A Day at the Park!

What is it about this summer? First jet skis and now the lazy river. I am not and will never be a water person.

When one of the ladies in my office suggested taking our children to a water park before school started, I didn’t really think she was talking to me.

Lady: Hey, lets take our kids to the water park before school starts. Boss: My kids are with their mother, why don’t you guys go? Lady: Would the twins like to go? Me: Oh, I’m sure they would, maybe I could get Elaine or Ivy to take them, I’m really busy here at work. Boss: Take the day off, you will have fun.

In spite of my best efforts, it looks like I’m was going to a water park. I went to the same water park, ONCE, I think it was at least twenty years ago. I rode an inner tube around this circular shaped swimming pool called “The Lazy River”. It was no big deal, The water was about waist deep, you sat on an inner tube and the current carried you around the pool.

It was about five minutes into “The Lazy River” ride, a severe lightning storm hit the park. The current was turned off and we were ordered out of the water. The park closed for the day. My first and only experience at a water park was over.

Thinking about going again, “Oh well, how bad can it be? I get the day off, I’ll take a couple laps on “The Lazy River”. it will be fine”.

My workmate informed me she was bringing six kids, two more than she had room for in her car, It wasn’t a big deal, I had only the twins riding with me and I had plenty of room in Elaine’s SUV. My workmate assigned two kids to ride in my car.

Two teenage girls climbed into my back seat. The one with the horrible cough sat directly behind me. I asked her if we need to stop so she could get a pack of smokes. She assured me she didn’t smoke, she just had been sick for the last two weeks. I was extremely happy about that. I would hate for one so young to have a bad smoker’s cough. I was much happier about her spraying the back of my head a hundred times knowing she was just sick.

At the water park, my workmate staked out a place in the picnic area and the kids took off in all directions. Except for my twins. They insisted I get in my swimming trunks and go with them. Against my better judgement, I let them talk me into complying.

The first ride the twins chose, we stood in line for a short time waiting for a park attendant to hand us our inner tube. We took our tubes and walked about five minutes up a hill. At the top of the hill, I sat on my tube in a shallow pool. When it was my turn, I pushed my tube into this water slide thing and hung on. Down hill I went, spinning and splashing. In fifteen seconds, I was at the bottom, not too wet, not too cold, and thinking, “that was kinda fun, I can do this!”

The twins were looking for the next adventure. They chose a really high tower slide next. This ride was quite popular. The line to climb six stories of stairs took over thirty minutes. The twins informed me this ride was called the “The Toilet Bowl”.

The twins and I climbed onto one tube and pushed ourselves into the water slide portion of “The Toilet Bowl”. In a few seconds we found ourselves in the bowl section of “The Toilet Bowl going around and around, then through the center of the bowl under water. Just like a toilet bowl. I was wet and it wasn’t all that bad. OK, it was fun.

The twins and I rode a couple more water slides before Boy Twin suggested we ride “The Lazy River”. The same “Lazy River” I rode some twenty years earlier.

“The Lazy River” was exactly how I remembered it. Waist deep water slow current, and a couple hundred people riding inner tubes.

I picked up my tube and waded into the water, not knowing how dangerous this ride truly was. I jumped up in the water to get on my tube. Except my swimming trunks did not jump with me. Thinking quickly, I let go of the tube to grab my swimming trunks to prevent, well you know. There was just enough current to propel me forward, pushing my legs and feet downstream. I did a backflip in the water.

I don’t know when the last time I did a backflip in the water. OK, I have never done a backflip in the water. I went underwater, except for my feet. My feet stayed out of the water.

When you are doing something like this, people will get out of your way and let you do it. They like to watch. When I came up I had at least a hundred people (even the twins) staring at me. Girl Twin did not stare very long, she dived to the bottom to retrieve my sunglasses which were headed down stream without me.

While underwater, I thought it would be a good idea to taste some of the water I don’t know why, but I decided to take a big taste. I thought about throwing it up, but I kept it down. I had provided enough entertainment for the crowd by then.

Eventually, I got on my tube and rode it for three laps. All, in all, the day was fun. On the ride home, I had enough chemicals in my hair (from “The Lazy River”) to kill whatever germs the teenager was spraying on the back of my head.

Our crazy lives!

Monner