Virginia and the Loch Ness Monster August 2, 2008
Posted by Conrad Hubbard in : The Chip , trackback
Work has been encouraging my department to take our vacations recently. Last week – from July 22nd to the 28th – I headed back to Virginia to visit my family. Driving up interstate 85 North presented all of the familiar landmarks: the giant peach-shaped water tower in Gaffney, the outlet malls and cigarette warehouses, the omnipresent road construction… As usual, the long drive gave me lots of time to think about life and wish that I had my favorite job, family and friends all in one place.
I stayed at my sister’s house in Midlothian, and started off the week kind of slow, just hanging out and watching my nephews cheat at Oblivion (using the iron-arrow equipment multiplier exploit). Then I caught up with my best friend Brent. He has totally become a family man, and I think it has been good for him. Of course, we talk on the phone, but I usually only see my friends and family from Virginia once a year, around Christmas time.
The main thing I did that qualified as just good old-fashioned fun was to spend a day at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. I hadn’t been there since something like 1996. The park was celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Loch Ness Monster, which was the first roller coaster I ever rode. My sister’s husband didn’t have the day off work, so it was alternately amusing and irritating to watch people assume that she and I were a couple bringing our kids to the park. Watching my sister with her kids made me think about my ex-wife and her youngest daughter Deva, but I managed not to let that ruin the day.
The Loch Ness Monster was still a fun ride, after all these years. Apollo’s Chariot was pretty cool. The most impressive of the new rides was the Griffin, which drops more than 200 feet straight down on its first big hill and is constructed with a wide, wing design setup rather than a train of cars in a row. They bill it as the tallest floorless dive coaster in the world, but I am not sure what the heck “floorless” means in this context. Anyway, a fun time, and I wish I had written about it sooner after I came back so that maybe the details would have been more fresh in my mind.
Comments»
Any chance your friend Brett married a young lady named Francise a few years back? I’m only asking because the guy I know said he had a friend that worked for White Wolf and I lost touch with them.
Sorry, but his name is Brent, and no, that is not his wife’s name. I wish you good luck with your search, though.