We promised Shug that if he was a great camper we’d take him and Shugie somewhere really special. Well, to Shug, somewhere wonderful would be someplace with roller coasters. We’d seen an article about the brand-new Fury 325 at Carowinds in Charlotte, the tallest and fastest giga coaster in the world. So that’s where we were headed. And to make our stay even more fun, after seeing so much about Great Wolf Lodge, we decided to stay there. Hotel + water park = serious fun for two kids, right? Wellllllllll….
So here’s what we did — left camp:
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Saw Clemson:
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…had supper at the Beacon Drive-In in Spartanburg SC. Hmmm. This place has been on a lot of different shows, they apparently sell more ice tea than any other restaurant in the US (I didn’t see what the big deal about it was), but their Yelp reviews aren’t great. I told Av that we could give it a chance, with so many people comparing it to the Varsity in Atlanta. Well, it’s not a drive-in in the same way that the Varsity is, but it does have people yelling. Other than that…
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This gentleman yells “Call It!” when you come up to order. He’s the translator between what you call food and what the restaurant calls its food:
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So Av wanted just a plain hamburger — which had a super-thin piece of meat in it, and if you order it “a-plenty” they put the greasiest onion rings and Sysco fries right on top. Have to say: yuck.
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The most average peach cobbler in the universe, yet it was the highlight of the meal:
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Since we were just staying one night on our way to Charlotte, we got a room at the North Spartanburg Hampton Inn, which was fine.
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The next day, we saw the Gaffney, South Carolina peach water tower by the interstate:
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Av dropped Shug and me off at Carowinds (Shugie’s not quite tall enough so since so many of their rides are for the 54″+ group, he went with Av to Discovery Place, a children’s science museum). We rode several of the rides and was able to walk on to every single thing because we had the Fast Pass Plus wristbands. In fact, our first ride on the Fury 325 (the tallest/fastest one — the one that we came here for) was in the *front row*
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…which was amazing:
We rode twice. Whew. Two was plenty.
Did I mention it was 100* outside (literally 100.)? We were crazy hot. So it was a good thing they had a water park there!! Shug and I were in the lazy river for an hour!! We had super-fun!
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We had the standard room:
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Mostly inside is the water park — a place just for babies, another really fun looking area for older kids, a regular pool, a wave pool, four different tube/mat rides inside:
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In the wave pool, I noticed the lifeguards doing this ‘routine’ and at first I thought they were making fun of each other, but this is actually the way they watch the crowd. All of them.
I sat out this once to get a pic of the boys on this slide:
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