Before we hit the rides! Kelley, Jason (in hat), Kylie, me, Lara, and Meredith	Once again, Lara wanted to have fun for the weekend…so she invited me to Carowinds, an amusement park strangely similar to Six Flags – loaded with wild rollercoasters and hordes of people. Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, the park’s pretty big and it was a hot day to go for some rides. I joined Lara, Kylie, her boyfriend, Meredith, Kelley, and her boyfriend. But the truth was – I was planning to surprise a friend I hadn’t seen or spoken to for five years (since 1995!) – we had just started talking a week or so before on the computer.
Brian, to my dismay, knew about my surprise (he found out through his girlfriend … now I know who NOT to tell secrets to). But it was great to see him and we chatted up a storm halfway through the day, as the sunburn on Meredith and Kylie’s back turned pinker by the hour. Brian’s best friend, Jared (whom I had met at Rockfest in Washington, D.C.) joined us – you know how the saying goes: the more, the merrier – well we had a lot of laughs.	The man of the hour - Brian Fulbright
Melanoma attack!!! Meredith and Kylie show us their sunburned backs	One of the things that Meredith and Lara did was go on this HUGE swing, screaming and laughing as they whizzed by. I sure didn’t have the guts to go on that…thing…because I cared more about living to see tomorrow! We went on a few rollercoasters – but the problem was that the lines were always too long – making us wait between 30-60 minutes. I would say my favorite ride was a rollercoaster called “Top Gun” (FYI – Carowinds was built under Paramount). At first the ride seemed similar to Magic Mountain’s Batman - but it was a lot faster and a lot longer! We went on that ride three times, twice in a row – we would have gone on for a fourth time but the park was already starting to close (at 10 PM!! Ridiculous! The night was definitely still young!). But needless, I definitely had a lot of fun and plan on going back there in September!
I know this week’s “journalistic perspective” is kind of short…my apologies. Next week, I’ll do my darnest to make it longer for your reading (and photographic-viewing) pleasure. Oh, by the way, Mom, I listened to you - I put on sunscreen!	I scream, you scream, we all scream on Top Gun!!! Jared Patton and me having the ride of our lives.

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