Thursday, February 06, 2003
The forecast for today was sunny and warm, so we decided to return to Busch Gardens and try some of the water rides. Knowing that it didn’t actually get going until 10 o’clock, we took our time having breakfast and cleaning up the campsite before we drove over. When we arrived, we found out that the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra was having concerts there starting at 12:00. Since you needed tickets, our first order of business was racing the other geezers to the Stanleyville Theater for the tickets for the 12:00 show. Being veteran walkers stood us in good stead, and we raced past the others to get our tickets.

That done we went to go on the “Ubanga-banga” bumper-car ride (aptly named) and then took the Skyride that had been closed due to high winds on our previous visit. That gave some nice views of the animals on the Serengeti Plain and the Rhinoceros Ride. We revisited the animals in the Serengeti Plain area and got some nice pictures and then made our way back to the Hospitality Suite for a pre-Dorsey lunch of pizza and free beer.

When we arrived at the concert five minutes early, almost all the seats were already taken but we got some nice ones in the far corner. The concert was typical “big band” music and the audience was wildly enthusiastic. What surprised us was that the lead trombonist was quite young, no more than 20, but he was very good. We found the music all very similar in style and tone. For us, the music was insipid and remorselessly sweet. For the songs where they used a vocalist, the lyrics were typical “Tin Pan Alley” arrangements from the 20s to 40s. The lyrics involve the usual topics of love, etc. but the same lyrics can be sung in many different ways. In keeping with the instrumental music, the vocalist sang these songs as very sweet, “easy-listening” songs.

From the concert we took in the bird show which consisted of a macaw trained to fly around the arena and snag dollar bills plus an Amazon parrot which imitated a large number of words and sang “Oh what a beautiful morning” more or less in tune. This is not a cavil—the main thing is that a bird could sing at all, not that it was slightly out of tune. All in all this was pretty minimal bird show compared to Weekee-Watchee springs and some other places, but still fun.

It was now 1:30, the sun was shining, and we were ready for water rides. Equipped with sandals, shorts, and a rain jacket to cover the camera, we did the log-flume ride and the “Tidal Wave” ride. The log flume ride was jerkier but had two drops and was really more exciting than the Tidal Wave ride. On the other hand, the Tidal Wave had a long, relaxing, smooth, and nicely landscaped first section followed by one very high drop that ended so abruptly that a wall of water came back over you. It was a fun way to get wet!

We took the Skyway back over to the Africa section and decided to try the “Rhino Rally”, which was the first and only ride where we had to wait. It was, however, a really fun ride in some real Landrovers. We came face-to-face with a real rhinoceros and an African elephant. The rhino was no more than ten feet away and I had a moment’s pause because I remembered a National Geographic special in which a rhino had charged and almost overturned a Landrover in Africa. This rhino, however, seemed to be placid and well-fed, so we had no problems. Unexpectedly, the ride turned into a water ride as we were swept away from a waterfall down the river. Lots of fun. Monika had volunteered as the navigator and had the best seat next to the driver. He christened her “Bob” for the duration of the ride, which caused me no end of merriment. I kept calling her “Bob” at the top of my voice and threatening to call her “Monika” if she made more mistakes. I mean, how often do you have the opportunity to call you spouse your name and threaten to call them their name? During the ride “Bob” got blamed for every mishap, and there were plenty of those so I got to yell at her a lot with complete impunity. Such fun.

From the Rhino Rally we visited the elephants and saw a clear example of an elephant who thought “the grass was greener on the other side of the barrier”. She was all stretched out to get some of the fresh grass just outside the barrier—it illustrated the old adage very well. We also revisited the ice show we saw a couple days back, but this time we sat down in front where we could get a really close view of all the skaters. We were surprised that the stars were different from the previous day, but the basic show was the same. The quality of the jumps, lifts, and spins was quite professional and it was nice to see it up close. They had ice-dancing segments thematically based on several areas around the world, and it was fun to see how they developed each theme. After the ice show we had dinner at the Zagora Café and took in one more “rock and roll” show with dancing and singing before, tired but thoroughly satisfied, we climbed back into the truck for the drive back to camp.