Has it been hot enough for ya? Sheesh.

And what does one do when a dangerous heat dome blankets your state? One goes to ride roller coasters in a city where it’s even hotter. Carowinds was fun despite the insanely hot temps and two cases of heat exhaustion. I really can’t overstate just how hot it was. I hadn’t been coaster riding since ’98 (or ’99). I was expecting to be all nervous and chicken out … but I didn’t! Fury 325 (pictured below) and Copperhead Strike were well worth the price of admission. We didn’t get to ride all the rides we wanted to because the heat beat us out of the park earlier than planned. Just means we need to go back in the fall when the temps are cooler and Scarowinds is in full effect!

After some downtime we went to dinner at Twin Peaks. Yes. THAT Twin Peaks. It was either that or Cracker Barrel. The food was actually pretty good! And I dug the PNW lodge vibes. Though I suspect our server’s name wasn’t really “Bambi.”

We made it back to the mountains in time for some July 4 festivities on Saturday. It was a fun (albeit still stupidly hot) time chatting with the homos and having tasty food.

The cookout view wasn’t too bad. I want to steal this house!

It’s been years since I have hosted a big, drunken bash on the 4th here. I miss those day. But, that group I used to hang with slowly splintered over the years until there were maybe 10 people that would show up. And even then, they would dine and dash instead of hanging out and having fun. A good example of just how fickle and unreliable my “friends” ended up being.

Now, it’s Hump Day, and Finley has the right idea. Hide out under a blanket and avoid the world.