Busch Gardens Europe - Photo TR - 10/1

mforce79 · October 2, 2006

Wasn’t planning on making a trip to BG this weekend, but I have a friend from Poland who had never been to the park before and wanted to check it out. Simon is a friend I met a few years ago. He’s been coming to Virginia during the summer for the past 3 years to do research on his PhD which involves the history of the American Civil War. When he finishes his dissertation early next year, he wants to eventually come back to America and work as a college History professor. I’m not a history buff, but I’ve learned a lot about this country while traveling with him throughout the Mid-Atlantic. Normally I’m his mode of transportation between museums and battlefields, but this time I convinced him to take part in some real entertainment, so we headed down to BG early Sunday morning.

First stop, the dreaded gas station… what’s this? Gas is less than $2 per gallon??? Sweet! Had to take a picture of this, hopefully it will stay that way!

We got to Busch Gardens a little after 10:00 and I was the only car pulling into the parking booths. I was assuming that most of the crowds would come later in the day for HOS, but I also think the weather forecast kept some people from showing up early. It was supposed to rain in the morning before clearing up, but the rain stopped before 8am in Richmond, and there was nothing but blue skies all day.

There were short lines for everything, and we rode every major attraction in the park by 5:30. We headed home around 6:00 and the crowds never really got bad. We waited about 15 minutes for AC right before we left, so it probably ended up being a good night for those who stayed for HOS. The longest line we waited in all day was the traffic backed up on 64 all the way home. They really need to make that a 6 lane divided highway instead of 4.

Simon really enjoyed the park. He's fluent in too many languages to count, so he was reading off all the signs and writings on the walls in all of the themed areas. I never even realized they had so many signs in different languages. I know I've seen some, but they're all over the place. On the side of buildings and in all the restaurants. Now I know what they say, so I think that's cool.

I did get a couple construction shots, I'll post those in the Griffon thread. Not a whole lot to report on unfortunately.

I’ll let the pictures explain the rest… enjoy!

Simon forced me into this one... He really wants to fight in a civil war.

This picture was taken seconds before the bird bit my finger (bleeding). I knocked him off my shoulder hoping to not give him a concussion but blatantly proving a point that he should not bite fingers.