Last week, our family jammed in one last extension of holiday cheer – a trip to the fantastic 3.5 miles of lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Compared to our visit a few years ago, it was, well, quiet. After Christmas there were no lines for Santa, and no Santa’s workshop. And, this year, it looked like the “South Pole” was shut down altogether. The Speedway has the effect of a good book on us – even though we reached the zenith of Christmas, we just can’t seem to get enough.
And so, we, along with a quiet handful of other die-hard Christmas lovers, spent a cozy few minutes driving through the light show and a chilly night wandering around the “North Pole” that looked as ransacked as Target the day after Christmas. While I’m glad that a real ice-skating rink is now part of the line-up, our kids were too little to enjoy it.
My fun-loving sister, caving to the pleas of “Just one more!!” got the kids tickets to the big inflatable slide, which turned out to be a big mistake. As four kids clambered up the side, the sleepy attendant muttered that it might be “a little wet” from the rain the day before. Which, in reality, meant that two toddlers stepped into a puddle of freezing water in their socks and my 8-year old son barreled down the slide and pushed a wave of water over the side onto me. Which is what you might call a night-ender.
Witnessing two toddlers start to freak out over freezing wet socks, the young worker realized that maybe he should have steered us to another attraction. He quickly gave us our tickets back for the choo-choo, which more or less turned things around. So, points for him…maybe?
The highlight, and I DO mean HIGHLIGHT of the night (and likely our 2012), was when my husband floored the minivan on the speedway on our way out. For a brilliant shining moment, we leave our practical and safety-loving selves at the door and turn into a carload of whooping, screaming race fans. With 3 million lights burning, he is our star. Go, Daddy, go…
To check out the Speedway’s other fun activities, visit www.charlottemotorspeedway.com.
