The Ghetto Parade

So today my friend Jim and I loaded up the car with bottles of water (courtesy of the case of water that no one drank at my party since they all drank vodka) and traveled outside the beltway to visit Six Flags of P.G. County. Let me see if I can put PG County in Context for those of you outside the area. Spending time in P.G. county would be akin to visiting Kansas City, KS or spending the afternoon at Bannister Mall (on the KCMO side), or heading south of Chicago to drink in the splendor of Calumet City. I don't know that I have a similar image for California, but maybe if you visited the industrial area of Oakland....? You CA folks will have to get back to me on that one.

The park was only open from 10-6 and I was surprised how dead it was. Although several of the rides were not operating, there were no lines to get on anything, save a 10 minute wait at Superman, which is my favorite coaster in the park. It doesn't go upsidedown or curly-que. It just goes up high. Really high. Then straight down fast. Really really fast.

But the clientele was quite of the ghetto variety. Now I am used to the shouting, accents and gold teeth, but poor Jimmy was taken aback just a bit I think. Which is odd since he lives 2 blocks from me, but he's always flying to Brussels or sits on 8th Street with a wine bottle nearby, and he doesn't spend alot of time hanging out on the stoop of his townhouse.

But I just have to share with ya'll the parade (and I use that term loosely) that came through as we were getting ready to depart.





I haven't been to Six Flags for probably 6 or 7 years. In the interim I have been to Disneyland and Walt Disney World. These three little tractor-pulled "floats" drove by and I said to Jimmy, "is this a parade?" We agreed that perhaps that this indeed was their version of a parade. That's Jim standing in the last photo. I told him I needed to document the occasion.

Six Flags also has a water park, which we decided to walk through to look for eye candy and a cocktail. There was no eyecandy (sad) and only expensive beer -- no cocktails (even sadder). But there was this alarming message:



I guess no peeing in the pool just goes unsaid..

We had planned on staying until closing, but four hours turned out to be quite enough, so we headed back to DC (laughing at the exiting commuter traffic jams) and that gave us plenty of time to attend Joyluck, the usual Thursday drinking night. Krystal was in town so it was an extra special night.
Here are myself, Ivan and Jim:


And Jeff and the lovely Krystal, who hails from Branson, MO:



I managed to be home by 9:30pm (which is very early Joyluck time) but still a bit tipsy.

This weekend is a work weekend and I'm off to L.A. Stay tuned for more next week!