My son’s wife sent me a text on Saturday morning asking what I was doing on Sunday. My son had a motorcycle race, and she asked if I would like to go. She also said they were going to the pool/waterpark that afternoon if I was interested. I had just come in the door from working out in the yard. It was only 10 a.m. but it was already hot. I intended to work in the yard all day and get the grass cut. So I elected to go to the pool with my son, his wife and my 2-year-old grandson.
I think we got to the park around 1:30. There were four pools at varying depths and with various features. There were slides for adults and for kids, various fountains, a really big bucket that would fill up and then dump over and also a lazy river. Since I have decided to face some of my fears and live life to the fullest now that I’m 60, I said I would go down the steep slide. After playing in the water with my grandson and going down the lazy river with my daughter-in-law, and all the other things I could find to put off the slides, the time came!
First I went down the not so steep, twisty-turny slide. Whew! Got that one of the way. My son and I climbed back up the stairs and I nervously stood in line for my turn to go down the steep slide. This steep slide is nothing like what you see at the big water parks but for me – it was a steep slide. My turn came and I nervously sat at the top of the slide. Normally it would take me 10 minutes just to get the courage to go down but in all my elderly wisdom, I just went for it. I screamed all the way down which seemed like a very long way. My son, my daughter-in-law and my grandson were thrilled. They cheered and cheered. Then my son got the brilliant idea of sending me down the slide with his Go-Pro. If you don’t know what that is, it is a very small video camera. He bought it to attach to his helmet when he goes dirt bike racing.
I went back up the steps to take the Go-Pro down the steep slide. This time I couldn’t muster the courage so he sent me down the twisty-turny slide instead. The video was very silly. My son took the Go-Pro down the big slide and then he went down another slide that is short but dumps you into 12 feet of water. He wanted me to do that one, too. I had no problem. I took the Go-Pro and held it in my hand while I went down the slide. It was super fast and you hit the water hard. I felt the Go-Pro leave my hand! As soon as I came up out of the water I shouted to my son that I had lost his Go-Pro. We could see it laying down in the bottom of the pool. The life guard didn’t want to stop the people from using the slide so my son decided he would just go down the slide again. He hung onto the sides and went down the slide very slowly. When he got to the bottom he stood up and dove for the camera. Fortunately for me he was able to retrieve it. He said the camera was facing up!
He was really excited to see me go down the slide, the camera go flying in the air and sink to the bottom of the pool. People continued to use the slide so there would be multiple people going over top of the camera and then it would show him diving for it. When he went to re-play the video, the camera wasn’t even on! He was disappointed and I do think it would have been hilarious to see all the activity that went on while the camera was at the bottom of the pool.
In spite of the whole camera debacle, I had a great day with my son, my daughter-in-law and my grandson. The poor little boy was so tired at the end of the day. We took bets on how long it would take him to go to sleep in the car. His mom won with her prediction of seven minutes! Thanks for the great time guys! One more item off the bucket list!
;)
