Dear Journal Letter # 5(vacation and rollercoasters)

Dear Journal,

It seems I have reached a happy pace in blogland. Perhaps this hobby has finally had a chance to cool off in my one-track mind.

We decided not to go to Washington D.C. and opted out for season tickets to Dollywood. D.C wouldn't have been as fun for the little ones and from what I hear, included lots of walking. Perhaps, we'll catch it another year when my little ones get more out of it.

We took advantage of the nice weather recently and went to Dollywood for the first time. It has been at least 20 years since I've been to an Amusement Park! There are several advantages to homeschooling and one of them is that you can go to places like this when other children aren't there to make it crowded. That almost doesn't sound nice, but it's the truth. We rode some of the rides twice in a row without even getting off because there were hardly no lines. Everything was great and we had a lot of fun except for one thing, - when I rode the roller coasters.
I must have experienced amnesia and forgot about the last roller coaster ride 10 yrs. prior at one of those little carnivals that come to town and park in a huge parking lot. It obviously was a little roller coaster but it looped upside down 9 times!!! I got off that thing thanking God I didn't lose my cookies! So what was I thinking getting on the first roller coaster? It must have been one of those moments when you want to feel young again- not to mention, I thought it only went upside down once. It turned out to go upside down 3 times. I knew I was about to regret this when I got to the gate to wait for the ride to load and read a sign that mentioned the roller coaster was only about one minute long. All I can say is that I had to breathe through the upside down loops and wished one minute wasn't so long.

The next roller coaster ride I rode on is probably the reason God appreciates us humans. It reminded me of the fun I had riding something that looked similar to it in Six Flags when I was 14 or so. I got on this ride thinking this was definitely going to be a positive experience. It wasn't. Not only was it not pleasant, I thought the G-forces had caused me to be in several car crashes and my emotions were about to cause some unnatural phenomena to occur. If the thing would have lasted 15 more seconds at the speed it was going, I would have lost it completely! When the ride was done, though I looked normal on the outside, the inside felt like jello and the best I can do to describe it is the way I feel after delivering a baby. How in the name of common sense can people get a thrill from those things is beyond me now. I must have outgrown them. No sooner were we off that contraption of death than my lower back began to hurt. My nerves were shot for an hour or two afterwards, and if you think 5 children is stressful at times, you wouldn't have doubted it looking at me shortly after that. I was not the picture of peace and tranquility. Thankfully, it was the last ride and we were ready to go home.

After all the trauma I went through, the next morning I woke up sore from the experience. But all we could do was reminisce at the fun we had. So we're hoping to go back soon and catch a few of the rides we missed, and ride the ones we enjoyed!

Sincerely Young at Heart and Still in-tact in Body,

Linda