TSAOSHIN

It has been an exhausting month.  My sister visited for a week and the day after she left, William’s sister arrived.  So for three straight weeks, it has been a non-stop adventure.  I’ll break up my post and start with Jackie’s visit as a separate topic.

Jackie arrived at the end of May to the exceptionally hot and muggy DC weather.  We played some billiards and arcades over at the Rockville Dave and Busters and tried out some Duckpin Bowling at White Oak Lanes. I’m a terrible bowler but had fun anyway. We trekked up to Baltimore for Maryland Death Fest and had lunch at the Inner Harbor.

On Memorial Day, we went down to Virginia for Kings Dominion to check out some of the newer coasters. It was a toss up between this park and Busch Gardens but KD won out since it was closer and had an onsite water park. We tried out the new Intimidator 305 which is modeled after Cedar Point’s Millennium Force but built just a bit higher and with a more violent post-drop experience.

I’ve ridden a lot of roller coasters in my life and have never been affected by them (aside from a headache here and there) but I actually grayed out on this.  My vision became increasingly de-saturated and I began to lose control of my body.  Luckily, the coaster took a turn upwards and the negative G-forces snapped me back into full consciousness.  It was insane.

Apparently this is a common issue on the ride and William experienced it as well.  It was probably one of the most severe positive and negative G-force encounters I’ve felt on any coaster.  The accelerated climb was pretty cool too.

Also worth mentioning was Flight of Fear - a totally dark enclosed coaster with an accelerated start.  Somehow, we managed to miss this ride completely on our trip to Kings Dominion with Josh.  This was also a great experience similar to Space Mountain but with inversions and corkscrews.  It was far more aggressive than I was expecting from a ride tucked away in the back corner of the park.

I took Jackie to a couple of thrift stores so she could look for old cameras.  She showed me some of the really great photography she takes with older cameras on expired film.  She took all of the pictures on this post.

It was great to see her again and I had a lot of fun!