Nick\'s Trips

This year I went back to Philadelphia for and went to another Haunted House I saw on the travel channel: The Bates Motel. I wanted to go a few years ago, but they weren’t open week nights. There are three section to this attraction. The Bates Motel, The Haunted Hayride, and The Corn Maze. We bought the combo ticket for all 3.

We got there around 7pm, thinking we were early, but it looked like there were thousands of people there. The ticket line was very long, but it move pretty quick. You can also buy your tickets online, but there is a service fee and you still have to get in a different line to pick up the tickets.

The first thing we did was The Bates Motel. The line wasn’t that long and it moved fast. They pushed everyone through fast, so I just walked slow to let the actors reset. It was a cool haunted house, different rooms had different horror movies themes. Like there was an Exorcist room and Silence of the Lambs.

The next attraction we did was The Corn Maze. The Corn Maze had a much longer line but again it moved pretty quick. The Corn Maze was NOT a maze at all. It was just a path through some corn. No one can get lost in it. Some people like it a lot, it was not high on my list though.

The Haunted Hayride is what we did last. Maybe it was a good thing that we did it last because after waiting 2 hours and 10 minutes in that line, I wouldn’t want to get in another line. Yes that was a long slow moving line. The Haunted Hayride at Arasapha Farm has been scaring people for over 20 years though. And it’s the part that was actually featured on the Travel Channel. This is most likely the best Haunted Hayride anywhere. It’s 25 minutes long and has Hollywood style sets and props. It was worth the 2 hours and 10 minutes wait time. I wouldn’t wait that long again for it, but for the first time it was worth it.

In conclusion, are the attraction at The Bates Motel cool? Yes they are. So far in the Philadelphia area I like Eastern State Penitentiary the most. The Bates Motel is second and Fright Factory is third.

Read the review for Eastern State Penitentiary & Fright Factory

In the begining fo August I went to Lobsterfest in Rockland, Maine. I booked my flight on Orbitz again. The only bad thing was I could not find any direct flights from South Florida to the airport in Portland Maine. So, I had no choice but to make 1 stop in Atlanta. The flight went smooth and I arrive in Portland.

I book the trip for Wednesday to Sunday and that was too long because there’s not much to do in Maine. Which is also why this will be one of my shortest reviews.

We drove Lobsterfest in Rockland. It would actually be a great place if I had kids. It’s like a fair, with lots of rides. I have no kids and went directly to the food tent. The food tent was awesome. I had a choice between a 1-lobster meal, 2-lobster meal, or a 3-lobster meal. They also had another side with all sorts of fried fish. I got the 1-lobster meal with clams and extra claws. It was delicious. We ate for a while, then walked around the fair. There wasn’t much for Adults, so we just stopped at a New England Clam Chowder stand, and got some and drove back to the hotel.

While the Lobsterfest was a great with the food, we had problems finding things to do the other days. We went on some tours in Portland like a food tour and a bus tour. They weren’t that great, but to be honest I never been on a bus tour that I liked. We also went to Freeport Maine which is like a small town that is a Mall. If you want to go shopping go to Freeport. There’s just now much else I can recommend to do in Miane, just go with an empty belly and eat some good food.

In June I took a trip to Denver Colorado. I tried to find the quickest non-stop flight from South Florida, so I booked on Orbitz. I got a direct flight to go there on Continental and a direct flight coming back on Frontier Airlines. They flights were uneventful. For the first time though I was on a flight with my own personal TV were I had to pay to watch it. It was an $8 fee I think. I though the price was good, but I didn’t like the TV show options they had. So I watched movies on my iPod Touch half the time and slept the other half.

The Hotel I booked directly on the Marriott website. I booked the Residence Inn Denver Downtown and got a suite with a loft. The room was great and came with free buffet breakfast. I didn’t consider downtown though, because it wasn’t close enough to walk anywhere. The hotel had a free shuttle though that will take you anywhere in a 3 mile radius, which was very nice.

The Car-Rental we booked was with Budget-Rent-A-Car. They gave us a Chevy Malibu as a full-size car. It looked mid-size to me, wasn’t that happy about that. Also, I had to spend 30 minutes having the budget salesperson at the airport try to make me upgrade every little thing. She even try to make me upgrade to XM-Radio. Which by the way worked free in the car. She tried to make me do a bunch of pre-paid gas upgrades, a $40/day car upgrade, then a $20/day car upgrade, then a $8/day car upgrade. It took forever to get out of there. Also when we had to wait for the Budget-Rent-A-Car shuttle at the airport it took like 30 minutes to come. The shuttles for the other car-rental companies came much more often. So, bottom-line, I wouldn’t recommend the Budget-Rent-A-Car at the Denver Airport.

When we got to the Hotel, the electricity was out, so we went to the supermarket to pick up some drinks and snacks for the week. Then we headed back to the hotel for some sleep.

Our first full day there we went to the Cave of the Winds. We took a 45 minutes guided trip. It was decent, not the best. They had a cool rope course there though that hung off the cliff. I have to say I thought it would be easy, but walking on a rope over a cliff did get to me, it’s a lot different than having something solid under you. I enjoyed it better than the caves.

From there we went to the Garden of the Gods, which was very close. The had some awesome rock formations, but it was annoying to go to a rock and see a hundred people standing by it. So we just did a hike instead. The hiking there is great. 4 miles feels like 8 miles with all the ups and downs.

That night we went to the Buckhorn Exchange. While the prices are high, it was worth it with all the new meats that I never had before. That night I tasted buffalo, elk, yack, quail and duck. There was a consensus of what we all like. We all loved the buffalo and quail. The yack and duck were also good. The elk is not a good tasting meat.

The next day we took a drive to Mount Evens. I’ve been up a few mountains, but this was the best. Mt. Evens is the highest paved road in North America, and the drive is awesome. There’s no railing here, you can always look down and see that you can drive right off it. Once you get to the top you can do a very short hike to the tippy top. We got some great photos up there.

After Mount Evens we did a scenic drive to Central City and BlackHawk which are gambling towns. Then we heading to get some dinner. We went to Steubens in Denver which my friend saw on the TV show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives , I got the lobster roll. I liked it, had bad French fries though. All the French fries I had in Colorado where soggy and nasty for some reason.

The following day we went White Water Rafting on the Clear Creek with Raft Masters. The water lever was high and man the River was moving faster than any River I’ve been on. We did a full-day intermediate trip, since I had my nephew and didn’t want to bring him on advanced. The river was non-stop, it had no edys. It was a great time. The trip was short though for a full day. Total time was like 3 and a half hours. On a side note this rafting company has the best lunch. They get their food from the BBQ place next door and I had a great pulled-pork sandwich.

For dinner that night we ate at Pagliacci’s Italian Restaurant. I got the Italian Variety Dinner, and the manicotti was awesome.

Well that was it. The trip was only 3 full days, but we did a lot and had a lot of fun.

I wanted to do some white water kayaking lessons for my first trip of 2011. Whenever I went white water rafting I seen them bring kayakers along and it seemed more fun than rafting. I also did a tandem kayak in New Zealand which was awesome, so I really wanted to take some classes.

I googled “white water kayaking lessons” and found a nice looking place in West Virginia to take the classes. The place was called Ace Adventure Resort. So after looking through their website I was ready to book. I booked a starter class starting at 6pm the first day. Then all-day water kayaking lessons the following 2 days. I found out the closest city to fly into was Charleston West Virginia, and for me the cheapest airline was Spirit. So, I booked my hotel and car on Spirit Vacations.

When we arrived at Charleston West Virginia, we picked up our car rental and head out. Ace Adventure Resort is about 45 minutes away so you will need a car. It was pretty easy to find though. When we arrived at Ace we checked in and got told where our Cabin Tent was. We wanted to rough it a little, so we got this Cabin Tent which is pretty much a big tent with 2 beds inside on a wooded platform and also a wooden top. The bathrooms are shared and a very short walk. I was surprised how clean the toilet was, the only thing dirty were some bugs inside.

Our first night of kayaking we learned very fast how hard white water kayaking actually was. It took the trainer 3-weeks to learn how to roll properly themselves, but the classes were very fun and their staff is awesome.

The second day we got up early and hopped on their bus and they took us to the New River. We went over some details from the night before then started heading down the river. Our first rapid was a class 3, and I have no idea how I got through it without flipping, but I did and was very confident after that. The day went on and we learned about eddys and how to get in and out. It was a lot more work than I thought, my legs kept getting numb and I was exhausted from paddling. I only flipped once, but my friend flipped 10 times, so he had a rough day. By the end of the day we decided we wanted to do something a little more easier the next day.

So, on our 3rd day we decided to go on some duckies. Duckies are inflatable kayaks. They are a lot eaiser because when you fall out , you just flip them over and jump on top. In the real kayaks, you have to drain them and then put the skirt back on and it takes a while. You also would have to swim more, since you couldn’t just jump right back on top. We did the duckies on the Mid-Gauley River.

The Gauley may be the best river I’ve been on. It was lots of Class 4 and 5 rapids, and they were back to back, just constant rapids. The day was lots of fun. It was a big group and 8 people were on regular duckies, but they gave me and my friend the high performance ones. Which turn easier, but man they flipped a lot easier. The flipping made it fun though, watching the other person fall out is the best.
That night we just met up with the people we kayaked with the first day. We went to the bar at Ace and had some beer, then had some shots, listened to some live music and had a great time.

Then next day we slept late then when to Charleston to eat before the flight back home. I highly recommend Ace Adventure Resort. They offer a lot more that we didn’t get a chance to do like Rock Climbing, Rappelling, Paintball, Mountain Biking and more. By the way, the kayaing pictures I took with a WATERPROOF digital camera a bought right before the trip. It worked great, because we did get tossed in the river a few times. Here’s a link to the camera.