Avoiding the Tampa Serial Killer at Busch Gardens

Just kidding about the the Tampa serial killer.  Well, not kidding about his existence, just kidding that we just avoided him.  Let's forget about him for a second, though, since he was captured the week before we arrived.  Our fourth annual winter vacation took us this time around to my Brother's house down in Tampa and my Mother's rental house just outside of Orlando (for another time).  It seems like just yesterday that my brother up and left Oregon and moved to Tampa, but it was almost a year ago.  Jeez, how time flies. 

We were all excited to escape the cold here in Boston and spend some time underneath the lanai.  The first thing that I wanted to do with the kids though was to go to Busch Gardens.  Not that I wanted to ride the rides anymore; I'm too old and fat for that anymore - but I wanted the kids to have some fun so they would keep coming with us on our vacations (Note that I did not necessarily feel this way at the end of the vacation...).

Tampa, FL.  10am.  Thanks to some deft half price tickets from my Florida-resident brother, the clown car was loaded up for the day as we drove across town to the park.  It was warm and sunny, and the kids were trying to decide what they wanted to do.  But the adults wanted to get away from the throngs near the entrance, so we moved toward the safari train.  Watching hippos and giraffes slowly amble by as the conductor was tooting his horn to make them move, I was instantly reminded of our Christmas Eve at my Mom's retirement community a couple of days earlier. 

As we moved toward the other end of the park, I started reminding G and DLG about that time 5 years ago when G and I went on the same water ride at Animal Kingdom 5 times in 20 minutes.  DLG, thinking she missed something, asked me if we could go on this water ride.  I think it was called white water rapids, or something benign like that. 

"Yes!" I answered.  I'm not sure if I was slyly smiling or not at that point, but  I didn't have the heart to tell her that we were going to get really wet.  I mean so wet that we would regret not wearing slides or some other shoes that could get soaked.  While not a ride that would scare the crap out of someone, I did instantly regret going on this ride at the beginning of the day.  I spent the rest of the day walking around barefoot as I tried to dry my shoes out.

Fast forward to after the aforementioned soaking, DLG and I caught up to the rest of the family.  The kids' aunt, a notorious roller coaster hunter, talked the kids into going onto Shiekra, one of the 200 foot drop rides.  I merely said that it wasn't that bad.  Honestly, I had no idea, but they weren't going to find out milling around the table we were stationed at.  It was also the ride with the shortest wait, which is what I always look for.

90 minutes later.   I guess that line wasn't as short as we thought.  The kids were still talking about the ride and how it was a lot worse than they thought (whoops!).  After some more searching around for a ride, we settled on taking the tram around the park in order to get over to the gaming area. 

As the kids aunt and uncle went to get a beer, G and C shot three pointers at the basketball court, while DLG was trying to scale a rope walk.  Oh great, an opportunity to win some cheap crap that I had to find room for on the flight home.  And wait, I had to pay even more for them to do this stuff?  Really?

The only thing that stopped the games from continuing was the impending darkness and my empty pockets, so we joined my brother at the beer gardens.  We were all tired from the sun and the walking around so it was nice to get a drink and people watch.  Finally, we called it quits and took the long walk back to the car.  What a great time I thought to myself as I was continuing to air out my sneakers from the ride 6 hours ago.  Note to self for next time.