What is This Thing Called 'Cash'?

Okay, we're back from Busch Gardens, safe and well. There are a number of new rides in the Gardens since our last visit, some of which make the older rides such as 'Scorpion'and 'Muntu' look positively tame.

One particularly evil addition is a torture-fest called 'SheiKra', a 'floorless roller coaster' that takes you up a 47 degree incline to a height of 200 feet. Once at the top you are dangled over a vertical drop for a few seconds before you plunge straight down into an 'Immelmann Loop' (don't ask me - if you want to know more check it out on Wikipedia). I was tempted to give it a try for all of a nanosecond before bottling it. It was the dangling bit that put me off. And the screaming of those onboard.

The Brunette had an excuse for avoiding the more robust rides in that she has recently been having treatment for a bad neck. I have no such excuse other than abject cowardice but I was happy to jump on her bandwagon as a display of sympathy. If she couldn't enjoy the significant g-forces involved in plummeting hundreds of feet into the bowels of hell then neither would I. What a hero!

Instead, she decided that she liked the look of a small, kiddie-friendly coaster called 'Cheetah Chase'. The short queue for the ride mostly consisted of pre-teens so I really didn't have a justifiable excuse this time, even though I didn't like the look of it and I'd had previous experience of supposedly lightweight rides that weren't.

Sure enough, what looked from ground level like a sedate trundle around a meccano set in a glorified Noddy car turned into a Formula One rip-snorting hell-ride that we both spent the majority of with our eyes closed. I realised afterwards that the problem with it was that there was no camber to the track. With the mega-rides the journey is usually fairly smooth (with the singular exception of Disney's Space Mountain, a once-in-a-lifetime nightmare) as the track is curved to take account of the bends.

The Cheetah Chase, however, is a series of hairpin bends with the odd up and down bit in between. You are thrown around these bends at speed and at no time does it feel as though you are in any danger of actually staying inside the car, centrifugal force being what it is. It was brilliant.

We also went on a few gentler attractions - the Stanley Falls, the Skyride cable car, Rhino Rally - but the best of all was the Congo River Rapids. We sat in a big yellow round thing with five other adults and three or four kids. The adults all wore plastic capes which we thought was cheating a bit. The big yellow round thing set off on its journey around a narrow course of 'rapids', banging into things and being spun around as it went. The spinning resulted in everyone having a turn at getting a bit damp. Except us. Every time we passed a water cannon (gleefully operated by bystanders on the bank) we'd catch the full jet.

Every time the big yellow round thing passed beneath a waterfall we'd be in the perfect position for it to pour itself over us and every time we hit one of the more turbulent rapids it would be our arses that would be sat in the spot where the water flooded in. At the end of the ride we couldn't have been wetter if we'd actually swum the rapids. It was the biggest laugh of the holiday.

Alas, all good things etc. We left Busch Gardens about an hour before closing time to beat the rush. We drove out of the car park and promptly got lost. For an attraction as big and well-known as this the road signs are remarkably small. We followed a sign for the I-4 back to Orlando. It was the only such sign we would see for the next twenty minutes. It was by sheer luck that we eventually found the I-4 and I can't believe that there isn't a much more direct route. Still, we made it so I shouldn't complain too much.

As we approached Orlando there was a loud ping and a light flashed on the dashboard. We were nearly out of gas (yes, I know it's really called petrol but when in Rome...). I convinced the Brunette that we had enough to get us home but as the indicator dropped onto the red line I realised that I was being a little optimistic. We pulled off the Interstate and looked for a gas station.

By now it was dark. I don't just mean that the sun had gone down, I mean that the road we were now driving along was devoid of light of any kind. No house lights, no street lights, and certainly no gas stations lit up like Christmas Trees. We finally reached a toll booth where I asked the lady where the nearest gas station was. She said that there was one a couple of miles ahead. True to her word, we pulled in to the station two miles later with the gas indicator now below the red line. Imagine the relief. Now imagine how long the relief lasted.

I looked at the pump to see how the payment system worked as each gas station in America seems to have a different way of doing things. This one appeared to have some sort of membership thing going on. There was a sign on the pump saying that non-members couldn't pay with cash. Huh!!! This couldn't be correct, could it?

"Can I help you, sir?"

A guy in a security uniform appeared out of nowhere behind me.

"Yes please. This sign says that I can't pay with cash, is that right?"

"That's correct, sir."

"Why is that?"

"Well, it says so right there on the pump, sir."

"Yes, I can see that but that's more of a statement than a reason, isn't it?"

"Well, it's because you're not a member of our club and we don't know who you are. It's to prevent you filling your car with gas and driving off without paying."

"But can't I pay you with cash before I fill up?"

"No sir. But you can pay with a credit card, though that will cost you an extra 12 cents per gallon."

"But we don't have cards and we're nearly out of gas (Regular readers will know our credit card situation via posts passim).

"Well, there's another gas station about a mile up the road. Maybe they'll be able to help you out, sir."

Suffice it to say that we made it to the next station on fumes. Fortunately it was an ordinary gas station rather than one that we needed to be freemasons to use.

What's that about? Since when did it become impossible to pay for something with cash? This country is a never ending source of wonder, sometimes in a bad way.

Ah well, back to the pool.

Laters,
oldblodger