Virginia Trip - III

This has been long pending.

Busch Gardens is an amusement park. I believe there are two of them in US. I had been to the first one in Tampa, Florida in Dec 2004. That had African theme and V had won a huge cute gorrila (soft toy ofcourse) for me. This one in VA had a European theme. Its smaller than the African one but cuter with different sections setup as different countries of Europe.

After a long wait to get inside the gates (it was crowded), we were so hot that we headed straight for the water rides. From there we moved on to roller coasters. The weather was hot and getting drenched in the rides was what we enjoyed the most. Their biggest roller coaster was quite scary, specially the first plunging drop. However much I tried, I just couldnt keep my eyes open during that drop!

Towards the end of the day, we went towards the games section. Like before, I wanted V to win something. He did win a small dolphin and a big flamingo, but my eyes were in this huge cute monkey (yes, again!). The game to win the monkey was to pass a small hoop through a twisted wire without letting it touch the wire. V tried twice without sucess. Then I thought of giving it a try. I was doing pretty good when just as I was abt to reach the end, it touched the wire and the alarm beeped. V and Dee were excited abt my progress so asked me to try again. By then a little crowd had gathered around me and I could feel a million eyes on me. I fared badly on my second try and was out in no time, maybe coz of the peer pressure :P.

We went around a while, encouraging friends who were winning some stuff or the other. V still seemed impressed with my performance at the wire game and asked me to try again. So we went back to the game stall to try for the third time. And guess what? I won!! I was so happy! For the first time I won something and didnt have V to win for me :). The monkey is huge, I was of course unable to carry it. Its bigger than me! Unfortunately, due to its size, I couldn't take it with me to NJ. Instead my frens took it with them in their car. Next trip to their house, I'll have to get it back :)

The next day we started off early as me and Dee had to catch the bus from D.C. We waited in the bus stop for more than an hour and the bus never showed up! This was not the first that Greyhound had ditched me. V got so mad that he rented a car and me, V and Dee drove to NJ in the car instead. I drove till NJ and after dinner droppping us, V drove to Pitts from there. Poor guy, he reached home at 4 in the morning and had to be at work at 8am!

So that was our Virginia trip. Though we didn't do much, it was nice and relaxing. Next trip? Who knows.. we haven't planned it yet!

Virginia Trip - II

Virginia is a beautiful state, clean and green. The highways are in great condition and driving is a pleasure. Unlike NY where the roads are lined on both the sides with tall buildings and Indiana where roads are lined with miles and miles of plain boring fields...here you will lush green trees....such a soothing view!

Roughly after about 3hrs or so we reached our first destination, the CBBT or the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. As the name suggests, it is a long bridge cum tunnel that extends to about 18 miles. It is considered to be a modern engineering wonder and the view on either side of the bridge is breath taking. About halfway through, the bridge passes through a tiny man made island, where you can stop and park your car. The island also holds a restaurant and a souvenir shop. Its a nice stop to stretch your legs and that we did along with taking many pictures. It seems some chase + crash scene in Mission Impossible III has been shot on the bridge.

At the end of the bridge, we stopped again for a few clicks and then headed back to Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach is like any other beach town - small, lively and invitingly relaxing. By then we were famished with hunger. We drove for quite a while and finally found the perfect beach side. It was quite crowded but not too overbearing. We quickly changed to our beachwear and headed out towards the beach with all our beach-ware - chairs, mats, towels et all. Just by the beach there was this lovely posh-looking restaurant Catch 31. My vegetarian friends moved on to find their food while me and my non-vegetarian friends enjoyed delicious Catch 31 sea food.

The rest of the day passed in the beach. While I spent most of the time relaxing and sunbathing, my daring friends were more into playing in the water.

After everyone had their full, we moved towards town, which was just the matter of crossing the beach. We noticed people dressed nicely and soon realised we were about to witness a wedding! They were having a wedding at the beach! The funny thing was, the bride and the bridesmaids were wearing lovely gowns, but were barefooted while the bridegroom and his friends (what do you call them?) were wearing black suits and tux but were wearing slippers! It was indeed a quaint scene!

As a part of the Memorial Day celebrations, the town had organised a rock show. The band playing has flown in from Texas and they were pretty good. We passed the remaining of the evening lazing on the lawn listening to rock songs. Later we once again split into veg-non veg group for dinner. This time we had to walk quite a bit in search for the right place to eat. Our efforts were well paid coz the restaurant/bar that we ended up in served us yummy scrumptious sea food. I was so tired that as soon as I sat in the car, I dozed off. It seems on our way back to the hotel, we were stuck in the traffic for a good 1hr or so. By the time we hit the bed it was almost 2am!

Next The Busch Gardens