Waterpark

We have walked past the waterpark many times, but always before it opens. By the time school starts in the fall, it will all have been deflated and stowed away for next summer.The most activity we've ever seen there is the lifeguards out there with mops and buckets swabbing the decks. It is quite a challenge made some heavy duty, slippery blow up material. Somewhere there must be a generator that keeps it inflated, but it wasn't immediately evident. We sat with Tim and Joni and watched the constantly moving mass of kids as they slipped and slid their way around the watercourse, inevitably wound up back in the drink, hauled themselves out (no easy feat) and start round again. Collectively, if they were molecules they would be a perfect example of Brownian motion. *

Our two had been there  for four hours, coming out only for ten minutes to eat lunch, when we dropped by to watch. They showed no signs of slowing down when we left an hour later. They did show up in time for a shower, barbecued hamburgers and chicken, and some recovery time on the couch**.

All the kids seemed to be having great fun and nobody was having a meltdown, except perhaps the large man of grandfather age who probably should have stayed on the beach. Joni said it probably wasn't very nice but she and Tim couldn't help laughing at his efforts. The smallest, lightest kids seemed to have the most success remaining upright. Many kids had calculated the exact moment when they would have fallen down anyway and dropped to their knees (Owen) or bellies (Maya) and slid the rest of the way. Tim heard the lifeguard on the station across the lagoon shout through his megaphone, "please don't knock the lifeguard off his surfboard...."

*the erratic random movement of microscopic particles in a fluid, as a result of continuous bombardment from molecules of the surrounding medium.


**extra