Day 32 – July 20, 2019

Laundry day.

The only thing worse than laundry day is checking out of the wonderful Doubletree Hotel and forgetting to get some cookies for the road.

Ashley and I were cookieless and a little pouty as we headed for the laundromat.

Google directed us to the finest laundromat we have ever visited. Beautiful machines, free Wi-Fi, and the most ideal air conditioning ever.

A Six Flags park was a few minutes away. Kathy granted permission to Ashley and me to enjoy the park while she did the laundry. You don’t have to ask us twice.

The weather continued to be unbearable. It was more like a sauna than weather.

Ashley and I hopped out of the van and were immediately besieged by the oppressive heat and crushing humidity.

I’m sorry I complained about heat and humidity early in the trip. I now know that was just mild weather. We would pay good money to have it back.

Ashley and I tredged into Six Flags.

Not surprising, the park was empty even though it is Saturday. Our goals were straight forward. Ride a few coasters and don’t die from heat stroke.

In 90 minutes, we rode a 1917 woodie, a new floorless coaster, a Superman coaster, a twisted crazy coaster, and a wild mouse coaster.

The floorless coaster, Fire Bird, received significant media attention two days ago as it left riders stuck on the lift hill for three hours in this blazing heat. We were shocked to see it operating. Many would say we are crazy for going to an amusement park today so of course we had to ride it.

We easily conquered the first four coasters. I wanted to close out our brief visit with the wild mouse. The bonus here is that the car spins while traversing the track. Ashley wasn’t so sure. I begged until she agreed.

We boarded the Ragin’ Cajun.

We headed up the lift hill and the car followed the track without spinning. I was feeling ripped off.

As the car entered the second half of the ride, we were rotated violently. Like the spin cycle Kathy was enjoying back in the air conditioned laundromat.

We were being flung around like a sock and a pair of underwear. My neck snapped back. Ashley’s head smashed into the headrest.

I tried in vain to comfort her, but the spinning was so horribly fast I was helpless myself.

Mercilessly, the ride on this wicked attraction ended. We have mastered every coaster imaginable during the past four weeks. But with the Ragin’ Cajun, we finally met our match.

Ashley rubbed the lump on the back of her head and said she would not recommend this ride to mom.

We trudged out of the park beaten and bruised. But we held our heads high as we were survivors.

At lunch we got a text from the lucky member of our family who spent the afternoon drenched in air conditioning. She was done.

With the van loaded with clean clothes, we said goodbye to our nation’s capital and headed south into Virginia.

Kathy found a Catholic Church right off the highway. It was the sixth weekend in a row worshipping in a different state.

I know you thought going to an amusement park in this weather was insane. What would you think if we went to two amusement parks?

We continued south until we reached King’s Dominion Park.

Ashley and I wanted to ride at least one coaster so that we could say we rode a coaster at two different parks in the same day. We ended up riding two.

First, we feasted on a taco salad and a plate of nachos.

While dining, I got a call from my buddy Brett who is vacationing with his family in nearby Williamsburg. We are making plans to hang out next week.

We rode an indoor coaster followed by the 305 foot tall metal beast called Intimidator 305. What a day!

The time was 9:30. The temperature was 85. The humidity was 80. The park was empty and the sun was down but it was so hard to breathe. We left for the hotel.

We talked to Trevor on the drive to the hotel. And I talked to grandpa at the hotel.

We had survived another excessive heat warning day. How many more do we have to endure? Hopefully, not many.