Busch Gardens and 95N

Side Note: I figured out the button thing, there is now a link on the right sidebar. Please feel free to add mine! I got a tab at the top and added some buttons of the blogs I follow, but if I missed yours please let me know.


So this weekend was pretty great but there were some long moments! Ryan and I planned to head to Busch Gardens to meet an awesome blogger I am sure you all know... Nicole from Flip Flops and Combat Boots and her husband Danny.

Friday Ryan had a parade so I picked him up after I had dinner with my fellow camp counselors and we headed off to sleep. I managed to drag him out of bed in the morning and get us into the car by 10am. We start driving on 95 and make it twenty minutes and stop. Then slowly go. Then stop. Repeat pattern for four more hours and that was our drive. We did a morale stop at Sonic and then gave up on 95 after awhile and went around to another highway that added miles perhaps but saved time!!

We get to Busch Gardens around 3pm... five hours after we leave! It took us an hour to go in from the back back back parking lot, through the ticket lines, the turnstyle, and into the park. Nicole texted me saying she was on Alpengeist, a great rollercoaster, so we got in line and met at the exit.

I felt awful it took us so long to get there! By the time we arrived they had gone on all the rides more than once! But we went on a few more rides together and hung out before Nicole and Danny headed out for dinner.


Photo by Nicole, I haven't uploaded mine yet!

Ryan and I stayed, wanting to endorse my love of fireworks and the fact that we drove so long we had to stay til the park closed at least! We had a good dinner in "New France" (aka Canada) of a whole assortment and ribs and yummy things like fried pickles. The fireworks were pretty good, not like Disney, only 8 minutes long! But I still love them. We tried to get on the sky ride to see them all in the air, but literally the finale happened as we were loading! But we still saw it all.

Then we braved the crowds and got to our car. I drove home as Ryan drove there I drove home. He passed out within 20 minutes. I was exhausted but doing well as we were going up 95N. We passed the spot where Ryan's tire blew and I laughed about it a bit. Flash forward maybe 50 miles and the all too familiar sound starts. The car itself is vibrating. Ryan wakes up and I quickly pull over. We look at the tires and see nothing. So I start driving again. I hit full speed and it starts once more. I quickly pull over and tell him I know it is the rear passenger tire. We look closely and there is a bubble the size of a goose egg on the inside wall of rubber... kinda like this:



I will upload my picture of my tire soon and change it out! But that is the basic idea. Scarily enough Ryan said if it HAD blown all the rubber would have flown off my tire and I would have been driving on my rim! That freaked me out a bit, I was doing 70! Who knows if I would have been able to keep the car in control. He is convinced I would have been able to, but I am convinced someone was watching over us that night.

Anyway, luckily I had a spare so we changed it in the dark at midnight on the side of 95. It took us forever to find the frame of my car to put the jack on (Ford Taurus's rule like that) but eventually it got done! I made Ryan drive the rest of the way home and had a 20 minute nap or so myself. When we got home we passed out.

We decided after 12 noon we are no longer allowed to drive through Virginia on 95N.


Today was good. Laundry was done, nails, errands, cleaning... and Ryan made an awesome dinner. A broiled marinated dry rub steak, vinegar stringbeans and baked potatoes! We had cinnamon sugar toast for dessert and then two stepped around the living room to classic country on 98.7.

Shower and bed! Night readers!