Carowinds 2022

Baylie's honor band was performing in a competition hosted by Carowinds - an amusement park that straddles the North and South Carolina border. We decided to make a family day out of it. Baylie rode up with the band so it was me, David and Jalen. Plus Baylie basically bailed on  us, so it was the three of us all day. (We probably should have saved the money and stayed home, but we had a great day.)

It had been a very long time since we were last at the park.

We headed to the Fury. I decided to ride it like I had for my 50th birthday and I decided to keep my eyes open this time. It was miserable, but I did it!

Jalen waited for us down below.

There was a nasty downpour at one point, but our BYU ponchos kept us nice and dry.

Jalen and I rode the bumper cars. I let him drive!

We did Plants vs Zombies a couple of times.

Carowinds has this cool food and beverage program where you pay a price and you can eat every hour and a half and drink every 15 minutes. It's amazing! I wish Disney did that.

David tried a little bit of lots of things. We bought one for Baylie, but she didn't use it. We ended up using hers. If we had thought about it, we would have saved it for David to use when he went back with his choir a couple weeks later.

We did a LOT of walking. 

Throughout the park they had these interesting displays where students shared their experiments.

Jalen wanted a picture by this water feature.

I ate too much popcorn.

Jalen loved the Sky High ride. He was a little nervous, but he wanted to ride it twice.

We straddled the line between North and South Carolina.

At the end of the day, Jalen conquered his fears and rode this ride that went up so high, David and I wouldn't even ride it.

I couldn't even watch, but he did amazing.

Dale Earnhardt's car is pretty cool.

More food.

Baylie's band performed and then came to the park. She basically ditched us all day!

She had a lot of fun with her friends though. And April was one of her chaperones.

Turns out Baylie's band did pretty amazing. They won best in their division and overall. The Irmo Middle School orchestra also won in their division and overall. 

We were exhausted and spent way too much money, but we all had a fantastic day.