Sunday Sunday

Since yesterday was the birthday of practically everyone I know (not as big an exaggeration as you might think.  I know at least four April 12s,) there, was, of course, massive celebrating.  Eric, my brother, lives in Illinois, not too far from a town renowned for processing soybeans.  Winter is why I don't like visiting Illinois, and the smell of soybeans are why I don't like visiting Eric.  So his party is out, due to distance and the smell (mostly distance,) and yesterday was filled end-to-end with prior commitments, so today was Busch Gardens with my Birthday sister and her family.

The new area, Jungala, isn't super-wonderful.  It's basically in two parts, the play area, and the tiger enclosure:
  For those of us over forty-five inches tall, there's nothing special about the play area.  It's rope swings and nets, so whatever, and a couple of kiddie-centric rides.  There's a two- or three-story drop tower, which is impressive, as there aren't really thrill rides for the shorter set, and a zip line ride with confusing restrictions.  You have to be at least six years old, but less than thirteen, and more than 48 inches tall (which, my sister pointed out, is a BIG six year old.)
  The new tiger area, on the other hand, is quite nice, with a close-up walk-around of the whole thing, and six tigers, four of which are white.  Whether they'll stay this way or not, I don't know, but most of the cats were very active, including one fairly juvenile male who was actually aggressive and lunged at the fence and roared at us once or twice.

Rode a couple of coasters while we were there, of course.  The Scorpion, which is a fairly short coaster with one loop, Gwazi, a nice, high, rattly wooden coaster, and Kumba, which is towers and spirals of steel, fast and smooth.  Went to the Brewmaster's Club, where they push free beer and the occasional piece of cheese on you.  It's an Anheusier(sp, but I don't care,)-Busch park, so you get A/B drinks, but they're about to be wide-releasing a nice little fizzer called Wild Blue.  It splits the difference between beer and wine, and might, off the top of my head, make a brilliant sparkling Sangria, or similar.  It's blueberry flavored, and I recommend it.  So there.