Flashback to when I was working at Silver Dollar City. I was about to leave my job there and start a new job. I knew that I wanted to take a vacation before I started my ten weeks of training at my new job, so I booked a vacation. It wasn’t the week-long road trip to the Grand Canyon like I had hoped, but I was able to have three days off because the park was closed. I also knew that I like roller coasters and it would be fun to head to some theme parks that I had never been to. After looking at parks around the country and what their operating days are (I learned that lesson the hard way once), I booked a flight to Richmond, Virginia for April 4th through the 6th in 2022.
Sunday
Despite my flight leaving Monday, the trip really started on Sunday. I went to work that day in Branson and didn’t get off work until a little after six. When I booked my flight, I booked it flying out of St Louis because it was cheaper that way. The only problem with flying out of St Louis is that it meant I had to drive from Branson to St Louis; a bit over four hours with food and bathroom breaks. My flight left at five-something in the morning, meaning that I had to go to St Louis that night. No ifs, ands, or buts.
I booked a hotel online to stay in Sunday night. This was where the complications started. When I arrived at the hotel, I tried to check in. Little did I know that at this particular hotel that I booked you must be twenty-one to check in. I am only twenty (as of the time this happened). The clerk at the desk asked to see my ID, then told me that I wasn’t able to stay. I was forced to reach out to Hotels.com (not sponsored) and see if they could help me. Luckily, I was able to get a refund. At this point it was just after midnight. But that still left me with the problem of where I was going to stay for the night.
I spent the night at the airport. If I would have found a hotel to stay at, I would’ve only had a few hours to stay there before I needed to get up and head to the airport. From the failed hotel parking lot, I drove to the airport, got parked, and took a shuttle to the airport where I “slept” for the night. I used a bench outside TSA and next to an outlet as my bed. All in all, I only got maybe two hours of sleep that night. I would have gotten more sleep if there weren’t announcements every ten minutes reminding me to wear a mask (this was still when airports required masks) and telling me to report anything suspicious. It wasn’t very comfortable, not surprisingly, but in all honesty, it was kind of fun. The way that I have begun to live my life is based on making memories and if I will regret not doing something. So in this case, I made a memory of sleeping in an airport in a different city. Plus I saved myself some money by not getting a hotel.
Monday
After very little sleep, TSA opened and I was able to go wait by the gate for my flight. After a short wait, I was able to get on one of the first departing planes of the day and head to my layover in Charlotte. One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to watch the sun rise from the plane. Such a neat experience.
As the plane was landing in Charlotte, out of the window I could see Carowinds. Over the course of three days, I saw five different theme parks in three states: Silver Dollar City, Six Flags St. Louis, Carowinds, Kings Dominion, and Busch Gardens Williamsburg. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. It was a short layover in Charlotte, just enough time to go to the bathroom and find my next gate. Then I hopped aboard the plane bound for Richmond.
Once I landed in Richmond, I was lucky to get an Uber driver crazy enough to take me straight from the airport to Kings Dominion in Doswell. I would have gotten a car rental for this trip, but being twenty, I am not old enough. My Uber driver dropped me off and I walked into the park with all my belongings with me. It was a bit awkward going through security with my big backpack full of clothes, but I did it nonetheless.
At this point, it was just after eleven, shortly after the park opened. My main goal at this park was to get on all the coasters with the exception of the kiddie coaster. Knowing that Tumbli is the newest coaster at the park, that was my first stop. I was worried that the ride would get a long line since it is the newest and it also doesn’t have great capacity. It was a short line and a pretty fun ride overall. You sit on either side of the track and flip forwards and backwards upside-down multiple times.
For the sake of length I won’t be talking about all of the roller coasters at the park because there are just so many that it would be better suited for its own post. I will instead focus on my favorite coasters in the park and my overall experience here.
For my 75th ever roller coaster (a big milestone for me), I made my way over to the tallest coaster in the park and the tallest I’ve been on to date: Intimidator 305. This is regarded as many to be one of the most intense rides on the planet, including myself. To start, you are taken 305 feet into the air at a surprisingly steep angle and a startlingly fast rate. You are flung over the top, plummet straight down 300 feet and head into a sharp righthand turn. This is where you really notice the intensity. The turn stays low to the ground the entire time and is extremely tight so the G-force does not let up for longer than you would expect. I kid you not when I say that I started to lose my vision on that turn every time I rode the ride. But don’t worry, the blood is pushed back into your head as you go over an absolutely massive airtime hill. From this point on the ride is loaded with airtime that will pull you out of your seat and whip-filled turns that will fling your body from left to right or vise versa. I hope that you get a sense of just how crazy this ride really is from my description of it. I loved every second of this ride no matter where I sat in the train.
After some of the other rides in the park I got to ride my eightieth roller coaster. I try to make every ten roller coasters a significant ride so I went to what I consider to be the best ride in the park: Twisted Timbers. Now whether this ride is actually better than Intimidator 305 is up for debate, but I think Twisted Timbers features a more well rounded layout with insane amounts of airtime. This ride features some of the better theming in the park and, if you take the time to read, actually features a comprehensive story. One thing that you should note with this ride is that you are required to walk through metal detectors. They do have free lockers to put a phone in but if you have something bigger you will need to put that in a bigger, paid locker outside the queue. Once you hop on the ride you are in for a real treat. You ascend the lift hill and proceed to the first inversion. You come off the top of the lift and make a righthand banked turn. Instead of leveling out, the ride continues to flip you upside-down as you lose elevation. It is a super unique experience and can’t be found on many coasters. Personally I prefer a straight drop on a coaster for the airtime. But don’t worry because this ride has no shortage of airtime. After you go through an over-banked turn, the ride takes you into three large, sustained airtime hills that will put your restraints to the test. The rest of the ride is full of sharp turns, inversions, and lots more airtime. Truly an amazing experience.
After riding the rest of the roller coasters in the park, I decided to try to get an Uber to my hotel I booked in Williamsburg. I was having no luck at all. The closest I got was a Lyft driver that had accidentally accepted my ride as she was driving home for the night. After talking to my sister over the phone, she convinced me to go spend more time in the park. I was waiting out in the parking lot during this so I had to take my bag with all of my stuff back through security. They questioned why I had so much on me but let me back into the park.
At this point the sun was starting to get pretty low. The security saw my camera and recommended that I head over to Twisted Timbers to get some night shots. And so that is where I spent the rest of the night. I got some great photos like the one at the very top of this blog, then I proceeded to get on the ride until close. At Silver Dollar City, on the thrill coasters you are required to get off and walk back through the line before you can ride again. The reason being the rides are physically demanding and they don’t want anyone to pass out. That was not the case at Kings Dominion. They said that if no one was in your row you could stay seated. And if there was someone in your row, find an empty row. I probably rode Twisted Timbers seven or more times in a row that night. Because why not? The ride is just insane and I don’t know when I’ll be back at that park.
I had a really good time at the park that day. But now I needed to get to my hotel in Williamsburg. The big problem that I was running into is the fact that it is such a long drive and no Uber or Lyft driver wanted to do it. It kept getting later and later and I was getting no where. I knew where I was going to be staying that night but I had no way of getting there. Even just writing this and rehashing those memories is stressing me out. There have been very few moments in my life where I felt as helpless as this, but I was scared.
Eventually I called a cab that was willing to take me. Security had checked on me a few times and eventually took me over to the employee entrance of the park. At that point I was just waiting on the cab to show up and take me to my hotel. When I was finally in the cab and on the road, that was an experience of itself.
My driver kept trying to make small talk with me even though I didn’t want to. But me being the nice person that I am, I did talk to him. He asked me about my job and I told him about how in the long term I would like to work for a nonprofit. My driver then started to tell me about his experience working at a nonprofit and how all of them are corrupt and just want your time and money. By the way, I fully disagree with this statement but I’m just trying to tell my experience as it was. He also had a bit of road rage which is not something you want out of a taxi.
When we got to the hotel, I had to fork over 200 dollars to pay for the ride. That hurt. But at that point I was desperate and had no other options. Frankly I was just happy to have a nice hotel room to stay in for the rest of my trip.
Tuesday
I wasn’t able to catch up much on sleep that night but I was grateful for the sleep I was able to get. Breakfast at the hotel was lackluster since it was all prepackaged. Then I got a Lyft from my hotel to Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Security at this park was a breeze compared to Kings Dominion and I proceeded to the turnstiles. Apparently when I booked my ticket for this park I had booked it for Monday instead of Tuesday. What else could go wrong on this trip? Luckily that was a relatively easy fix and I was feeling a lot better with a good nights sleep. Funny how patient you can be when you’re not exhausted.
From the second I walked into this park, I could tell that they put leaps and bounds more effort into the theming the Kings Dominion. Walking around the park was almost as fun as riding the rides. There is just so much to look at and the way the park is set up is like you are walking through different European countries. I hopped on one ride and then started to explore the park. As I was walking around I found a nice quiet place to sit that was totally secluded from the rest of the park. It is rare that you find this sort of thing in a park but it was a nice refresher for me to sit and just enjoy the scenery for a little bit.
In term of roller coaster here, the park has less than Kings Dominion but the quality is just as good, if not better because of all the theming. My favorite ride in the park is their newest: Pantheon. Just like Tumbli, the ride opened in 2022. When I walked up to the ride, it was down while they were adding another train to the track. There might have been some downtime before when I showed up, but from what I could see the line was short and the ride would reopen after a few test runs. The biggest downside of this ride is the lack of theming surrounding it. Pantheon falls flat when you compare its theming to the rest of the park.
I made Pantheon my 90th roller coaster and boy did it deliver. The ride launches you forward into a zero-G roll that is filled with hang time. From there you maneuver through two small outer-banked curves facing in different directions. Then you enter the part of the ride that really starts picking up steam. You are launched forward over an airtime hill in the middle of the launch up a massive hill. But what sets this ride apart is that you don’t make it over the hill. You start to roll backwards where the launches engage with the train again, this time launching you backwards. The airtime over the hill on this launch seems to be the strongest to me but I could be mistaken. This backwards section of launch takes you into a massive vertical spike. This was probably my favorite part of the ride as you feel yourself literally weightless and staring down at the ground far below you. Once you start moving forward again, you go through the launch one more time and finally make it up the massive hill. The train crawls over the top giving you a nice view of your surroundings before you plummet down the ninety-five degree drop. After the main drop the train traverses a massive outer-banked hill, a zero-G stall where the train is left hanging upside-down for several seconds and finally into a banked turn into the brakes. This is a crazy ride that will leave you wondering what just happened.
I had a great time just getting to enjoy this park at my own pace. There is so much to see and do here, even if you are not a thrill seeker. This has easily become one of my favorite theme parks. I would highly recommend this park to anyone in the area or just wanting to head to Virginia. As with Kings Dominion, I am most likely going to make a full post about Busch Gardens Williamsburg in the near future.
Luckily, I was able to get back to the hotel a lot easier than on Monday night. I knew that I needed to fly out of Richmond the next day which meant that at some point I would have to find a way to get from Williamsburg to Richmond. My Uber driver that was taking me to my hotel recommended that I look into the train. I would have never thought to take a train, especially considering that no one really travels by train in the midwest where I live. Once I was back in my comfy hotel bed, I ordered DoorDash from Hardees and booked myself a train ticket for the following day.
Wednesday
My original plan when I booked this trip was to spend Wednesday morning exploring Colonial Williamsburg, but with my train leaving for Richmond at 5:42 am that wasn’t an option. I woke up at an ungodly hour, did my morning devotion, then proceeded to look for an Uber or Lyft. Because it was an ungodly hour, I wasn’t able to find anyone. So like before, I had to call a cab. This time it was only fifty dollars, but it still hurt to fork it over. All in all, if I had gotten an Uber from Williamsburg to Richmond it would probably have been around the same overall cost so I wasn’t too upset.
I hopped aboard the train, find a relatively empty car, and take a seat. The trip was about an hour but I had never really traveled by train before so it was an exciting experience. It’s crazy how some things that people see daily are boring but when other people see the same thing, it inspires them.
The train arrived in Richmond about an hour later and at this point the sun had just barely risen over the horizon. Now I had a half day to kill before I needed to head to the airport for my flight. I found a coffee shop nearby and walked over to it. At that hour every person I saw had me on edge. I don’t like to assume the worst in people but I was in an unknown city with all my belongings for the trip strapped on my back. Until I was in a safe place like a coffee shop, I did not want to be outside. Luckily I made it to the coffee shop just fine and grabbed an amazing sandwich for breakfast and a drink. I spent several hours there just killing time until I felt comfortable walking around outside.
At around nine that morning I felt comfortable leaving the coffee shop and going to explore Richmond. I am a theme park guy but honestly I think that this was my favorite part of the trip. Just walking around with my camera going wherever sounded interesting. I was fascinated with the history of the town and the way the modern buildings have intertwined with the historic ones. Also it was incredibly fun to take pictures of buildings that I had never seen before and getting unique angles and shots.
As I was walking around I came across Canal Walk. I had no idea what it was and saw that it was not too far from where I was so I decided to check it out. It turned out to be a really fun walk by the historic canal. Throughout the walk there were plaques talking about the town’s history; how it got started, slavery, the Civil War, how the canal worked, and a lot more. Again, I got lots of pictures along the route.
Eventually, the walk took me to an island called Brown’s Island. Historically, the island served multiple purposes, especially during the Industrial Age but now it is used primarily as a park. But just because it is a park does not mean that there are not things to see. You can can find a statue dedicated to the slaves that once lived in Richmond as well as some artifacts from the Industrial Age. Connecting to the island is a bridge that has quotes from citizens of Richmond and historical figures during the end of the Civil War. This is not something that I took the time to enjoy even though I should have. Next time I find myself in Richmond, I will make that a priority. Since it was the capital of the Confederacy, you can find many artifacts and references to that time.
Across the canal (or maybe James River, I couldn’t really tell) is the Historic Tredegar, what used to be Tredegar Ironworks. Within the ruins of these buildings is the American Civil War Museum. It is really cool to see how they blend the modern architecture with repurposed, historic buildings. The museum is filled with artifacts from the war.
In my personal opinion, I wasn’t thrilled with the museum. Yes, they have loads of artifacts to look at but you couldn’t tell what they were without reading about them. I found that I spent more time reading about the artifacts than admiring them. Personally I think that I would skip the inside of the museum and just admire the exterior when I go back. But that is just my opinion.
After exploring the museum I walked back to Brown’s island, had a phone interview (I didn’t get that job), and got an Uber to the airport. It was time to go home.
The trip was definitely one to remember. Parts of it were amazing, other parts honestly made me want to cry. I also spent a lot of money on this trip, more than I would have liked. A lot more than I would have liked. But I did things on this trip that I had never considered doing like riding the train. I was also able to explore and have a good time not knowing anything about Richmond in advance. While I definitely love theme parks, I had more fun exploring Richmond and getting a completely new experience. This trip pushed me to explore, change my plans, deal with stress, relax, and live in the moment. I don’t regret the trip overall. If I had the chance to do it again, I probably would not have gone to the theme parks at all. They are fun every once in a while but I wish that I would have spent more time exploring a new place that I’m not sure when I’ll be back.
Like I said earlier, I’ve started to live my life on if I will regret not doing something and making memories. This trip was no exception. Now go make your own memories, live life without regrets, and live your Enthused Life.
