Another Haunting

About a week before Halloween I'm online and I get a message from a bud I had met the previous month during the Labor Day weekend.   He was looking at going to King's Dominion's Halloween Haunt and wanted to have a buddy go along with him.  I figured it sounded like the opportunity for a good time, so I agreed to go.

Saturday morning, MX picks me up and we drive down to KD, getting there around 11 AM.    Now unlike my last trip during the Halloween Haunt, they were running two cars on each of their coasters, so lines were a lot shorter this time.  It also had been raining earlier in the day, so things were a bit damp.  There was a bit of worry about the weather because it was going to rain later that night.  However, we were going to make the best of it.

The first ride was on Dominator, which was a blast.  Then it was off to Volcano.  MX remarked how much you actually stay up around the top of the mountain before coming down.  There is some truth to that, so if you're afraid of heights, you might not like this coaster, but then again, you might not be much of a fan of roller coasters either.

Next it was Avalanche, then onward to Back Lot Stunt Coaster, and Flight of Fear.  This weekend they kept Flight of Fear open as a coaster until 4 PM before closing it to make it into one of the haunted attractions that evening.  We then hit up the drop tower, which again, that is the sort of ride that truly will scare me.  Anaconda was on the agenda, and for whatever reason, it seems like it was running slower than usual.  I wonder if that coaster may eventually go the way of the dodo, though that might be difficult because of its location.

Moving onward after stopping for lunch, the next ride was on Shockwave before hitting up Grizzly.  Walking back to go on Dominator again, we stopped and rode Scooby Doo's Haunted Mansion.  I will be curious to see what they're going to do with most of the kids area next year when it's all converted from Nickelodeon and Hannah Barbera to Peanuts.

From Dominator it was back over to ride Drop Tower again.  It was while waiting in line there that we'd end up making some new friends for the evening, S and T, who were a (straight) couple from Richmond.  They were at the park on Twilight tickets, and hadn't attended a haunt before.  Once I started telling them about it, T's eyes lit up, she was all about going to do the scary stuff.

So we hung out for a bit and then the haunt stuff started.  Hit up Club Blood and then the Toxic Dump before walking over to see if there was a short line at Volcano.  Unfortunately when we got there, it had started to rain again, so they had shut down the ride.   To get out of the rain, we hit the alien themed haunted house.  After getting out of there the rain had calmed a bit, so we went over and hit up Volcano.

After stopping for dinner, we took a ride on the Crypt and then walked over and hit up the Slaughterhouse haunt.  Now let me just say here that basically MX doesn't do the scary stuff so well, at least when it comes to the surprise scare, which is what most of the houses are.   When it came to the groups, it was in the order of T, S, MX, and myself in the houses, since the two braver folks had to bring up the front and rear of the line.  It did make for a different experience with some of the scary folks, considering I was usually the leader of the group the last time I was there.

Moving onward we headed for Dominator.  Now I figured because of the rain driving folks out, we would have a short line, including for the front, which was fine because I needed to pee by then.  However, fate decided to fuck with me this night.  As we're in line, it starts to rain again.  Being the diehards that we are, we stayed in line, while others left, so it got us rather close to the front.  However, it would be about 15 minutes before the rain would stop enough to get going again.  I hate that I had to do this, but when it came close enough to our turn, I walked across to head for a bathroom because I had to pee so bad by then that I don't think hitting several G-forces of turns would have been a good idea.  Oh well, it's not like I won't be riding in the front of Dominator ever again.

We then tried to hit Blackbeard's Revenge, but due to the rain, apparently it made that haunt muddy and possibly unsafe for folks.  So I led us over to Maze of Madness, but that was closed as well.  This was probably because by then it was 11:45 and the park was going to be closing in 15 mins.  MX and I ended up saying our goodbyes to T and S and headed to the nearby hotel where we had gotten a room for the night.  It was a good idea because we were both tired.

The next morning, it was get up, have breakfast, and then head back to DC.  Thanks to the time change, it meant getting back just before the football games started.  Overall it was a fun time this weekend, and I got to hit a few more of the haunt attractions as well.  MX said he had a fun time as well, despite some of the haunting stuff.  Now the season is over, but there's always next year for me (yay season pass!).