Recap of Clay's Visit to Bausch Gardens

This new recap of Clay's visit to Bausch Gardens Adventure Park last month was posted at the CH.

Hey folks! I'm finally back home after two cross-country trips and having started a new semester. This past weekend, I visited my friend the Busch Gardens PR person and got the skinny on Clay's visit to the park. I also got to ride the rollercoaster on which Clay is pictured in the publicity photos (Sheikra) -- amazing! Don't miss it if you like coasters and are in the Tampa area. The group photo of Clay and his group and my friend is still on the way. The photo department is apparently swamped right now and since it wasn't going to be released to the press, cleaning it up is at the bottom of their to-do list. Ah, well. I'll still post it whenever I get it. Sad to say, everything else that wasn't used for publicity was dumped, as it's all digital.

Anyway…below is the story of how events unfolded; how Clay ended up at the park, and some of my friend's impressions of him and his group. There shouldn't be anything that would compromise his safety or security, but if there's any question, Mods, please feel free to edit.

So apparently, my friend didn't know that Clay was coming until about 24 hours before he arrived. Jerome called the day before to say that Clay was in town for a concert and loved coasters, and wanted to bring a group to the park. According to my friend, the park allows celebrities to be comped admission and food for up to 6 people in exchange for some arranged publicity photos and permission to send them to all of the standard national and local media. The next day, which happened to fall before the first REH show (anyone remember when our CH meers were there?), Clay shows up in a van with a group of 10, including himself. My friend and her team greeted them, but informed them that they would still need to buy 4 more tickets. So she and Clay went over to guest services to buy the needed tickets. He pulls out his credit card to pay and the tickets start to print, but suddenly, right between the printing of the 3rd and 4th tickets, the computer craps out and they aren't able to print the 4th ticket. My friend, who has a totally wicked, snarky sense of humor, says to Clay, "So, problems with your credit card, eh?" To which he replied a defensive but good humored, "No!" Clay left himself as the one without the ticket, so instead, they got someone to come over and stamp his hand (like they do for guests who leave and come back the same day) so that he could get through the entrance without the bar-coded ticket.

So they went through the day riding the coasters, going on each of the big ones several times and having a blast. Later on, they went on the Serengeti Safari through the 65-acre open wilderness section of the park, where they keep giraffes, addaxes (like antelopes), ostriches, maribou storks, bongos, and other animals. The guides pack buckets of food for the guests to feed the animals along the way. The way it works is that you get on the back of a big open truck, and you drive through the wilderness area for about 30 minutes. The first stop is the giraffes, and this was where the park had arranged to do one of the publicity shots. Normally, you're only supposed to feed the giraffes with leaves out of your hand, following the lead of the guides. Although giraffes are gentle and don't bite, you want to keep your head away from theirs because if they swing their head around and you get in the way, you'll get clocked with about 100 lbs. of force. Anyway, just as they were getting ready to take the shot, Clay gets all cutesy and sticks the leaf in his mouth. The shot turned out perfect, but this was not what he was supposed to do.

While on the Serengeti Safari, Clay was in serious teacher mode with Gregory, asking him about the animals and giving him information to remember as well.

At some point during the day, they stopped for lunch at the Smokehouse -- an incredible barbecue place in the park (y'all gotta try this one). My friend couldn't remember what Clay ate, only that there was no mention made of his allergies. She sat and ate with Danny, as she and he were the only two vegetarians. One funny thing was that Jerome insisted on ordering two sampler platters for himself -- a mountainous plate of barbecued chicken, ribs, brisket, and fries -- thinking that one wouldn't be enough. The park people tried to talk him out of it, but he was determined. Turns out he was barely able to finish one and passed the other plate around amongst the rest of the group.

Another funny anecdote -- Clay walked around the park that day "disguised" in his bucket hat and managed to go almost completely unnoticed and completely unbothered. He had to take it off, though, in order to ride the coasters. Although my friend didn't ride the coasters with him, she did accompany him up to the platform and met him when he got off. Getting on Sheikra, he took the hat off and fluffed up his hair into his usual spikes. When he got off, the spikes had all been blown back. She commented to him, "Looks like your hair had as much fun as you did!" which gave him a chuckle.

Anyway, they ended up having a great day at the park. The following day, my friend got another call from Jerome to thank her and her main PR associate for their hospitality and offered them a pair of tickets to the show. Since neither was really a fan and had other stuff planned for that evening, they turned them down. At the very end, Jerome mentioned that Clay had gone on the internet after the show the previous night and absolutely couldn't believe that the pics from that day had already made it to the boards. My friend had to laugh, since she knew exactly who was responsible for that. Hee.

Random impressions and other stuff:
As mentioned before, Clay and his people were incredibly nice and down-to-earth. They did keep amongst themselves, however. (Though it's SOP to accompany the celebs around the park but really kind of keep back, Clay and his people didn't really try to make much conversation with their guides.) My friend ended up talking to Danny the most.

My friend thought that Allison was actually Clay's mom because she introduced herself as "Mom". Weird.

My friend had forgotten what Clay's speaking voice sounded like, and had to stifle a laugh the first time he opened his mouth.

Clay sings to himself when not conversing with others, all the time.

According to my friend, he's very, very freckly, has nice skin, and is super-skinny. But we all knew that :) . Didn't notice his feet. Didn't have much to say about his eyes, handshake, or other aspects of his appearance.

My friend did mention to Clay that her best friend (me) was a huge fan. He acted appreciative.

So a great time was had by all, and I think my friend may be willing at some point to come with me to a Clay concert if he returns to the Tampa area. BTW, even if I had known in advance, there's no way I would ever have been allowed to join the group of PR folks as they led him around. But hearing the stories has been fun and I thank my friend for being willing to share. Hope you all enjoyed it, too.