2 hours at a standstill, you guys. Your girl was getting slap-happy.

Suddenly, a voice called out from the nearby Tea Cups, “Why are you guys in line for a ride that’s not even running?” Turns out it was a group of middle school boys. The guy who I forced to look at my nails fired back, “Why are YOU in line for the TEA CUPS?”

“Because it’s the best ride here!” one of them shouted back and they all cheered like dumbos.

“What a lame response,” the guy who looked at my nails said. “If they had said, ‘because at least it’s running’, that would have been a sick burn. But…best ride here?”

“We’ve now reached the point of this endless wait where we’re having battles with kids over which ride is the best,” someone said, and I deliriously cracked up.

Then!! Evan got some intel in his headset and came over to tell me that the issue was that one of the trains was not connecting to the WIFI. I….didn’t know what that meant but I made an appropriate-sounding, “Ah,” to fool him.

Then I heard the Girl Who Fell and her brother (the things you learn in line: family trees) say something about how she was going to punch someone in the face if it was really a staffing thing so I passed on the WIFI message and it turns out that the brother used to work at Carowinds and he said that this was a legit thing! Apparently newer coasters have control panels that use WIFI…OK I can’t remember. But this was something that genuinely happens, I guess.

And then, at exactly the TWO HOUR mark, Evan quietly turned around and unchained the entrance to the steps. No loud announcement, just a quiet, “Go head, guys, have fun” and Chooch and I took off. We still had to walk (run) up a small set of steps, over a bridge, down the steps, across the Pantheon courtyard, and FINALLY through the ride entrance, where a Pantheon worker was standing and nodded at us. Chooch and I ran all the way through the empty line, up the steps to the station, and straight to the front row. I like front row on launch-coasters, OK?!

Apparently no one else ran because it took a bit for all our friends (and Henry ugh) to catch up and fill the inaugural train.

The energy in the station was palpable! It was like we all had BEEN THROUGH something. Also, it was so crazy to now see Evan and Zach in the station and not standing in front of the closed-off line delivering “no news” to all of the people who were demanding ETAs! They had joined Benjamin and some other crew and it was exciting to see them doing their thing. Then one of the ride operators was like YOU GUYS READY FOR THE FIRST RIDE OF THE DAY?? and we were SCREAMING. Oh, the vibes, you guys. I’m getting all teary as I write this.

I’m shit at reviewing coasters. I have a hard time remembering various element names, etc., but this ride exceeded expectations. I had watched so many videos on it and it is so hard to imagine how great it actually is. I was low-key worried that it was going to be over-hyped and that I would regret waiting 2 hours. But yo. This fucker is fucking satanic I swear to god. That backward launch over the hump and up into the spike is BONKERS.

When we returned to the station, the whole train exploded in uproarious cheers and applause (Henry probably didn’t join in though – FYI he ended up sitting near the back with the DAD OF THOSE DICKHEAD TEENAGE BOYS WHO TRIED TO CUT! The boys didn’t make it on the first train with us though because they opted to wait for the back row).

Our young people friends!! A memorable moment was when the girl on the left was inexplicably bleeding from her elbow in line and the friend who liked my nails sprung into action by asking Evan if there was first aid anywhere.

“Dammit,” Henry mumbled. “I had band-aids – from Korea! – in my bag—”

“–purse,” Chooch and I corrected in unison.

“—but I left it in the car.”

Don’t worry! She procured a band-aid for her elbow-dripping friend from “some mom back there in line.”

See?? I don’t carry band-aids on my person so I’m still cool and not entirely mom-ish.

Even if you have eyeglass straps, they still make you put your glasses in the bin so Henry looked like this on the ride ^^^ lol.

I really wish that anyone reading this could just jump into my blog and have a virtual ride on Pantheon because it is so hard to put in words how outstanding this coaster is.

Our friends behind us!

WE EARNED THIS! When we got off the ride, Evan was like, “Well, was it worth it?” and I gushed, “YES IT WAS AWESOME!!” and Chooch gave me the “stop talking” eyeball warning.

Stand back a little bit farther, Henry. People can still see us.

I had so much love in my heart for the Pantheon crew that I made a point of stopping by customer service before we left that night. I was so excited to give them the names of each employee and gush about how awesome they were in light of all the bullshit vitriol they had to catch from a lot of the park-goers. We have never had a bad experience at Busch Gardens and the ride operators have always been so awesome, but these customer service hags were AWFUL. First of all, there were three of them there behind the counter, chatting away as I walked up. They looked at me and then continued their conversation. Finally, the youngest broad asked if she could help me, like yeah duh that’s why I’m not here and certainly not to eavesdrop on your lame-ass chit chat.

Anyway, I told the bitch that I wanted to give props to the Pantheon ride crew and I had to wait for her to pull out a binder for comments while pausing to talk more to her co-workers. I was so excited to tell her how awesome these guys were and she never once smiled, said “That’s so great to hear,” nothing. She just went through the motions of writing down what I was telling her and then said, “Anything else? OK, thanks.”

I should have said, “Yeah, there’s something else. I’d like to also put on record an account of a shitty experience I had with a park employee” and then this would be the part where I menacingly read her name off her name tag. But in reality, I just walked away. I was shivering from Pantheon night rides and I wanted to eat some of the delicious cookie that Henry had just purchased.

Additional things that happened on additional rides later that day:

• Zach remembering us and exclaiming, “You’re back!” and me saying, “The wait was a LITTLE shorter this time, ha ha.” (We only waited about 25 minutes for the back row!)
• We got back in line toward the end of the night and there were verbal fisticuffs when two meatheads cut the line and another meathead called them out and it was super passive aggressive and then the guy who called them out yelled, “let’s all cheer for the line jumpers!” and it was tense but also kind of exciting?!
• On our last ride of the night, there were two guys in front of us. Their friends were on the train right before, so when that train came back, one of them ran over and took the one guy’s hat and the other guy’s glasses for them so that they wouldn’t have to put it in the loose article bin. But then THE RIDE BROKE DOWN. So the one guy goes, “Awesome, now I can’t see” and his friend said, “And now my hair looks like this” and made an annoyed gesture toward his head. WHY WAS THIS SO FUNNY TO ME, I ACTUALLY LAUGHED OUT LOUD AND CHOOCH WAS SO EMBARRASSED. Anyway, the ride was only down for 10 minutes and then Chooch and I got the nightride of our lives (well, after Hat Hair and Bad Eyesight Guy).
• There was a guy in line front of us on one of our rides and he had these interesting lines of symbol tattoos. I asked Chooch if he knew what he was and he said no. But then a few minutes, Chooch said, “Oh, it has something to do with Naruto.” I was like, “Wow Chooch really has his finger on the pulse of…whatever Naruto is.” Then we were in line for the next ride and I saw someone with a shirt with the same symbol shit on it! “Did you watch Naruto or something?” I asked Chooch, and he admitted that he only knew it was Naruto because in the Pantheon line, there was some young girl in line behind us acting like an idiot and she bumped into the tattoo guy. He turned around and said, “I like your shirt” and then pointed to his tattoo. She was wearing a Naruto shirt. After this, I couldn’t stop seeing Naruto shirts at every turn. It was weird.

We were recapping our Pantheon experience for days and days afterward, and I mentioned that I thought the 2-hour wait actually made it more memorable. 100% worth the wait.

“Yeah,” Chooch agreed. “It’s about the memories you make along the way.”

Chooch should get that tattooed on his neck. And I want “That Time I Ran to Pantheon” on my tombstone.

Here is a video of Pantheon. Because, Pantheon.

And here’s my FAVORITE coaster vlogger’s experience:

P.S. The formatting of this post is trash and the font mysteriously shrunk near the end. I cannot spend any more time trying to fix this so apologies for causing you to squint.

I’m going to insert some filler on here because I have a sneaking suspicion that no one really gives a shit about roller coasters and people I want to kill while standing in line. So today, instead of PART 2 OF BUSCH GARDENS WILLIAMSBURG OMG, let’s look at 30ish pictures from the first part of our day in St. Augustine, Florida.

If you don’t know, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United States and it was founded in 1565! You bet your sweetly-spanked ass that I googled that fact. I did know about St. Augustine, generally, though, all the way back to fifth grade when we did a chapter on SETTLERS in history class or whatever. For some reason, and this REALLY is singed into my fossilized brain, I was completely panicked about the upcoming test so my Aunt Sharon helped me study. She made me index cards and helped me come up with mnemonic devices, and because of this, Ponce de Leon is like a legend in my mind. I can’t remember exactly what we came up with for him other than associating him with the Fountain of Youth, but for Jacques Cartier, she was like “THINK OF MY CARTIER WATCH” and I was like “OH YEAH GOOD ONE” and  even though this was just some dumb fifth grade test, it is literally something that I think about every now and then because it’s one of the best memories I have of Sharon. She was a LOT of conflicting emotions toward the end of her life, and caused me lots of grief and stress, but she was also a fucking awesome aunt for ALL of my childhood, when it mattered most.

Um OK wow, I didn’t intend for this to be all that, but cook on, Erincheffer.

The last time we drove through Florida, I desperately wanted to stop but Henry was all, “Ew barf history gross gag.” This time, I got my way. The older Henry gets, the easier he is to wear down.

Plus, we had a full day on Friday of nothingness, since all of our Florida parks had been satisfied, and we wanted to eventually start our drive home that day. And St. Augustine is on the way!!

We got there bright and early, right before the rush of tour groups and school field trips and traipsed around Castillo de San Marcos. I like historical shit as much as the next bitch, but I opted to not pay to tour the innards of the fort and chose instead to just enjoy the scenery on the outside. We had plans to go to the Fountain of Youth later anyway, and I knew Henry would go, “PICK ONE, WE ARE NOT DOING EVERYTHING. THIS STUFF COSTS $$$$. ROAR.”

It made me feel like we were on a movie set or something I don’t know how to explain it LEAVE ME ALONE.

I’ll tell you, it felt strange not running from one attraction to the next but instead, walking leisurely like regular people on vacation. Well, at least for the morning….

HI. IT ME. My feet were so broke-down by this day. It was nice to lean against something, briefly.

This one’s best because you can’t see my idiot face lol JUST KIDDING I AM TRYING TO LIKE MYSELF BUT REWIRING ONES THINKING TAKES TIME. Ask me in a few months (years lol) how it’s going.

I love this picture of me and Chooch so much because he 100% did not wish to pose next to a palm tree even though I did because I had suddenly realized that SHIT it was our last day in Florida, and we had not taken advantage of any palmy photo props.

“It’s not even a good palm tree!” Chooch scoffed in disgust. Just for that I made him pose with other palm trees on his own lol.

Smile, fucker!!

Why is this actually an OK picture of Henry? What is he thinking here?

I’ll go first: Remembering the time he visited a record store with his SERVICE buddies and slowly flipped through all the Pia Zadora albums. Obviously, this was before he went AWOL.

Then I got bored of that area, so we went to the quaint little shopping/historical district and saw THE OLDEST WOODEN SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE USA OMG WHOA YOU DON’T SAY.

The first place we went to was Auggie’s Donuts but they weren’t open yet, so we explored the candy shop that shared the space with them. I bought two packages of licorice: one Dutch, one Finnish, because ever since I became An Old, I have a newly acquired taste for licorice. SPECIFICALLY Finnish and Dutch licorice, and I think also Swedish? There was some DIVINE and STRONG stuff I bought several years ago at Jungle Jim’s. I took it to work thinking it would be a big hit with the rest of my International Candies but NO ONE THERE LIKED IT. Not even Glenn, oddly. So, I ate it all and now that I’m typing away about this, I want very badly to go back to Jungle Jim’s and stock up on some more.

Anyway, this Tid Bitz one was SO FUCKING GOOD I WANTED TO DUMP THE WHOLE BAG INTO MY MOUTH IN ONE SITTING which wouldn’t have been that much of a feat considering “one sitting” was basically a 5 hour car ride later that day.

Finland knows what’s up.

While we were in there, the neighboring HOT SAUCE store opened and Chooch was like “FIRST” as he ran across the threshold but then wailed, “YOU HAVE TO BE 18 TO TASTE TEST.” The lady behind the counter laughed and said, “Oh you’re ok, hon, go for it.” And he basically tasted as much hot sauce as he could before he got sick.

Don’t worry, we bought a bottle of BBQ sauce and a jar of hot pepper flakes for pizza since we were close to overstaying our welcome.

Then the donut guy told Henry it would be about 10 minutes for his fryer to heat up or something, I wasn’t caring much at that point, and for some reason the desire for donuts had shifted from me to Henry, who was like, “WE CANNOT LEAVE NOW, IT WILL BE CROWDED ONCE HE OPENS” and I was like, “Dude, I’m not standing here watching oil heat up, I want to go look at stuff” so Henry stayed back at the donut place (I think he was still in that GET TO THE COASTER BEFORE THE LINE GETS LONG mentality) while Chooch and I went off on our own.

LOL, Chooch and I off on our own!

First, we went to the PUBLIC RESTROOMS! It was uneventful although Chooch felt that the men’s room was haunted. I can’t remember why now but it was probably a dumb reason.

We had to walk past some stupid shops selling PRO TRUMP novelty shirts and hats because FLORIDA, but then we stumbled upon this gem: St. Photios National Shrine!! RELIEGIOUS SHIT!! The reason why I noticed it was because there was HARMONIOUS MONK CHANTS wafting out of the entryway!

It was basically calling to me.

The whole little garden area was filled with the mournful music.

MY.

FUCKING.

JAM.

Since it was still so early, we were the only people there!

THE ONLY GREEK NATIONAL SHRINE IN THE COUNTRY. If you are Greek and religioso, you probably already know this.

There was recently some sort of drawing contest for kids and the entries were displayed in one of the rooms. Not gonna lie, it was the room we spent the most time in.

A NINE YEAR OLD MADE THIS.

Amazing. I would proudly display this on my wall if it was for sale.

I only took a picture of this because some old guy in front of me did lol.

Then we walked through the gift shop and I wanted everything. But then I didn’t have my credit card and stupid HENRY was still waiting for donuts so we had to leave the gift shop. The lady was so nice too and told Chooch to go right ahead and handle the nesting dolls at his leisure and I always have to pause and regroup when this happens because to me, he is still that 6-year-old bull in a China shop and not an almost-16-year-old who can handle himself appropriately around delicate items.

I swear it was just yesterday when we walked into an antique shop in Philly and the old man proprietor locked his attention on Chooch immediately and was SO CLENCHED, just waiting for him to break something so he could force to pay for it.

I’ve definitely referenced this before but every time we made it out of shops like with nothing being broken, I always think of the time when I was a kid in Italy (Assisi I think?) and we went to some Delicate Items shop. My grandma was like TOUCH NOTHING and then continued to convey this order to me numerous times thereafter with nothing more than her lips pulled into a taut line.

Yo, I made it out of that shop with nary a casualty under my belt.

But you know who didn’t?

GRANDMA.

Oh it was delicious. The sweetest irony. She ended up knocking several glass things off of a shelf with her gigantic purse as she turned around.

GRANDMA BROKE IT AND BOUGHT IT.

Well, Grandma broke it and PAPPAP bought it, to be clear.

Then we walked off the main road onto a path that led us to some old timey textile shop run by a man WHO NEVER BROKE CHARACTER even when we were talking about Apple Pay. At first, Chooch goes, “I’m not going in there, there’s nothing—-oooh, a sword I want a sword!” so inside we want. He did not get a sword (it was actually a dagger anyway, nice try) but he did get a “booty box” and a compass necklace thingie.

We were able to handle this without Henry’s aid because, as previously mentioned, Chooch asked if he took Apple Pay and he was like, “AYE MATEY” or something, he wasn’t a pirate so I don’t know why I defaulted to arrrr speak but he was something….old timey. Anyway, Chooch had to help me use it because I never do it right and he gets soooo frustrated and then it turns into a big deal where the cashier wants to insert themselves into our bickering and it’s a hassle, which is why I always just use a physical card when possible.

Technology. Pfft.

Don’t even get me started on NFPs!

No really, you can’t get me started even if you wanted to because I don’t understand them and have nothing to say about that.

Meanwhile, Henry started texting Chooch threats about how if we didn’t start walking back to the donut place, he was going to eat them and Chooch didn’t answer fast enough so then Henry posted a picture of the donuts on Instagram and tagged us and we died of second-hand embarrassment. Why is he like this. Suddenly my inability to use Apple Pay wasn’t so cringey because now OLD ASS HENRY was clobbering around on Instagram, and that was way worse. So now Chooch and I were back to being on the same age-level and making fun of Papa H together.

The dynamics change super-fast with us. Try to keep up.

The donuts were OK. Not really worth waiting for like Michael Myers in a bush. But OK Henry.

I wish this place was open because I would have taken a crepe over those donuts! The donuts were good, don’t get me wrong, but not like, “OMG IF YOU GO TO ST AUGUSTINE, GET THESE DONUTS.” I mean, if you like donuts in general, then Homer it up, friendos. Don’t let my blasé review sway your doughy decisions.

Anyway, after we inhaled our donut kebabs (they were actually awkward to eat, all impaled on a wooden stake like so), we excitedly lured Henry back to the SHRINE PLACE and he was like, “I’m not going in there” even though it was free to enter, so Chooch, currently on Team Erin, hissed, “MOM WANTS SOMETHING IN THE GIFT SHOP AND YOU HAVE TO BUY IT.” I’m sure Henry was nervous, thinking it was something extravagant and exorbitant, but it was just a $5 cross magnet made from sand and ocean water from the St. Augustine beach!

Also, Chooch got some religious medallion to put in his BOOTY BOX, which is also filled with all of the pressed pennies he collected on this trip.

But just as Henry was thinking he was free to leave after this transaction, we remembered that we needed cash money in order to light a candle. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, fishing for two dollar bills which he then angrily thrust at us like we were going to run off to 1982 and buy a pack of cigarettes instead of lighting prayer candles.

“I lit mine for Ukraine, what did you light yours for?” I asked Chooch after SHOWING HIM HOW TO GET HIS CANDLE TO BURN SINCE HE “COULDN’T FIND THE MATCHES.” Seriously.

4.0 GPA.

0.0 Common Sense.

“Oh, I didn’t know we were supposed to light it for something. I just wanted to light a candle for fun…”

Oh don’t worry, there was much more St. Augustine action. Fountain of Youth, coming soon!

Being back from vacation hurts. In so many ways, lol. I still haven’t gone through all of my pictures, but I do have the ones from our first park, Busch Gardens Williamsburg, all sorted so I will share those today. That’s what we’re doing. I will save my BIG PANTHEON STORY for a separate post because I will probably have way more to say about it than is necessary. You know, the usual.

Super awkward shot but I just love this section of the park so much!

We were waiting for Henry to find out if there was any place in the entire land that served veggie burgers because the last time we ate pizza at FEST HAUS, we all got sick (not like, food poisoned, but more like THAT WAS A LOT OF CHEESE). We were going to eat in the Italian section of the park but the line was extremely long even though the park wasn’t very crowded, so….Fest Haus it is, I guess.

Chooch pointed out the strawberry cake and then I couldn’t not see it so guess who got the strawberry cake? It was Henry. But only because he knew I wouldn’t get it for myself so he got a slice to share. Henry doesn’t care about his gut health so he always takes one for the team.

Dude it was actually quite good.

This time I split one personal pizza with Henry and it was the perfect amount. It did not bind me, nor did I find myself doubled over in extreme intestinal strife for the rest of the afternoon. Guys, we do not come to parks to eat. We come to ride.

Bro.

I actually felt uncomfortable with them performing so close while I was trying to eat and by eat I mean shovel cake into my gnashing maw. Especially when they were trying to shame people for not participating in the Chicken Dance. LOOK LUCY, I like to cluck around with the energy of your average kindergarten birthday party attendee, but not while I’m trying to mow down a thick wedge of strawberry cake. Thanks, and kindly piss off with your lederhosen, Tuba Terry.

Meanwhile, Chooch had raspberry cheesecake which he somehow stuck his elbow in, as evidenced by the schmear of raspberry glaze I spotted on his sleeve shortly thereafter.

Henry told him to go to the bathroom and use cold water, and he proceeded to return to us with half of his sleeve drenched in water, because instead of just spot-cleaning, he stuck his entire forearm under the faucet.

That’s my brilliant son, people. Gifted status. Don’t be fooled.

It was in the 50s on this day which was fine at first but as the day went on, I started shivering and then couldn’t stop and then eventually I was practically convulsing and Chooch was yelling IT IS NOT THAT COLD, STOP IT but I could barely hear him because my ear canals were frosted over.

We were really concerned about the potential crowds on this trip, being spring break and all, but it seems that our school district’s spring break falls later in the season than most so we pleasantly surprised at the crowd levels for Park #1! Granted, this was still a Saturday and the weather wasn’t TOO bad, but we were still enjoying station waits and/or walk-ins for some rides, although the “crowds” did seem to come in waves. For instance, we walked onto Apollo’s Chariot earlier in the day, came back in the afternoon and walked away after seeing a – gasp – line, but then got a station wait a bit later. It was almost as if the crowds were moving in a clump. And that was fine with me!

Griffon is so photogenic! We didn’t ride it on this visit though. Dive coasters just aren’t our favorites. We did ride Alpengeist though (pictured in the shot above this one) and it was the first time we actually had to “wait” in a line, and it was only about 25 minutes but spoiled Chooch was not having any of it. He gets so surly sometimes.

Even when the sky is gloomy, this park is still so lovely.
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Now that I think about it, I don’t even think any of us fought the whole time we were there?!

YOU GUYS. Remember last summer when I was so sad that I didn’t get to ride LochNess because of dumb stupid idiotic lightning?? Well, I got my redemption ride.

It wasn’t as great as I remembered it to be, aside from the EPIC TUNNEL/CAVE THING. Unfortunately, I was too concerned with the fact that some asshole in front of us had his phone out the whole time, so then I spent the second half of the ride in fear of needing plastic surgery once my face is done being a Samsung billboard.

My favorite part of Busch Gardens is the walkway down by the water! There are steps next to the entrance of Lochness and it always feels like a secret.

Mr. McDonald’s pays for his own stupid fucking games now!

F R E E D O M.

Here are the Robbins Males, in line for Verbolten, which they both thought was WAY TOO LONG yet only  took about 20 minutes and everyone knows that Verbolten is the best ride in the whole damn park and 100% worth the wait, so can it.

(OK, Pantheon is the new Daddy of this joint, but Verbolten is still a solid coaster. I always my laugh my fucking face off on it.)

I have no idea which ride line we were in for this. Everything is a blur.

Seriously though this park is gorgeous.

Oh! Here’s a great story. I had been craving ice cream ever since earlier that morning when I saw one of my ENEMIES (we will talk more about this in a separate post) indulging in a cone while waiting in line for Pantheon. The last time we were at Busch Gardens, we couldn’t find any ice cream places that were open because even then, a lot of (if not most) parks were understaffed due to Covid. But I figured out that he procured this icy delight at Roman Frieze. This also worked out well because it happened to be the same place that was selling the pineapple Dole Whip served in a pineapple that kept taunting Chooch throughout the day. (“I REALLY HAVE TO HAVE ONE OF THOSE,” he kept announcing, and I don’t know why but the image of Chooch walking around spooning himself ice cream from a pineapple while wearing a hoodie just made me LOL.)

So we get in line for the damn ice cream and it’s all confusing because some worker tried to get us to leave the line and go to a new line that he had just started but we were already nearly to the counter and other people were already getting into the new line so I politely declined his offer. But he kept pushing for us to go to the new line and I said, “But I don’t want to lose our spot?” and he gave me this shit-eating OK HAVE IT YOUR WAY look, like I’m some big stoop passing up his once in a lifetime offer.

I guess you had to be there but he was for real stressing me out and then Henry didn’t want him waiting on us because he was touching door knobs and people’s backs with his gloves on and then didn’t change them when he got back behind the counter.

But then he did change his gloves so Henry unclenched.

I wanted the KIDS SUNDAE because sprinkles and whipped cream seemed like a delectable choice at the moment, but when I ordered it, the LINE MISMANAGER instantly grabbed a waffle cone and started filling it up with softserve. I thought that maybe he was doing someone else’s order first because now that there were two lines, it was chaos in there. But then he squirted it with whipped cream and did all the other FIXINS and as it dawned on me that this my KIDS SUNDAE, I said to Henry, “You can just have that and I’ll order it again but specify that I want it in a cup.”

BECAUSE I ASSUMED THAT A SUNDAE WOULD AUTOMATICALLY BE SERVED IN A CUP IN THE FIRST PLACE?

Henry started to protest but I swiftly took the waffle cone, passed it off to him like a frozen Olympic torch, and then placed my do-over order.

Oh meanwhile, Mr. Economics blanched at the price of the Dole Whip in the pineapple (it was like $12 I think) and opted for just the Dole Whip in a cone. His McDonald’s paychecks are really teaching him the value of a dollar, for sure lol. Everything is SO ASTRONOMICAL to him now.

As we sat down on a wall to eat our icy snacks, I peeped Henry’s pout. “What’s your problem?” I asked.

“I didn’t want this!” he cried, chopping a hand toward his KIDS SUNDAE cone. “I wanted DOLE WHIP!”

Chooch and I promptly cracked up.

I forgot that this happened or else I would have included it in some of the postcards I sent, lol.

Later, we had a weird experience in line for Invadr because the family in front of us were annoying but in a strange way. It was three young kids (an older girl and her two little brothers) and they all had SUPER BIZARRE cartoon voices and the mom looked like Biggest Loser: Little House on the Prairie edition, I’m sorry, that was mean but this was the thought that passed through my asshole brain as we stood in line behind her.

The kids weren’t bad by any means, but it was their voices, man. Their voices, especially the girl’s, were like Rugrats IRL. Like an adult doing theatrically fake child voices. Like Elmira on Tiny Toons. Just really strange. And then they were playing this weird game about how many cookies something would cost and I swear I saw Chooch’s ghost leave his body. He was like, “I’m outta here-yaaaaaaaa.”

Anyway, while we were standing in line, Chooch was watching the train go past and suggested that we ride it when we were done on Invadr (really great wooden coaster, btw). So when we got off Invadr, Chooch and I ran straight to the train platform and made it JUST IN TIME. We scrambled into a row and then saw Henry calmly walking up the ramp. He saw us and shook his head.

“Thanks for telling me where you were going,” he huffed, having JUST made it before the train departed. LOLOLOL.

Chooch said I looked possessed here. Thank you! How sweet.

This is Chooch turning around to see what was screaming behind us and why its keeper wasn’t doing anything about it. I really hate screaming children.

Chooch took this right before we left – Henry and I doing our best “couple pose.

”

I left out all of the PANTHEON stuff because it deserves its own post. But I will tell you that after eating that ice cream, my body temperature plummeted, combined with being whipped into oblivion on coasters on a 50ish degree night, and I was shivering so hard by the end of the night that my body was straight WRACKING. Chooch was appalled by this and at one point yelled, “IT IS NOT EVEN THAT COLD!” and was even inspired to look up the weather when someone in line was also saying how cold they were.

“OK, you’re over here shivering, that person over there is whining about being cold, IS IT ACTUALLY COLD? I’m looking it up,” he said, because this kid is hot-blooded. Of course once he saw the temperature, he gave me the ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS look because it really wasn’t THAT COLD but somehow IT WAS?

Then I lost my voice at one point too and panicked because what if I had gotten Covid, but then I woke up the next morning and felt 100%, so I guess it was just all the screaming and being cold. I do get cold extremely easily.

/abrupt ending.

This morning was very boring so I didn’t LiveBlog, although I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that we stopped at QuikTrip and got REALLY GREAT lemon bar lattes. Holy shit yo that shit was hot, sweet, elixir from the heavens.

We made it to Carowinds, park number 7, around noon-thirty. It looked like it wasn’t crowded and Fury was nearly a walk-on. What sorcery is this?!

Sadly, I was unable to enjoy my ride because the asshole in front of me was blatantly holding his phone above his head the whole time so I was trying not to get smashed in the face.

Also? Does Fury feel slow AF now because we have been spoiled this past week by so many amazing coasters?! I was actually disappointed.

Then we rode Copperhead Strike which I will admit to liking better this time around, maybe because we were in the back.

So that was ok and the line was only about 25 minutes.

Chooch still needed to get some credits that we missed the last time but one of them – the Vekoma boomerang, had a long-ass line for absolutely no reason other than that GP love boomerangs because they have no taste.

So we skipped that and went to Kitty Hawk which is a family Vekoma suspended and has the slowest ops ever, omfg.

Growing old in line so chooch can get a dumb credit.

Another one that he needed wasn’t running, so we settled for Ricochet which ended up breaking down while we were in the long-ass line but that was a BLESSING because there was a mass exodus so we were able to move up almost to the front. Maintenance arrived quickly, fixed the issue within 5 minutes, plus another 5 minutes of test-cycling the cars and we were back in business.

We actually got Henry to ride with us.

This was right before the ride broke down when the line was still long, looking up food options for when we leave. For as shitty as Carowinds is, we at least all got along for the few short hours we were there.

Is it tho?

Anyway, Chooch got 2 credits, still needs 2 (3? I think there might be another kiddie one) more so I guess eventually we have to go back again ughhhh. This is just not an enjoyable park.

Then we had to walk through the parking lot looking for the car amidst a sea of other white cars while Henry’s shoe squeaked miserably and Chooch and I were losing our minds. Then we got in the car and made Chooch share his gummy turtles with us, which are shockingly good.

“Where did you get these again?” I asked.

“I dunno. Orange Land. Orange World,” he answered casually and it made me crack up because the fact that he has a job and buys his own shit now is endlessly humorous to me because it always ends up being dumb shit.

Anyway, I figured I’d start a live blog now because today’s Carowinds sojourn isn’t worth its own post.

YO. We just ate at Bean Vegan Cuisine and I was in food lust, bigly. Thank god I found this joint because we almost ate at some basic diner that basic Henry found.

Dude I knew as soon as we walked in that this was the spot. The options were overwhelming!

BATHROOM GLAMOR.

So one of the few things I crave sometimes that I can’t eat is seafood. I mean, I physically can eat it, but morally I won’t. You know how it is. So when I saw that they had vegan crab dip on the menu, I urged henry to order it for the table.

IT WAS HEAVENLY. Made from jackfruit and definitely had a crab dip texture and flavor. I was hooked.

I got the CHIKN PARM SANDWICH. Fun fact about this bitch, when I was in elementary school I would get so excited when Burger King’s chicken parm sandwich would return. That was my JAM. I can still remember how it tasted.

This was so good, I was screaming inside my head.

Henry got a side of vegan Mac n cheese with his cheese steak and it was everything. Chooch didn’t like it but he is extremely picky with vegan cheese.

Speaking of, he got some cowboy burger and was a big bitch baby because he didn’t like the bbq sauce on it. He did eat most of it but not without whining about it.

Wahhh.

He kept telling us we’re so annoying and I dunno why but this was making me crack up so bad and now I’m slaphappy.

6:55: At a really nice rest area in Virginia that has a little trail behind it which was wonderful!

I asked Henry if he thinks truckers bring broads up there at night and he distractedly said, “Yeah…I mean, no! There are lights back here.”

Mmmm ok.

Then I made a huge production out of getting Chooch to pose for this picture while people of his same age were walking by and watching lololol.

I guess you had to be there.

At least the scenery is better in Virginia.

8:25: Every time we call Henry out for breathing heavy, he goes, “Just be happy I’m breathing.” What a cocky response.

9:00pm: Arrived at the so-so Microtel in Beckley WV and Henry immediately dropped and shattered Chooch’s coveted jar of Georgia peaches from Peach World so that was a whole thing. Good one, Hank.

Well, I guess we’re in for the night because wtf is there to do in BECKLEY at 9:18 but ice my METATARSAL injury thing and read?

PS this piece of shit hotel has EWTN on their cable guide but then it doesn’t come in. I’m so pissed because we’re missing the EASTER MASS VIGIL.

10:20: UPDATE: the power just went out!!! I’m scared – it’s so dark and this is awful. Henry is like OH WELL and got back into bed but Chooch the Sleuth went out to the lobby to get the scoop. He just came back and said that literally no one in the lobby is fazed.

Man, we were watching a really great LIFETIME movie too.

10:23 – ITS BACK!! I said THANK GOD and Henry mumbled “yeah thank god the world almost ended.” It was actually terrifying!!!

Hello from Savannah, Georgia, where we are crashing for the night. We left Orlando early this morning and spent the day in St. Augustine. Much fun was had, at the expense of our feet as usual, and I will relay all of the details at a later date. But for the purpose of this post, I want to talk about the place we ate lunch.

Sarbez.

I may have planned the entire day around this place because hello: a grilled cheese arcade with tons of dive bar aesthetic? Oh yeah, I will make my travel companions go out of their way for this experience.

“Is this it?” Henry the Stoop asked. No, it’s the grilled cheese arcade across the street, Henry.

God.

First of all, THE CHOICES. I almost made a custom g.cheese but then I saw the VEGAN GRILLER which has TEMPEH and I am an avid tempeh eater. Sometimes I like to cut some up and mix it into my morning scrambled eggs. I’m getting very fancy in the kitchen these days.

Chooch got the Hashton Kutcher, sans sausage, and I don’t know what Henry the Meathead got. Who cares.

Wishing I had purchased a chocolate tape for five dollaz.

Alas.

We were assisted at the bar by a really awesome guy named DALE who held our hands through the ordering process. Then he noticed Henry’s VelociCoaster hat and asked, “Were you guys at Universal?” and then we started gushing together over the perfection that is VELOCICOASTER and how it is quite possibly the best in the world and I was like, “FRONT ROW AT NIGHT” and he was like “OH MAN I DIDN’T GET TO RIDE IT AT NIGHT” but at least he lives in the same state as Universal and can hopefully return soon for a night ride.

I legit cannot stop thinking about it.

We also got a pickle dog to share and it was SO GOOD. A pickle deepfried in cheese, on a bun, with some type of amazing sauce. Yeah BOY-O.

Hallelujah! Cheesus has risen.

(Vegan Cheesus, that is.)

Not sure what type of vegan cheese they use there but it was delicious and had a decent melt to it.

The bathroom was playing Elvis which normally would have been MEH but in this case, it really added to the ambiance.

(Hold on. I’m remembering my sandwich and missing it.)

SING IT SISTER.

Part of the arcade was decorated with a VHS tape wall and it made me laugh because I have tons of these, similarly-labeled, in our dumpster of an attic. I was SUPER into renting movies when I was in high school and then copying them using my fancy-pants dual tape VCR. I miss renting movies from Blockbuster, Hollywood, and our local supermarket’s Iggle Video section, but I *really* miss all of the independent places that were super small with porn in the back. :(

Henry knows all about those types of places. The one I remember the most (aside from Incredibly Strange Video which was my SPOT) was this place in Baldwin called Firehouse Videos. I used to rent horror movies there to watch in my basement with dumb Psycho Mike after eating next door at HOME COOKIN’ where my fave waitress used to make me incredible grilled blueberry muffins, which I would also eat with a side of cole slaw and everyone there was convinced I was pregnant.

Holy shit, thank god that psychopath never actually got me pregnant!!

Back to Sarbez and all of its glorious mirror selfie opportunities.

Henry Wah Wah I Lost My Ball had to call DALE over to help him and Dale was like, “Your ball’s right there, dude” and I wanted to die because Henry is so embarrassing everywhere we go.

Chooch made me play Pong with him and I proceeded to win 7-0 BUT!! I think that I actually wasn’t playing and that it was the computer, because at first I thought I was controlling it but then there were several times when it felt weird so…

Don’t tell Chooch.

He mumbled, “I hate you. I hate this game,” and stalked off to play something else lol.

What a great effing experience. I mean, it made my stomach hurt bigly because I just can’t eat heavy stuff anymore, but it was worth it even though we proceeded to spend the next 2 hours in the car driving to Savannah and bickering, ugh.

Oh well. More travel lies ahead so I guess I should say goodbye and goodnight.

Hello from our dumb hotel in Orlando. Today is a slower day (park we’re going to today doesn’t open until 2pm, blessed be) so I’m just chilling here post-Valhalla donut feast (I split Ube and Berry Berry with Henry, and Chooch had Churro) and I happened to see that the full trailer for the Heartstopper Netflix adaptation has dropped on YouTube so I watched it while Chooch was yelling at me to use my headphones and now I am sobbing because I love this graphic novel series so much. I finished #4 in the car on Sunday so I am even more ready for this.

I highly recommend these books. Highly highly highly. They are everything.

Also, here’s my ube donut:

We actually had a shitty experience there because the people working (not Valhalla employees – they were for the other place in the shared space) had no personality nor the desire to assist us. Then they forgot two things in our order so Henry to go back in twice to get it taken care of. I mean we were the only customers there HOW HARD IS IT.

Still, those donuts are so good that it was worth it.

But yeah, sometimes vegan places can have the shittiest customer service just sayin’.

Then we went to Craft & Common to get coffee to bring back and the experience there was so much better. The girl who waited on us was super friendly and helpful and it made the coffee taste even better to me, TBH.

I would highly recommend this place. Don’t listen to Henry and Chooch – they didn’t like theirs but they also don’t like coffee they just think that they do.

Now we’re going to ORANGE WORLD for souvenirs and then lunch at some point. I will check back! (LUNCH IN AN ACTUAL RESTAURANT AND NOT IN A THEME PARK I AM SO FUCKING STOKED!)

Orange World! Had a much better experience this time – I feel like we got yelled at here by some old lady cashier in 2016 but I can’t remember. I just know that we were extremely unwelcome.

They had barely any postcards though so we went to another gift shop and now chooch is pouting because some lady and all her kids cut in front of him when he was trying to check out and then his dumb Marvel toy thing wouldn’t scan and the cashier made him walk “all the way across the store” to get a new one instead of taking the plastic off.

So he came outside to sulk on a bench.

Just left the hotel again to get lunch. This trash has been sitting on the steps since we got here Sunday night and it’s become A THING. I am simultaneously angry and curious. Every time we come back from somewhere, I shout IT’S STILL THERE WHAT A SHOCKER.

Today, I said, “I wonder how much longer it will stay–” and Henry cut me off to yell, “The whole time! It will stay there the whole time just pick it up and throw it away” but now I literally can’t because I genuinely need to know. If it’s still there tomorrow morning when we’re leaving, I will throw it away then.

There are literally garbage cans at the bottom of every stairwell, I just don’t understand why someone would feel the need to drop whatever that even is right there.

WE JUST ORDERED I AM SO EXCITED IT WAS SUCH A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE SO FAR I AM HUNGRY THOUGH.

Ok. This was the BEST meal I had all damn week, I love faux chix sandwiches soooo much and will choose them over veggie burgers every time.

Chooch got a chicken sub:

Look how enthused he is! We are tired!

I got a kale side salad and my body was rejoicing – “Vegetables! Greens! Bring it!”

Winter Park Biscuit Co, you get an A+.

Ok dudes (in a gender neutral sense), we are headed to Fun Stop Orlando now so I am signing off. Poof.

Hello from the road. Today we are driving to Tampa so I have a moment for a Story Time.

We spent Monday at SeaWorld Orlando and it was AN AMAZING DAY. I will get to all the good stuff in the future but today I want to talk about the only low points, both of which happened in the same ride line, but at different times.

1. Adventures in Babysitting

Chooch and I had been wanting to ride Infinity Falls all damn day because it was hot hot hot and also because we had never been on a rapids ride that has an elevator?! That seemed interesting so even though I don’t often run to get in line for water rides, I was down for this.

However, because it was hot hot hot, this ride was also a HOT commodity, you could say. Oh ho ho.

We walked by at one point in the afternoon and saw that the wait time was allegedly 45 minutes so we ditched Henry and dipped in line. However!! As soon as we got through the entrance, some man ran up to us (literally bypassed the British family behind us) and asked, “Excuse me!! Could my girls ride with you two? They want to ride and—”

I will be honest here and tell you that these events were such a blur that I can’t even remember if I even heard his reason. I am presuming it was that the parents didn’t want to ride. I was so flustered that I just blurted out “ok sure” and that is how Chooch and I ended up with two little girls in our care?! And have you ever seen me trying to talk to young kids? Whooo boy. It ain’t pretty. Chooch was giving me the U SO CRINGE side eye and I returned it with the WHAT DO U WANT ME TO DO head shake.

To their credit, they were extremely well-behaved and not like, running amok through the queue landscaping like some other children were.

We were about 15 minutes from the front of the line when the dreaded ATTN RIDERS announcement came on BECAUSE THE DAMN RIDE WAS DOWN. People started to get out of line and Chooch and I are looking at each other and then looking down at our wards, who were quietly sitting on the ground playing with a rock or something, talking about Jojo Siwa, I don’t know what little girls these days do.

I personally would have kept standing in line without giving it a second thought let me tell you this pertinent piece of the story: About halfway into the wait, I looked down and realized that one of the kids was NOT WEARING SHOES. I remember now that she had ran back to her dad real quick when we were still near the entrance and now it was dawning on me that it was probably because she was GIVING HIM HER SHOES to hold.

You cannot ride these things without shoes!! I remember one time at Kennywood, Chooch and I were on Raging Rapids with strangers and one was a teen girl who took her shoes off before our raft thing even departed and the ride operator was like “put your shoes on” and she was like “no” and the ride op was like “I will not send this raft until you put your shoes back on.” It was a whole thing, ok. Trust me. I was there. You weren’t.

So now I’m fixated on this, of course, because I know my luck and I was certain we’d get up there and the ride op would be like “this bitch needs shoes” and I’d be like “this bitch isn’t with me” and then the people behind us would be like “sir, this bitch lying. The bitch is with this bitch. We saw this bitch’s dad ask the bitch if his bitch could ride with her and this bitch said yes. This bitch is with that bitch.”

And then I’d have to do the walk of shame down the exit ramp with my not-kids while my actual kid likely wouldn’t stay on the ride because that’s just the kind of kid this bitch produced.

So now I’m thinking that maybe this was a blessing. This is my out. I squatted down to tell the girls what the sitch was because they hadn’t heard the announcement. They originally said they wanted to stay and my head filled with comic strip swears so we continued to stand in line but then as more people in front of us left, I was like “OK I’m calling it, I don’t want your parents to be worried” and they agreed.

Of course, the MOMENT we got out of line, an announcement came on that said, “ATTN RIDERS, INFINITY FALLS IS….BACK OPEN!”

Apparently the nice British family behind us had motioned to Chooch that they saved our spot and I initially was like YEAH BOI until I remembered the SHOES so I was like “no we are too far back now and it would be cutting” only because I knew that if we got back in our spot, it would be moot because we still wouldnt have been able to ride because I might be a semi-sociopath when it comes to kids but I’m not so far gone that I would allow two small kids to walk down an exit ramp by themselves and then look for their parents, of course I would go with them.

Chooch was BIGLY MAD at me but whatever, get over it. He could have stayed but the reality of the sitch was that I was not riding this ride in either scenario.

The girls’ mom was waiting at the entrance and I explained the situation about how we weren’t sure how long the ride was going to be down and didn’t want them to be worried and she was like, “No I totally understand thank you for trying!” She was really nice and her kids were really cute and I know it was like tres weird that the dad even pawned them off on us in the first place (Henry was like “little did he know, he gave his kids to the person who hates kids”) but I actually would have had no problem with them accompanying us if it hadn’t been for THE SHOES. Ugh.

It was literally an entire day later when Chooch blurted out 갑자기, “I can’t believe you asked them if their daddy was too scared to ride Infinity Falls–”

“I was trying to make conversation!” I cried in defense of my poor peopling skills.

“—and she was like ‘actually my daddy is very brave.”

Shut up, Chooch Who Spoke No Words At All To These Rando Childs.

2. Piss-Head Aussies

Later on in the day, Chooch attempted again to ride Infinity Falls. The line was a tad bit shorter so we were hopeful.

Right off the bat, I was pissed when an Australian family waved over more family members into their group, requiring them to line-jump about 20 people. I really fucking hate that shit. Do you know how many times Henry gets into line much later than us because he either didn’t run or stopped to get a locker? Do we encourage him to line jump and expect people to step aside for King Henry? NO! WE DON’T! Because line jumping is cause for removal from the park!

Even though I have never seen this happen.

Now I was fixated on these wankers. It was four adults – two couples – and a teenage girl, a boy about 8, and a girl who was maybe 4 or 5. One of the guys and one of the women were both wearing GUCCI tennis shoes.

At a theme park.

In line for a water ride.

Cool!

They were so loud and obnoxious the whole time with their big toothy smiles and hya hya hya laughs, and I know this is awful but I have developed a prejudice toward our friends from down under because of numerous shitty experiences at work (we have four Aussie offices) and this family did not help the cause.

Especially when we were almost to the front of the line and I noticed that the two men walked out of the queue and into a small grassy area. I thought that they were looking through a fence at the rapids ride, because the little boy was also with them, but the women in the group were hooting and hollering yes I said hooting and hollering because they were fucking assholes and that is what fucking assholes do, so this is when I really started to pay attention to what was going on, just in time for the boy to go back to the line and the little girl to join the men.

Who proceeded to PULL DOWN HER UNDERWEAR.

AND THEN TAKE THEM ALL THE WAY OFF.

AND THEN CREATE A POTTY SEAT WITH HIS ARMS, SO THAT BOTH OF HER KNEES WERE HOOKED ON HIS ARMS, AND THEN HE AIMED HER BODY SLIGHTLY UPWARD SO THAT SHE WAS BASICALLY A URINATING FOUNTAIN.

Chooch and I looked at each other, totally aghast. Like is this happening. Is this small child being assisted in public urination by this man??

We quickly averted our eyes because neither of us were trying to look at the bare ass of a CHILD?! While both moms and teenage girl were straight cackling back in line.

Chooch said that there were other people who were also watching with stunned looks on their faces but no one said anything because god forbid anyone try to be the voice of reason while standing in line but honestly, I came close. I stood there and GLARED at them and loudly said shit like I CANT BELIEVE THAT JUST HAPPENED THAT WAS SO TRASHY and I REALLLLY wanted to be like EXCUSE ME I DUNNO IF THIS IS COOL IN YOUR COUNTRY…but I’m not gonna like, the one dude looked like a big, slobby bear who wasn’t above hitting a woman and I wasn’t trying to poke that nasty thing. Both women were much much larger than me too and Chooch and I were just out-numbered anyway.

In hindsight, I wish I had said something because they were such white trash motherfuckers the entire time we were in that line, oh well.

Then I had to watch the one mom vigorously pick out a wedgie through her ugly dress. It was so much. Just…so much.

Anyway, I made Chooch take this picture and send it to Henry so he would have somewhat of a visual for when we told him the story, and thanks to this picture he was able to identify them later when the pissing girl through a major tantrum in the middle of the park when they were sitting near him and none of the adults even bothered to stop it. He attempted to record it but Henry sucks at Spy Mode. He’s not like me.

We eventually did get to ride the stupid ride and thankfully didn’t have to ride with the Aussie Pissers especially knowing that the rapids were essentially going to be bathing that little bitch after she pissed without wiping in line.

Well, that’s my story. Goodbye.

Hello I have had no time to pop in here because we have been busy running from coaster to coaster but I’d be remiss if I didn’t update to say that a few minutes ago, Henry was eating his gross Dunkin’ breakfast sandwich and got a stain on his shirt so he was like WHERE IS THE TIDE STICK and I knew where it was because somehow it’s been in one of my travel toiletry cases for like years even though I would never know how to use a TIDE STICK so he did his business, changed shirts, and then IMMEDIATELY got another stain. Chooch and I are SO DISGUSTED and I screamed IF YOU WOULD JUST SIT DOWN AND EAT LIKE A CIVILIZED PERSON and now he’s pouting.

Anyway, we spent all day yesterday at SeaWorld and it was ultra successful (a few low points but nothing that ruined the day, we will discuss at a later date, I’ll set up a symposium) (what even is a symposium) and today is the day we have been the most stressed about – Universal Islands of Adventure. I am bracing myself for massive crowds since it’s still spring break but if I have to wait 3 hours for Velocicoaster, so be it.

Still better than sitting at home, logged on to work.

#mantra

#thatsalongmantra

Tomorrow we are driving to Tampa for the day so I should be able to blast out an update then too.

Meanwhile:

Henry: “oh good it only takes 11 minutes to get to Universal” *goes right into the bathroom* lololol

UPDATE FROM UNIVERSAL: Eating lunch. Henry got another stain.

Good morning I guess this will be sort of a live blog as we have a good 11 hour trek to make today and I am sure I will be bored AF. It is currently 8:34 and we just left, WAIT FOR IT, Mama Steve’s!! I’m not gonna lie, when we tacked on Williamsburg to our poorly planned spring break road trip, I cried, “OMG THAT MEANS WE CAN GO TO MAMA STEVES!” Of course chooch and Henry were like, “Where now?” because they don’t get obsessed with things for no reason like I do.

We asked for a booth and even though we were the only people there besides one old guy eating forlornly alone, we were placed at a table because our waitress JANICE who hated us apparently only had one booth in her section but there were ANTS on it.

(Henry just turned up FOREIGNER’S JUKE BOX HERO super loud in the car, for anyone who was wondering what songs would make Henry reach over to give the volume knob a good twist.)

Anyway I know our waitress’s name was Janice because she told us and for a minute I forgot restaurant etiquette and almost introduced myself back to her but after pausing with my mouth agape for entirely too long, I recovered long enough to blurt out, “oh ok nice to meet you.”

I honestly forgot how to human for a hot sec.

At first I was disappointed and was considering not loving Mama Steve’s anymore but then I was consoled by that awesome Blue Flame-esque instrumental covers of pop classics wafting from the ceiling and all the BLUE ACCENTS.

Henry and Chooch just think it’s “ok.” They both ordered omelettes. I noticed Chooch had a pile of tomatoes, peppers, and onions on the side of his plate.

“Why would you get a veggie omelette if you’re just going to pick everything out?” I asked.

“I didn’t pick them out!” he cried defensively. “They fell out! And once they’re by themselves, I don’t eat them.”

The eating intricacies of Chooch.

I ordered whole grain pancakes and then made Henry take two. Janice came over later to take away my cleared off plate and said, “You did good!!” But then saw the reminder of my pancakes on Henry’s plate so I had to fess up. They were good! I just know my limit!!

I made Chooch take a picture of me with Mama Steve’s in the background because I love it here! I want to roll around on the floor and absorb all the 1960s vibes.

(Ok, maybe I’ll put on some coveralls before I do that.)

I didn’t check out the bathroom last time and henry said it was “nothing special” but I said, “I WILL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT.”

Seemed pretty special to me!!

Then we were rung up at the register by a super-mysterious old lady, reminiscent of Katherine Helmand, in a mink stole and she HAD to be Mama Steve, she HAD TO BE. She kept locking eyes with me so I had no good opportunity to take a picture. She even spoke in an accented whisper!!!

She walked past us while we were eating, in all of her strange vintage European elegance, and I said, “That’s my STYLE ICON right there” and Henry said he imagined that being me walking into The Law Firm as an old lady to get my last paycheck, so I guess in Henry’s mind, we’ll be going back to paper paychecks that need to be manually deposited at some point in the future.

Ugh WTF is this shit?? “Bridge Lift In Progress”?!! Ugh.

“It’s not even for a ship. That’s just a tug pulling a barge,” Henry mansplained, causing Chooch to pipe up from the backseat, “whoa ho ho.”

Now Chooch the Engineer is pointing out all the different ways they could have built this bridge to avoid this.

THAT MOTHERFUCKER.

9:23am: Some podunk cop just pulled us over because dumbass Henry was speeding because he “didn’t realize” the speed limit changed. I have no idea where we are, some dumbass hick town in Virginia.

OMG HE JUST GAVE HENRY HIS DUMB TICKET AND AS HE WALKED AWAY HE TURNED AND LOOKED AT ME WITH A FUCKING GROSS LOOK ON HIS FACE AND I FLIPPED OUT AND YELLED EW DONT LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT YOU DUMB COP and henry was like “OK OK” and quickly put up the window and now I am fucking popping off because I hate cops so much HOPE U MET YOUR QUOTA, PIG OINK OINK.

If I had been the one driving, we’d probably be at the police station right now.

#mouth

Time for some Heartstopper 4 action!

A self-serve Dunkin’?? We had to buy a mini-Silk because they didn’t have DAIRY ALTS and it was a huge controversy. (It was my solution BTW) and I didn’t even require the need for DAIRY ALTS because I can drink iced coffee for the coffee flavor unlike Henry & Chooch, the coffee posers.

We are somewhere in North Carolina, btw.

A very pretty rest area in Fayetteville or something. There was drama in the restroom though because only ONE FAUCET worked and some lady was standing there waiting for her mom to finish up so she became the official spokesperson, telling everyone who came out of a stall that “only the one at the end works.” She told the custodian but as I was washing my hands, she left so I felt responsible for telling the people who came out of the stalls after me and then panicked because what if they didn’t pass it on and then the news died out?!

I guess newcomers would have to find out for themselves…

Our first Bojangles! The door was locked but some old man was coming out and let us slip inside. It wasn’t crowded in here at all but APPARENTLY they are short-staffed and locked the doors so they could try to keep up with the drive-thru rush but people inside keep letting in the outsiders like us and now people are getting angry. We had a convo about it with a LOCAL GENTLEMAN and he and Henry bonded over the shared knowledge of how UNDERSTAFFED it is everywhere and then the dude said “HAVE YOU A GOOD DAY” when he left and I so excited to hear it.

HAVE. YOU. A. GOOD. DAY.

I just randomly said something to Chooch in the tune of the Skate or Die Nintendo game song, so then I explained to him what that was and sang it (Skate. Or. Die. Skate or die. Die die die die die) and he got REALLY annoyed and said I’ve told him this numerous times over the years lol. I guess that game really made an impact on me??

This is all I wanted!! A biscuit! And the salad was actually decent.

Anyway, the locked door controversy went on the entire time we were there. It was insane. I admitted that I originally thought the door was locked because the staff was planning a mass suicide.

“Wow,” Henry muttered.

Later on, Henry came back to our booth after getting butter & honey because I started acting like I was insulted that my biscuit didn’t just come with it, right as Chooch and I were fighting because he said only the door on one side of the building was locked and I said they both were. Henry goes, “No they’re both locked—someone was standing outside the other door trying to get in when I walked by.”

“Did you let them in?” I asked.

“Nope,” Henry said, taking a big manly man-man bite of his food. Chooch and I lost it in tandem. The way he’s so ruthless sometimes!

I drizzled honey on my biscuit while Chooch cringed in the background. “You ruined that,” he said.

“You ruined me,” I retorted.

Back in the car, 1:42pm.

Calm down, Henry! Thirst much??

2:24: Pit stop at South of the Border! Chooch was being soooo snotty because he “just wants to get to Orlando” but we’re not doing anything there tonight anyway so what’s the rush?? Little bitch.

I made him pose for this picture and he was soooo bent out of shape about it:

I like this picture of me because my hair is covering my stupid face.

Chooch was mad because I wanted my picture taken on this mule. Then henry rejoined us after getting gas in the car and we went into one of the gift shops but didn’t see anything we wanted.

On the way back to the car, I wanted Chooch to take my picture with Henry this time too on the mules. I was going to ask this guy standing nearby if he’d take a picture of all of us but he was on the phone and his wife was holding a dog. But luckily he got off the phone just in time and said, “You guys want a picture of all of you?” which made Chooch’s whole body contort into a visual groan. I said YES and now we have a FAMILY PICTURE from this racist tourist trap, lucky us!

I told the guy, “you made my day, and ruined his!” pointing to Chooch. Dude was happy to assist!

It’s 3:19 but I forgot to mention that about 30 minutes ago, we stopped at a Pilot and my TREY SONGZ jam was playing – I haven’t heard it in like 10 years but went on auto-pilot mode and dramatically began lip-synching it in Henry’s face at the beverage cooler but he said HE DID NOT REMEMBER IT?! It was on a mixed cd that played for a solid year on repeat in our bedroom?! (This is not an exaggeration?!)

NO WAIT I WAS WRONG AND BECAUSE I AM HONEST I WILL ADMIT IT. It was a different Trey Songz track that was on the mixed CD also I did really like the one playing in Pilot too – it was the first Trey Songz I ever heard!

5:39pm I guess we’re in Georgia now? All I know is that we’ve been in stop-n-go traffic for the last hour and my calf is cramping from slamming on the invisible passenger-side brake. I swear to god Henry speeds up every time the brake lights come on on the cars in front of us. He’s giving me such anxiety.

DUDE. We just stopped at a rest area (and the doors were locked just like Bojangles!! but there was also a sign that said to use the doors in the rear of the building) and each faucet had a Dyson hand dryer attached to it!!! I had to side-eye the little girl at the sink next to me to figure out how to use it.

7:34. We just grabbed some Subway for a quick dinner in the car. We still don’t know if we’re in Florida or Georgia for some reason, but I feel like Henry should know??

Anyway before Subway we went to Race Trac and I got coffee but I can’t drink it because every time I bring the cup to my lips, all I can smell is cigarette for some reason and then I feel like I have an ashtray in my mouth??

Two bikers just passed us wearing WARLOCKS OF FLORIDA vests. Assholes.

7:58pm ok NOW we’re in Florida!

Also? I cannot stop thinking about the nice day we had at Busch Gardens yesterday. It started out as a series of QUESTION MARKS but ended up being just a very enjoyable day and we all got along until we got back to the hotel that night! A-ma–ZING.

We have 2.5 hours left of this never ending drive. I shall hit PUBLISH on this rat’s nest of words now and edit with any updates if anything noteworthy happens. Who can be sure?!

9:18pm You haven’t missed anything other than me quizzing Henry on NCT members’ voices and talking about TOP from BIGBANG doing wine labels as a new venture.

And then totally 갑자기, i said that I missed Wildwood. “It’s so magical there don’t you think?”

Henry, considering this. “Yeah, I mean, it was nice.”

“Oh, ‘it was nice.’ So you won’t commit to ‘magical’?” I cried.

“I mean, nowhere is really magical in my opinion,” was Henry’s defense.

“Ok not even Korea? REALLY?”

“No, not even Korea. Because magical is something that’s not believable and Korea is real…”

“OK WELL ITS MAGICAL TO ME IN THAT I COULDNT BELIEVE I WAS THERE,” I huffed, but COOK ON HENRY.

10:45pm: Checking into our hotel which is directly across from the street from The Drop Tower. Ugh.

Hi technically it’s the next day (12:14am) but I wanted to jump on here before I go to bed to say that I made Henry walk around the area by our hotel with me so that I could acquire my daily step goal (I aim low – 12,000 – which I generally hit by the afternoon except for when we’re literally in the car all day ugh) before midnight. I made it by 11:45! Woo!

Also, we ended walking past the drop tower and it was so unbelievably depressing. I said I wished we had a flower to put down and henry was like “well we don’t, so…” He has no feelings.

Then I took a picture of him next to the Hooters sign across from our hotel so I could send it to Chooch back in the room, because we love to insinuate that Henry has a VIP frequent customer card and has wet dreams about it (Hooters, not the card).

(Maybe the card, too.)

(Maybe also the fire hydrant.)

We’re also across from this bitch. Chooch had a mental breakdown at the one in Pigeon Forge several years ago lol:

Ok good night! SeaWorld tomorrow! Chooch should get his 200th credit!

Hello from somewhere in Maryland I think. We left shortly after I logged off from work at 5:30 to start our first leg of this season’s poorly-planned road trip. I’m not even giving our final destination on here for fear of jinxing it, as it’s been jinxed numerous times already and it’s actually amazing we even left Pgh at this point.

Anyway, it’s 8:40pm and I talked Henry’s ear off for the last three hours (he looooves when I tell him stories from when I was in high school, just fucking SAVORS that shit like it’s a piece of fresh jerky) so I thought I’d hop on this trash pile and type some things, post some pics, you know, things us BLOGGERS do.

I dunno why I screamed that bit.

Relevant to this drive, and I’ll tell you why in a minute calm down, here is a picture of Chooch from the weekend when he was trying to watch The Adam Project which made me scoff dramatically, “Ugh, Ryan Reynolds” and Chooch asked, “Why do you hate him again?” prompting Henry to answer from the dining room, “Because he hurt someone or something…”

Ok first of all? STFU don’t answer for me.

Second of all, he hurt ALANIS MORISSETTE (and also Scarlett Johansson but I was focused on Alanis at the mo’) so I started screaming about this and Chooch was like “ok well I don’t know who that is so…”

And also, he just seems like an asshole. Like the type of guy in high school who you never wanted to have to sit near because you knew at some point he was going to openly make fun of you for having braces or something.

That kind of guy.

Also, BLAKE LIVELY?? Ugh.

I mean she literally was the worst part of Gossip Girl but cool. Marry her & then expect us to care?!

This morning, I woke up to an Alanis song on the radio and then felt inspired in the car to play some of my faves and then from there somehow I got on a Paula Cole / Shawn Colvin / Jewel kick so Henry was really loving life, especially when I put on Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy album in its entirety and proceeded to dredge up the Psycho Mike years which is another topic henry loves because now not only is he my chef, caretaker, and chauffeur but crisis counselor too.

“Man, I really had no idea who I was back then,” I murmured, lost in 1997/1998 for a minute.

“And you do now?” Henry sneered.

“Uh yeah. I’m born-again Korean?!”

I miss the cats so much already this is the worst part of vacation. :( My mom will be staying with them but I swear Drew knew since last night that we were leaving. She saw the suitcases in my room and just knew. Then when Henry was packing up the car today, she ran onto the back porch and sulked, ughhhh my heart.

Still thinking about this s’mores sundae Henry & I shared from Sugar Spell on Sunday. Usually we’d partake in the pint preorder but figured we’d switch it up and just get a sundae. It was decadent! Of course henry cried because I allegedly ate “all the good parts.” He also tried to criticize me for choosing banana as one of the scoop flavors but it ended up tasting sooooo good with the s’mores accoutrements – waiting for my apology.

Oh man, now .38 Special’s Caught Up In You is on the radio as if I needed more reasons to revisit the past. Goddamn, this song.

HOLD THE PHONE, I just got a story from Henry regarding his middle school days! I mentioned that MOLLY HATCHET opened for .38 Special when I saw them in 1997 with Lisa and Henry said that he will always remember middle school dances (“Not ‘dances’! One dance!” Henry just yelled as I’m reading aloud what I’m typing) where JOCKOS requested Molly Hatchet’s “Green Grass & High Tides” and I fixated on the JOCKOS part because I didn’t understand what he meant so I kept repeating, “JOCKOS?”

And he’d be like “YEAH JOCK. Os.”

So then I would say, “JACQUE O’S?”

And he’d be like “yeah.”

And I’d be like “Who the fuck is Jacque O?”

Like he said it with such certainty that I’d understand.

And then he’d say “NO. JOCKOS. YOU KNOW. JOCKS.”

Oh. Jocks. Sorry. In my school day we just called them “jocks.” That was good enough. No need for the extra syllable.

Apropos of nothing, this oatmeal is FUCKING BONKERS. 100% recommend this. Gimme a sponsorship deal because I would do dumb blog ad spots for this shit WEEKLY without giving a single fuck about selling out. It’s so good that I brought it on vacation with me!!

Henry didn’t dance with anyone at the middle school dance, btw. I just remembered to ask him now. He said, “It was 8th grade. No one danced.” Things were different in the 90s I guess because I remember being in 6th or 7th grade and having my HEART BROKEN because Chris L. danced with Monica L. to VANESSA WILLIAMS’ SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST and if I told you I didn’t think about that more than once when Desperate Housewives was on TV, I’m sure you’d know I was lying.

Pfft. Chris L. What a Ryan Reynolds-type he was though. Literally always braced myself for him to say something brutal all through elementary school but still had the dumbest crush on him SIGH.

</3

“There’s a 24-hours Dunkin Donuts,” Henry pointed out.

“Oh my god” I yelled in my high-pitched mocking voice, so now he’s back to stewing in the drivers seat.

Michael Jackson’s THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL just came on and it will never not sound like he’s saying “high giggles” instead of “high heels.” My mom and I used to argue about it when I was little because I insisted it was GIGGLES and she’d be all BUT THAT DOESNT MAKE SENSE.

“What did you wear to the dance?” I just asked Henry, because I’m still thinking about this.

“I don’t know! It was 40 years ago!”

“Was it polyester?” I probed. (Ah, classic polyester probe.)

“Maybe?! I mean it was the 70s…”

(Gentle reader, it is at this point that I’d like to point out that my middle school dance was in the NINETIES.)

“Do you have pictures?!”

“No! IT WAS THE 70s! Kids didn’t walk around with cameras!”

God ok Hemorrhaging Hank, calm down.

Ok I’m signing off now. I might not stop back tomorrow but possibly will return on Sunday which is going to be A Big Driving Day.

Tata.

UPDATE: I am now BLASTING Alanis’ “Uninvited” so I eagerly woke Chooch up in the backseat to manically shout DO YOU KNOW WHO THIS IS?

“NO!” he hissed around his FORKED TONGUE OF TEENAGER.

“It’s Alanis Morissette!” I cried giddily.

“WHO CARES!” he cried back.

“Not Ryan Reynolds,” I mumbled.

Today’s post is going to be mostly a photo dump, but I need to preface it with a disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: If you are ever planning on going to Otherworld in Columbus, Ohio and want to experience it with your own eyes, click away now lest ye be spoiled. 

Otherworld is an immersive art installation in a decrepit, run-down shopping center on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio. It opened to the public in 2019 and I was supposed to meet my friend Michelle there that summer. But then plans fell through (I’m pretty sure it was my fault – I think Cedar Point happened instead!) and then COVID happened and even though they eventually did reopen during the height of the pandemic, I wasn’t in a rush to be indoors with a bunch of people immersing themselves in touchable art installations, you know what I’m saying, chingu?

I was really nervous though because this place was originally billed as TEMPORARY so I thought for sure I’d miss the chance. But when Henry and I had decided to do a Columbus daytrip for  a vegan luncheon, I looked it up and saw that it was still open!! Henry mumbled, “Whatever you want to do,” and I made reservations for 11AM that Saturday. Woo!

(I still feel bad that I didn’t get to go with Michelle, but she did eventually go so I’m glad about that!)

Henry hates art, culture, fun, aestheticism, so he was REALLY looking forward to this!

We got there about 20 minutes before our time slot (actually even earlier than that but we sat in the car for a bit). Luckily, the front desk dude was like THAT IS OK and didn’t put us in a TOO EARLY triage cage or anything. He was like “ENJOY!” and let us loose. I am really glad we didn’t wait until exactly 11 because the crowd levels were perfect at this time, and after about an hour it really started to get congested. If it had been like the whole time, we would not have been able to enjoy ourselves at all because this place really is a STOP AND DO SHIT kind of joint.

First of all, regardless of the blacklights making it difficult, there were so many excellent photo ops! And things to sit on, crawl through, step on, etc.! Once Henry realized that this place was more of a sensory playground then a stuffy art shack, he relaxed and started pushing buttons.

“IF YOU PRESS THIS, IT SHOOTS AIR DOWN AT THE PEOPLE IN THAT OTHER ROOM” he explained as he pushed a button and pointed to a surveillance screen.

Henry likes having opportunities to fuck with people so he now he didn’t mind being in an art place.

I loved this hallway!!

This was on the ceiling of one of the rooms and there were plastic arcade guns  that you could use to shoot at them. Henry liked this room I think – OMG I wonder if he was picturing  my faces on the ceiling?!?!

DUDE THE LIGHTING IN THIS ROOM MADE EVERYTHING LOOK SEPIA AND I WAS OBSESSED.

We found out later on when we were revisiting this room that if you opened the coffin behind me, it would slowly turn the room back into color and there were inflatable flowers along the windows of the room  that would re-inflate – it was so cool. Hat tip to that lady who was  totally telling her family the secret and not us. Glad we were there for it!

“Henry! We shoul—–”

“NO,” he cut me off before I could say that we should have this neon shit hanging from the attic ceiling. I think he was mildly panicked the whole time we were there because he could see the wheels turning in my dumb design head.

P.S. I appreciated that masks were still mandatory and that everyone was obeying the policy. I also appreciated the copious amounts of hand sanitizer stations considering how much forbidden touching was going on.

Wow. Now it just sounds like we were at a 1970s key party.

I just realized that there was no one there that I hated. Probably because we got there early enough. The assholes probably come later.

Literally the bedroom of my dreams.

There were little children watching Henry take this picture like “mom why is that child so big, I don’t understand.” I found out by accident that there was a secret passage under the bed! I found out by crawling through an opening in another room only to be spilled out into a mass of stuffed animals. Henry, who had actually followed me, said, “We’re under the bed,” and I was like “OH SHIT YOU’RE RIGHT. TAKE A PICTURE OF ME.”

I was really just living my best life here, you guys. It felt so good to just run from room to room and the best part is that there was no hard and fast rule with which to explore so you could loop around as much as you wanted, cut through different ways, etc. We kept returning to our favorite spots and I really feel that we got our money’s worth even though we only stayed for a little over an hour because the crowds started to pick up exponentially and it suddenly felt very stifling.

I feel like I really chose the correct mask to bring with me.

We actually got along pretty well the whole time! Except for when I was trying to take this picture and he got moving out of frame because he’s a Big Dumb.

When we first got there and entered the first hallway, I jokingly said, “Let’s start here” and pretended to walk into an open storage closet that was clearly not part of things. But then an hour later, we pushed our way through those magazine clippings up there and walked out of a locker right INTO THE STORAGE ROOM!!! Mind blown. Otherworld, you cray.

I look sad in all of my pictures because smiling feels weird under a mask. I never did get used to that part of it over these last two years.

This was another secret room!! I was kneeling in it because it was basically just a little crawl space.

Well, you can believe that after gallivanting around this outer space mind fuck, we were definitely ready to pig-out at Seitan’s Realm. We both hit the restrooms before leaving and on my way out, I passed a girl who gushed, “Cute purse!” and I was like “THANK YOU” and was going to ask her if she likes NCT127 because it’s a CHERRY BOMB purse specifically made to display NCT enamel pins, but I had no energy and probably she didn’t. It just really is a cute-looking purse regardless of Kpop stanning.

So, that’s Otherworld in a little over 1,000 words and way too many pictures  (this wasn’t even all of them! I went easy on you guys). I do really want to go back again sometime while it still exists, maybe wrangle Corey and Janna to go with me?! AND THEN WE CAN EAT AT SEITAN’S REALM??

*is planning*