On the road again - parting thoughts on Pigeon Forge

East Coast Road Trip 2015 - Day 17
(it's a long post today folks, sorry)

Yesterday was a much needed day off. We all enjoyed the break from "road trip" mode.
But today we plan to get some miles under us. We are headed to the Georgia Aquarium.

As we leave Tennessee and Pigeon Forge behind us I have a few parting thoughts.
This location has been the biggest departure so far from the rest of the world. The town has about 6000 residents, but the main drag looks like a Family-themed Vegas (Vegi-Vegas, if you like).

Interesting looking attraction... nope none of these are casinos 

Lots of dinner shows.

Titanic Museum 

Wax museum 

Christmas Village - year round

I assume this place just got an bump in attendance, and no they are clearly not affiliated with the movie

Um... We'll take this swimsuit, those sunglasses and a LIVE Alligator?
They had a sister shop about a block down that had sharks :) 

Apparently Dollywood employs the equivelent of half the town. It's clearly very tourism focused.
Again here I haven't heard any foreign languages. Varying degrees of southern accents, and those have all been attached to some of the friendliest people we have encountered.
Only the tourists here are, shall we say reserved - the only person who cut us off yesterday had an out-of-state license plate.

We had the chance to do an Alpine Coaster while we were here.....
You ride in go-cart style cars down a track - you can ride single or double... so hubby rode with the  boy and I rode with the little lady.

Pic of the mountain and some track... no cameras allowed on the ride

This was by far my favorite ride of the trip so far. Funny thing to say and a bit unexpected. The ride up the hill was about 5 minutes through the trees. The trip down... faster :) but just as scenic.
We were able to control the speed if needed. They encourage you to "Hammer Down" meaning go as fast as the sled goes... it has an auto brake to keep you below unsafe speeds.
Well the girls went first, and the boys were behind us. I was slightly concerned about going fast, but was very comfortable with the track and the ride, so I had every intention of going for it. However, the woman in front of me... did not. They ask you to stay at least 80 feet behind the person in front of you and say DON'T BUMP the car in front of you. But they also say DON'T STOP along the way. So I slowed down a number of times to keep an appropriate distance. But it wasn't long until the boys caught up with us. At the bottom when we went to unload the attendant asked "How bad was it?" I didn't know what he meant.... then he said "Did you have to go really slow?" Oh, Yeah, I guess so. But it was ok.
Well, he apparently realized the woman in front was slowing often [Editor's note: Not a hard realization with 5 other cars lined up behind her by the time we got to the bottom] and offered us all a 2nd ride for free. Wow. We took it. This time we knew what to expect, which is a big hurdle for me and we went "Hammer Down" all the way... Woooo HOOOOOO!!!!!!!! What a ride.
The difference between the two rides was marked. The first ride we could see and were close to the person in front of us the whole time. The second... that car was no where to be seen. I braked a bit towards the end... one of the last curves snuck up on me. It was a great ride - a must do if you come out this way.  Long swooping curves and turns, some tighter than others, but all fun. No big drops or steep downhill parts, but you definitely come down the mountain faster than you went up :)

I am so glad we got a chance to check this out.

Welcome to Georgia

We have driven through Georgia in the past, but never stayed more than however long it takes to change planes or when we drove through to Hilton Head from Orlando, years ago.
Today we spent several hours in Atlanta. The Georgia Aquarium is great. A serious contender for best aquarium I have ever been to. Beautiful exhibits. But Oy the crowds. So much so that you get assigned a specific entry time for the day of your visit. And it was packed. We were able to see it all without any issue. We didn't do any of the behind the scenes experiences, but we enjoyed out visit. I took some issue with the dolphin show (in a nutshell, if you think you need to create some crazy musical type event to make a dolphin show interesting, maybe you shouldn't be at the aquarium? When you have to warn people about the lighting effect and the fog effects before an animal show, you should just assume I am rolling my eyes.) [Editor's note: If that doesn't seem like a "nutshell" you should have heard the version she gave me...]

Beluga Whales :) 

In the Ocean Voyager Exhibit 

Whale shark and Manta Ray - Huge critters

Bye bye Whale Shark!

Watching the fishes :)

at the top of the Beluga tank.... a few harbor seals on the deck

So one thing we noticed....the whole southern hospitality thing... it's gone now. I will give the good people of Georgia (in specific, Atlanta) the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to being in a big city. But warm and friendly... not so much. No biggie, we are city folk ourselves and used to the general attitude of go Go GO! (not that WE would adopt such aggressive behavior... at least we don't mean to). But it was a bit of an abrupt switch - welcome back to reality.

Our journey wasn't over yet... Home for the night is Alabama. Yup, another state!

Welcome to Alabama

And.... drum roll please! Hubby's last state. Yes, he has now been to all 50 states!!!! Can you believe it? I think he skipped Connecticut and just won't admit it ;) [Editor's note: I have vivid memories of Connecticut... My memories of Louisiana and Mississippi are kind of hazy though...]

So we will sleep here and yes, go to Starbucks here tomorrow, before we head out :)
Oh! And we realized somewhere around the Alabama border... that Alabama is in the Central time zone.... we have been living in the Eastern time zone for two weeks now... and to dip our toe in the Central zone for only 12 hours.... well, it kind of cracked us up.
[Editor's note: And yes, we did drive ~2 hours out of our way just to spend the night in Alabama...]

You Are Here Mug count up by 1.  I got Atlanta today.

Stats:

Miles today: 365

Miles total: 2085

States Total: 12 (+Georgia, Alabama)
Starbucks Mug Total: 6
[Roller coasters total: 36 (+Alpine coaster)]

Carowinds

East Coast Driving Trip 2015 - Day 13

What a day! From a mom's perspective this was the best park so far. TONS of big roller coasters for dad... gigacoasters if you will. And a really really really nice kids area. Usually the "kids area" in theme parks is all little little kid rides, but Planet Snoopy at Carowinds is a wonderful mix of kids rides and smaller versions of the grown up roller coasters. Including a small wooden coaster and a small inverted coaster... seriously cool.

Add to that the fact that ours are tall enough and/or old enough to ride together without a parent and I had a fair amount of time to people watch :)
And what does a mom need while she people watches? COFFEE!!! and I didn't have any (ANY) coffee :( but I made do... Strawberry Mango Smoothie anyone?

Strawberry Mango delicious 

Ok, moving on. We hit a few rides in Planet Snoopy to get warmed up then took a counter clockwise approach to the park. The little lady and dad did the rapids ride and then the kids took a twirl on the scrambler. The boys hit the wild mouse and then we all took a ride on Carolina Gold Rusher... a hit for all. The kids had to go back later and ride it few more times.

Hubbys first flight of the day... flying coaster, NightHawk

Peanuts Pirates

Lucy's Crabbie Cabbie

Rip Roarin' Rapids

Flying Ace Aerial Chase (small inverted) 

reading map in the shade

boys on wild mouse

Carolina GoldRusher

Hi Mom!! 

Front view of the small wooden coaster, Woodstock Express

She offered to ride this with a younger girl who had no one to ride with :)
Mama's heart was full, watching her

About this point we were back in Planet Snoopy and we released Dad from family time so he could go raise his hands in the air and scream like a true coaster enthusiast.  And this is when the good people watching really started.  I have a few observations from being in a different part of the country....
The color palette is a little different here. At home grey and black are much more prominent... pastels and neons are well represented here. Lots of tan. and Flip flops abound... but then who doesn't love to rock flip flops in the summer?
I have noticed people playing it fast and loose with the assorted smoking policies, an nobody seems to mind (except for me).
Other thing I observed at Carowinds... no foreign languages. At both Hershey and Busch Gardens we were not the only tourists. We heard lots of French and German in both of those parks and Spanish too. But here only English... with varying degrees of a good ole southern accent.
People here are very friendly, several have started up conversation with me and seemed to assume I was local, despite my lack of an accent :)

Carowinds is the flattest of the parks we have been to.. ahh the blessing of no hills in the heat :) The landscape is completely different from Busch Gardens, with all its trees... Carowinds seems practically treeless comparatively. Yes, there are trees and somehow enough shade.

View from the parking lot... HUGE coasters.. but where do they keep the trees? 

panorama at entrance gates

Oh, and did I forget to mention that the park is sitting on the state line between the Carolinas (North and South). Kind of a cool thing. Our little lady got great joy from walking with one foot in each state.

Hubby snapped this pic as we left the park, I think the boy is watching Fury325 come down its first drop :) 

Editor's musings (ramblings) on roller coasters:

Having ridden 45 different coasters in the last twelve months, I think I can speak with a bit of experience on the subject. (45 is pretty impressive given the fact that there are basically no decent coasters within a 250 mile radius of where we live, but this year has been somewhat exceptional.) Most coasters try to have something that makes them unique. Examples of this include highly themed coasters like those found in Disney parks (Expedition Everest, Space Mountain, Rock-n-roller coaster, etc.); wooden coasters, inverted coasters, standing coasters, "flying" coasters, floorless coasters, mega/hyper/giga coasters and so on.  For the most part I consider many of these features to be gimmicks that don't actually contribute to the "fun" of the ride. Take flying coasters for example (Nighthawk at Carowinds, Manta at SeaWorld). These tend to be interesting from a novelty standpoint, but I generally don't find them to be all that much fun. (Side note on Nighthawk: I didn't realize it until I looked up the link to add it here, but I've ridden Nighthawk before even though this was my first time ever at Carowinds... it used to be called Stealth and was at Great America in Silicon Valley. I rode it in June, 2001) Similarly, standing coasters (e.g. Vortex) are really not all that fun once you get past the novelty. Here's where I'll lose some coaster enthusiasts: I also think that in general, inversions (e.g. loops, corkscrews, etc.) are also gimmicks that don't generally contribute to the fun of the ride. (Try closing your eyes on the standard loop and you will realize that the forces created by them aren't really all that interesting.) I'll make an exception for inverted coasters (e.g. Montu) since inversions generally add to the fun for them.

A "flying" coaster about to leave. It's a gimmick.

So all of this is really a long way to say that Fury 325 is (in my opinion) one of the best coasters ever created. It is extremely fast, amazingly smooth and is basically nothing but pure fun the whole time. (There are some who feel that super smooth coasters like this are lacking in "character", but "character" is just a euphemism for "likely to cause aches, pains and bruises the next day.") I was able to ride it 5 times today, but would have happily ridden it another 5-10 times.

About 2/3 of Fury 325 as seen from the Carolina Skytower

Editor's most fun coasters ridden in 2014-2015 (best first):
Fury 325 (Carowinds)
Cheetah Hunt (Busch Gardens Tampa)
ShiKra (Busch Gardens Tampa)
Apollo's Chariot (Busch Gardens Williamsburg)
Montu (Busch Gardens Tampa)
Intimidator (Carowinds)

Stats:

Miles today: 15

Miles total: 1474

States Total: 9 (+South Carolina)
[Roller coasters total: 30 (+13 from Carowinds)]

Onward to the Carolinas - Misc business

East Coast Driving Trip 2015 - Day 12

We had a slightly lazy morning... if you consider packing up everything and getting out by 10am lazy. It was for the kids... but hubby and I had a bit more to pack up than they did.

We checked out of our room at 10, but wanted to take advantage of one more thing at the resort before we left. Mini-Golf.
So we returned to the clubhouse area and grabbed some clubs.
The course is nice... looks to be fairly new, like the bowling lanes. But the heat was nutty.
I think it was only technically in the mid 80s but 8 holes in and we were all dripping with sweat... bah.
Our daughter and I walked the remainder of the course, playing the holes that looked like fun.. hubby and our son, were more dedicated.

All playing at once! It's what you do in the heat :)

She was holding a stuffed jaguar at the time, and still made the shot... that's talent :)

After golf, it was time for cool drinks and the road.
You know you aren't in the Pacific Northwest when your Iced Vanilla Latte had vanilla coffee creamer as a main ingredient. True coffee aficionados would turn their noses up at this... but it was tasty. Not what I am used to, but I do like a sweet drink, so it was fine, and the girl who made it was quite proud of it :) cute.

We drove into North Carolina today... I got another chance to take a moving picture of the welcome sign...

Ok, am I getting better at this, or what?

Relaxing during the drive.

And we hit a Starbucks... Yup another mug :)
So far I have three to bring home.

Make that four! I was able to pick up the Charolotte Mug as well.

YAH mugs! These two are wonderful. 

This is a pic of the chocolate bar hubby made... you can see the base is dark chocolate, but the top is milk. 

Since it was a driving day today, a few lines to talk about our assorted cars seems fitting.
We had reserved 2 cars for this trip - I think we covered that earlier. We are now in our final car for the trip and we are very happy with it.
We started with a Chevy Impala 2013 - it had 45,000 miles on it. It is a classic rental car in our experience (we often get an impala when we rent) a standard Full size car. Hubby says it had "ok" power. Due to the window issue we swapped it out for a Nissan Sentra (don't know the year, maybe 2015) with just over 6000 miles on it. Less power than the Impala, but more than two cupholders (shame on you chevy... two cupholders, seriously?) And bluetooth... which we appreciate.
Which brings us to our current car. A Dodge Charger 2015 with less than 3000 miles on it. Much more power (hubby likes), ample cupholders, and an air conditioner vent in the back seat.
All in all we are pleased to end with this car. [Editor's note: It also has remote start. That's not something that I would have really thought I needed, but the ability to get the car started (and the air conditioner running) 30 seconds before you get to it can be surprisingly useful in 90+ degree weather.]

The font or style they choose for the speedometer on the charger, cracks us up... Don't worry the driver had two hands on the wheel when this picture was taken. [Also going at exactly the speed limit at the time.]

If you are curious, the Impala had Florida plates, the Sentra had Pennsylvania plates and the Charger has North Carolina plates... random facts here.

Stats:

Miles today: 366

Miles total: 1459

States Total: 8 (+North Carolina)
Starbucks Mug Total: 4

YAH Mugs!!!

An update on my collection...

Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Canada, California

Waikiki, Hawaii, San Francisco, Pike Place, Los Angeles

Lake Tahoe, Vancouver Island, Colorado, Denver, Vail

Florida, Orlando, Orange County, Houston, New Mexico

Alaska, Arizona, Phoenix, Kansas City

I have one hook left and no more wall space, but 7 mugs I hope to collect over the spring and summer..... oh well. What's a girl to do.

I had help with these... my mom and some awesome friends helped me by picking up mugs - I think 9 of the mugs shown were gifts. Amazing! Thank you!

Comfortable Adventure

I just like those two words together.
Seems like a good thing to strive for in a vacation.
And I have learned that posting something on my blog means I am a lot less likely to forget it. So...... "Comfortable Adventure".

There, that should do it.

"You Are Here" mugs!

I have started a new collection.

It happened by accident... as all great collections do, I suppose. 

I picked up a new Starbucks mug about a month ago. I thought it was fun and it reminded me a bit of It's A Small World. Being a HUGE Disney fan, how could I walk away? 

You might need to see the whole thing to get the Small World vibe. 

Over the weeks that followed this purchase I discovered it was part of a new series of mugs. Starbucks has discontinued the Icon series - which includes icons and landmarks from all over the world, with well over 300 different mugs in the series. And this new "You Are Here" series was just launched this year.

This new information drew me into an internet hunt for what other cities, states, etc have the new series. I found a forum style website where members can post pictures of the mugs they have and found a current list of "YAH" mugs available. The number posted on the site has grown by almost 20 in the month I have been watching it. They have 52 mugs posted today! And I am not traveling nearly enough to keep up :)

But I am working on it.
Starbucks only sells mugs in the location listed on the mug.... i.e. the Pike Place Market is only sold at the Pike Place Market store.  Most are sold in more than one store, but only in that area - I got the Portland, OR one in Hillsboro, OR, and I saw the Seattle one in Kelso, WA. So you get the picture.

So are I have 4!

From L to R: Portland, Pike Place, Seattle, California

I have trips up to Vancouver and Victoria planned to get those and will get the Florida and Orlando ones in a few months. I have two more mug racks with 5 hooks each waiting.... and I know where to buy more :)

I hope the series sticks around long enough for me to really grow my collection. The Icon series went from 2008-2012.

This is going to make an easy souvenir for me! I will post as the collection grows - look for Canada in the next week.