Zoombezi Bay

Several years ago, Bute1 was invited to a birthday party at an indoor water park several. Upon his return he described in great detail to his envious younger brothers every twist and turn of the water slides. Every since then, when we make up our list of hopes and dreams for the year "Go to a water park!" always ranks high on the list of things the kids want to do.



Well if you have priced out water parks recently and multiplied by 8, you can imagine why such an outing is a daunting proposition. However, this year our library offered coupons for free admission to a local water park for children under 12 upon completion of the summer reading program. In between baseball games and swim meets all summer long my voice could be heard in the steady drum beat -- "Work on your summer reading program, if we all get coupons we can go to Zoombezi Bay."




Well yesterday the day finally arrived. Uncle Gabe willingly accompanied us to even out our adult/child ratio and off we went. There was only one day which could accomodate both Jeff's work schedule and Gabe's. Originally the forecast was for thundestorms that day, but mirculously they held off until late at night. In fact the main benefit of the questionable forecast was probaly to induce other people looking for one last day of summer fun to chose a different day. For the the first hour or so we were there, there were no crowds a all - the kids could use the slides as fast as they could climb the stairs! Later in the day the lines even for the most popular slides were never more than15 minutes, but our kids, spoiled by the morning, thought this constituted a big crowd!



In the days leading up to the big outing I found myself wondering why any sane adult would spend so much money for a day that would inevitably involve a lot of hassles, from parking and hiking into the water park, so navigating different desires once inside, to trying to keep the little ones safe and avoid sunburns. And yet, as I watched by children on the water slides, eyes wide with excitement, shrieking with joy, I knew exactly why we shell out the money and endure the hassles for something that gives us such a view of unadulterated childhood joy!




I spent the morning hours with the non-swimmers and then, after lunch joined the older group. It was kind of fun to be the "popular" parent as they all vied for a chance to ride with me on the rides that were already familiar to them to see how I would react. It has been a long time since I have been to a water park and the rather tame slides I rememer have been replaced with gravity defying vertical drops and spinning into huge shoots backwards and in the dark. As one of my children commented after a ride "I didn't know Mom could sceam that loud!"


All in all a great time was had by all!

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Location:Dublin, OH