Whenever I think about Summer Vacation's I always think about
Tiny Toons: How I Spent my Summer Vacation
https://archive.org/details/TINYTOONHOWISPENTMYVACATIONVHS
Which makes me think of family road trips, staying with crazy relatives and doing fun summer stuff like playing with squirt guns and spending time at the beach.
I Normally would not make a big deal about it but I took a crap ton of pictures and figured they would be fun for everybody to look at. Hopefully it is not as boring a those stereotypical slideshows where they go, and this is where we went rafting, this is what was growing there, this is the color that the water was... hopefully not like that. But this is how I spent a summer vacation....
My friend planned a Vacation trip to North/South Carolina which involved a lot of traveling and a lot of stops.
The first stop was Mount Airy North Carolina (which was about a fifteen hour drive from Chicago), Andy Griffiths home town and site of the last reunion special.
I'm little bit scary and too eager in that picture, lol.
But it is also the site of the Andy Griffith museum which is eight dollars a person for a room. I suppose it is worth it if you are a fan, I am kind of the bench but my friends that I went with were big fans so we all went. But a cool part, that we in a later free exhibit, "free" exhibit. Is a picture that Shows Andy Holding a Newspaper that shows a headline "Airy News" in episode 154 (the newspaper was folded..). Got a picture of it but I got limited pics on here so...
The Town of Mayberry was more fun for me. It had more a tourist shop vibe and we barely got a chance to see many of the stores on the strip but we did go to Barney's Diner. They also made a goal to see preserved locations from the TV special including Floyd's Barber Shop.
And for those that are fans of classic rock I just had to post this.
We also found an area that had a mock police station set up close to like it was in the show so we had some fun with that too.
We headed out shortly after that and did some more driving, about a couple hours worth to Charlotte, NC. To get to the Carowinds amusement park.
But before then we found a random pirate mini-golf course called High Seas Miniature Golf.
It was pretty impressive, they had Pirates of the Caribbean music playing, they had full size pirate skeletons (It had almost a haunted house vibe), and unique holes such as purposely having a golf ball go down a ramp with water and having to hit a golf ball off a ramp. It was a pretty fun place and it looked like they were still adding onto it. We went to O'Charley's restaurant after that and me and my friend tried their all you can eat chicken fingers with sides for 12 bucks it was really good! I don't think we have one out in Chicago yet.
What is pretty amazing is that the hotel was right across from the theme park with breakfast included for only about hundred a night. Not a bad price.
The next stop was the Carowinds amusement park in Charlotte, NC.
Apparently this is the ride to go on. The FURY 325! So we went on it, two times and then once at night when it had pretty green lights going up it. But the thing to ride was really the Intimidator and we all seemed to agree to that. They also had a Plants vs. Zombies Virtual game that was pretty fun but it was really cool to see the trailer park trailers, again no extra space for pictures. :(
This roller coaster was pretty cool. I liked it much better than the Superman Ultimate Flight at Six Flags Great America. But this one places you on your back going up backwards. Pretty scary at first but very fun.
Overall, being a critic of Six Flags, this park was just simply more fun to be in and the same is true for their cousin Cedar Point In Ohio. They really know how to treat their guests. Their lines are much better and there are fan with water coming out of them. But it just feels more friendly and better run than Six Flags.
An example
This is something that they took out of Six Flags a long time ago and it was preserved here. A cool vine covered walkway. It feels like all the mistakes that Six Flags got wrong these guys got it right. Just the atmosphere here was different. The park was fun also because part of it in was in North Carolina and the other part was in South Carolina. It was simply a more fun theme park experience and we stayed there from 11am-12am until close, pretty long day and the heat was pretty intense too!
One last picture, I caught a quick selfie with Linus. The park person said no more pictures, Linus needs to take a break, I said nope! I'm a getting selfie and without approval I did! But I did give Linus a crisp high five afterwards.
I love my double chin so much!!…….
The next stop was the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, NC.
This caught me off guard but the first site you see is this
It is just has a beautiful rustic botanical gardens feel to it. That barn with the cross on it was where the library was located or more accurately called the tour. And it started with a Talking Cow!
This is not my video because you cannot upload video to gag but I did have a one minute clip but I think this dude caught the whole thing.
It kind of threw me off. It was not simply a library but a free exhibit/museum. There were many pictures about his life and he apparently met Martin Luther King Jr. and was a part of the Civil rights movement. Some pretty crazy stuff. But there were various detailed set ups including this one.
There was even a TV room filled with various old TV's all playing at the same time which was pretty cool to see. There was a lot of videos but they were fun and interesting to watch. The final big part of the tour was being able to walk through a set of tall neon blue crosses. It is much cooler to see in person. But it was pretty cool to look at.
Forgive my phone, the pictures are so crappy sometimes.... I really should have taken another one. I think what happens is sometimes my phone is slow on taking the picture and then I move it before it clicks and I am left with this crap.
But you would think the tour is over but then they go oh, did you know Billy Graham and his wife are buried here?
and also did you know right behind you was the home where he grew up?
It's kind of overwhelming... but very interesting.
Moving on... next stop was the Battleship In Wilmington, North Carolina.
Walking into the first area before the ship a small lizard scattered across the stairs. I tried looking for another lizard and I found a small crab just scampering around. Being from the Chicago area I don't see stuff like that everyday. It was raining pretty hard that day and I have video of it that I can't post here..... but it was really coming down. But we were lucky enough to have some breaks in the rain to at least get aboard it and look inside. At first I was thinking all this is the top of the ship. Then we went inside.
Which was very hot by the way! They had fans but they did little to help. And then I thought it's just pipes and missiles and then it opened up into a whole type of mini town on this ship which changed my mind to it being pretty cool. It also had me wondering about the social part of the ship. How did people survive here? How did they get along? It made me want to ask stories about the crew members lives and how they did the day in and day out aboard the ship. Below is a picture of a doctors type room. I forgot what it was labeled..
But it really takes you back in time and shows you what tight quarters they had. But there was many places I took pictures of including the place where they cook food, the dining room, the post office, the sewing room, the laundry room, the sick bay, the bathrooms (with no privacy by the way), the dentist, the operating room, the dispensary, the doctor's office and the laboratory among many other rooms and locations for the crew on the ship. They also noted that the drinking fountain was called a scuttlebutt which I thought was pretty awesome. It was again kind of interesting to think about how they survived on this ship.
After this it was a short trip to the Wrightsville Beach where we got to see the ocean.
Again, I love my double chin, the more pictures I can score with it the better... but it was also fun to see wild growing palm trees. I have a picture with one but I've only got 20 pics so I got to make them count... But I picked up two shells from the beach and brought them back with me. We ending up going to a unique pizza place afterwards called the Slice of Life, the pizza was pretty good but are server was awesome! He kept grabbing my drink and giving me refills before I could ask him to. After this it was time for us to go back to our hotel for the night but it just so happened that they booked a college campus room. However, it was a hundred dollars for a really really nice room with a glass shower, bath rope, as much free ice cream and soda as we wanted and a free place to do laundry. Breakfast was also included and it was in a place with beautiful white linen table cloths. Very nice place. It was called the UNC school can't tell what exactly it stands for but the t-shirt I snapped a picture of says the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
We got back on the road the next day ready for our fifteen hour trip back. We had seen beautiful sights on the way in but we thought we would stop by a rest area In West Virginia to take some better pictures.
My camera does not do well on long shots but in the background is seemly endless land of grassy mountains. Really beautiful.
That's basically it in a nut shell. Hope you enjoyed my little vacation recap. Tell me where you went on summer vacation and if you had similar experiences in North Carolina. I love to hear about them. Thanks for reading!
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