Monday of last week, T announces that he’d like to go to Carowinds. I’d like to chalk this up to the Inception type process that took place when I mentioned going to a theme park about a month ago for his birthday – but either way I was excited. And anxious. I mean, its like, permanently 100 degrees with 99% humidity at Carowinds. I know this because I went 3 or 4 times in my youth, but I haven’t been back since I was 15 or so. Plans were made, outfits were tried on, outfits were purchased*, jeans were turned into jean shorts**. We made a quick decision to take a Sunday trip as opposed to a Saturday trip since the lines were typically shorter and, well the two days were interchangeable to us.
Sunday rolled around and it was 75°. I’m sorry, did you hear me clearly enough? IT WAS 75°. I don’t know where you live, but here in North Carolina it hasn’t dropped below 95° in a month. So 75° was like “oh snap it’s winter outside”. And I got to wear JEANS to Carowinds – more specifically I got to wear my new, on sale, gorgeous and comfortable distressed jeans which just about made me the happiest girl in the WORLD because ew ew ew who knows who sat there and who touched that and people get SICK at amusement parks and everyone is sweaty so HOORAY for being able to be delightfully covered up and not sweaty. OK, ok less about my outfits and more about the photos and roller coasters…
The Intimidator
So this is what I saw as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. This is the Intimidator. This is the tallest (232′ – 23 stories), fastest (75+ MPH), and LONGEST (5,316′) roller coaster in the southeast. This takes some serious guts to climb aboard. You sit down in your Dale Earnhardt-styled race car seat and then it’s chug-chug-chug-oh look now we’re going up a hill for our initial descent and then all of a sudden you’re lying on your BACK because “up the hill” is like a 75° angle (there’s that number again…) and then you squeeeeze your eyes shut because WHOA was it a good idea to get on this one right after that BBQ sandwich (and french fries sent straight from heaven, apparently WELL DONE CAROWINDS ON THE FRENCH FRIES)? Ya’ll. If you are roller coaster people then you MUST make the pilgrimage to ride this one. It’s all ZOOM ZOOM WHIPPING you around corners and its so fast you think “are my eyelids open against my will?”. And that initial drop is HORRIBLE (and by that, I mean AWESOME).
Also, going to Carowinds on an overcast, cool day? Best idea ever (as if I can actually take credit for that…). Here’s an example of the line for EVERY SINGLE RIDE:
Really long lines.
And this was the line for the aforementioned Intimidator. This is a brand new $23M roller coaster and all you had to do was wait for the next train of cars to pull up. This trip was like a personal challenge of how many roller coasters can you handle in an hour. The answer is 6, by the way. We did 6 in the first hour (10 am – 11 am) and then we all had to sit down for a while to gather ourselves – I’m sorry, where’s the fainting couch when I need it?
The Hurler - minus any references to "hurling".
And here we are waiting to board The Hurler – the awesome wooden rollercoaster in the Wayne’s World section of Carowinds except NO because Carowinds is no longer owned by Paramount, so any movie-related rollercoasters were all rebranded. So now The Hurler (the only movie-coaster to retain its original name, probably because it’s so obscure) has lost much of it’s charm. We are no longer welcomed by Wayne & Garth and “Party Time! Excellent!”. The style of the coaster’s boarding area was once a sound-stage…or a behind-the-curtain look at an arena. Now it is sort of creepy and warehouse-esque. See T’s sad face above? We wanted to see Wayne & Garth. Also, we had to explain to our companions who Wayne & Garth were. This was mega-sad and made me feel very old as I head-banged and tried to explain the old SNL skit. Then we reminisced about how Mike Myers went from Wayne to Austin Powers to Shreck and WOW he’s come a long way.
Frozen lemonade & french fry break.
So to expand on what I mentioned above, Drop Zone is now Drop Tower and Top Gun is now “After Burn”. We defiantly referred to the renamed roller coasters by their INTENDED names all day. Take THAT new people who own Carowinds! We even sang “Highway to the danger zone” very loudly (too loudly?) while we were strapped into TOP GUN waiting for it to roll out of the station.
You’re welcome for that little ear-worm because you’ll be singing it all day long. Just like we were.
Drop Zone was just as scary at 26 as it was at 15. Top Gun was still AWESOME because you can ride barefoot (if you play your cards right) and you’re all suspended from the track and they WOOSH you under the ground into this mist-filled tunnel and for a split second you think you might hit the ground. LOVE IT. This was the only ride that we dared to double-dip on. As in we rode it – wheee! – and then were walking off the platform when T grabs my arm, points to 2 empty seats on a car near the back and says “wanna do it again?”. I didn’t even hesitate. That second time though, yeah that required some time-on-a-bench afterwards.
Carowinds was awesome. The Intimidator was awesome. The cool weather was awesome. The company was awesome. The french fries were awesome. My husband was awesome. This cold that I now have due to the cool, damp weather on Sunday is not so awesome but I can deal.
The only picture of the two of us taken in the last 6 months. Thank goodness you can't really see my hair.
* Things were purchased AT TARGET while they were ON SALE. Just so we’re clear.
** They were old and too tight and too long and too big of a flare and they are cute as jorts so I’m ok with it.
