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I had GREAT weekend

First of all, I love this time of year. I love the crisp air with the slight chill and the bronze brilliance of sunlight against the intensely blue sky. Autumn is the best.

My brother and my best friend came down to visit me and my guy Saturday and we took a LOOONG drive to Williamsburg, Va. To go to Busch Gardens (an amusement park where people walk around with open beer bottles, standing online to ride coasters that toss their stomachs into their throats -- yet no one pukes. Uncanny.)

First, I was worried that it would rain as the clouds were dark grey and there were no peeps of sunlight breaking through. And it was cold, cold as brick. And I was wearing a hoodie over a long-sleeved T like that would help.

We got there in the gloom, but it was great because the place was in full Halloween regalia, so the gloom added something to the phony cob webs, ghosts in the trees and plastic spiders creeping up the walls. We rode roller coaster (including my childhood favorite, the Loch Ness Monster and a new coaster, the Griffon, which dangled you over a 205 foot, 90 degree drop before plummeting toward the people walking below you. FANTASTIC).

We screamed as we races along metal tracks and bought pictures of our contorted faces. We ate popcorn. We ate caramel apples. We bought Pop Rocks. We ate cotton candy. We went project-style on a buffet (we only paid for one, but we sent my friend to pile the one plate high and then we spread it out on napkins and all ate. Frugality... In a somewhat vulgar way).

We went through a "haunted" maze of teen park employees dressed in mummies and reaching out and grabbing skittish little girls whose screams startled everyone.

It was so much fun We drove back singing along to my personal 80's hits mix (so I wouldn't fall asleep behind the wheel). I got a room for my brother and friend at a hotel not far from our apartment (we live in a studio and there was no room at the inn).

Sunday morning, we went to brunch at one of my favorite spots. I dropped my girl off at the airport, dropped my guy at home and hung out with my brother at the Museum of Natural History until it was time for him to catch the bus home. We walked the streets in the October chill with bright sunlight raining through the crunchy colored leaves still hanging from the trees.

My brother got on his bus and I got home, exhausted and satisfied, though my wallet was nearly $300 lighter.

But man, it was so worth it.

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