Because this family loves waterparks… and because it was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend (leaving us without a whole lot of otherwise “productive” options)… and because we found a way to get into the park for 1/3 the normal price… It was worth finding out…
So we left the house just a little after 7:00 and made the trek to Merrillville, where Deep River Waterpark is located. Our first mistake was that we forgot Merrillville is on central time. So we arrived about 2 hours before the park opened…
That’s OK… we took a little detour to Wal-Mart, where we picked up swim diapers for Miah, among other things, and then we sat in the Deep River parking lot for an hour where the kids played their DSs, Phil played with his Kindle, and I watched the Deep River employees arrive at work for the day…
When the ticket booth finally opened, we discovered that we were the first customers of the season. It was at this point that we were glad we didn’t go yesterday. There were no other customers in sight, and this gave credibility to my earlier declaration that we would have the whole park to ourselves. I was kidding when I said it, but I guess it was prophetic… or something…
We proceeded to play in Mayor Byrdovich's Courthouse, where Seth enjoyed dumping buckets of water on us, Grace and Caleb zipped down the slides over and over again, Ian climbed a couple of rope nets, and Miah looked at us like we were crazy…
Grabbed some life jackets after that and took a spin… or 2… or 3… or even 4 in some cases on Mid-America's Great River Ride. It took me a long time to convince Ian that he should get into the tube. As a thrill seeker, myself, it was rather disconcerting to have this much trouble getting a 4 year old on a lazy river. I need to get that kid to an amusement park, soon, where I can strap him in to every ride he’s big enough for until he loves riding. It simply will not do to have non-riders in this family! Miah also hated the lazy river, but considering she is only a year old and it was freezing, I can work with that.
Seth, who has a tendency to turn blue when cold, was pretty much done with our adventure after this point. I think the lifeguard was afraid she was going to have hypothermia on her hands, but I am just so used to this color change thing that I threw a couple of towels on him and we moved along to the next ride, Double Dueling CannonBowl. I actually find funnel rides to be a little overrated, but Ian wanted to ride, so I climbed the stairs with him and Grace (who was going solo). Upon reaching the top, Ian decided that he actually didn’t want to ride. Now… I sort of have this ride policy. It goes like this: If you force Mommy to climb several sets of stairs or to stand in line for any amount of time, you ride. Period. This is a completely unfair standard, because as a kid (and even as a teenager) I did my share of double takes at the ride platform that resulted in exiting without riding. However, I do not want my children to be scared of things like I was, and in the vast majority of cases they have come off the rides screaming, “I loved it! Can we do it again?” I thought for a moment about what to do, when I remembered the time that Ian tried to climb over the side of a family raft slide when he was just under 2 years old. Realizing that he would have to hang onto the tube in order to remain safe on Double Dueling CannonBowl, I relented and walked him halfway down the stairs, where I called for Caleb to hurry up to me so that we could ride, instead. Grace took another trip down the slide, and Phil took Caleb for a second ride, as well. I actually got a couple of video clips of some of the action, from the stairs, while Seth sat with Ian and Miah.
At this point, we had been in the park for about 2 hours, and we took a short break and got “warm” (OK, we never really got warm all day) before moving on to the Rip Tide Wave Pool. I am not a real wave pool fan, so I was not all that disappointed that the water was freezing! I sat with Ian (who wouldn’t go near the wave pool, either) and Miah (whom I took this opportunity to nurse), and we watched Phil, Seth, Grace, and Caleb jumping over the waves… all by themselves… I should probably mention that a few other park guests had arrived at this point, but no so many that we had to share any attractions…
After being unsuccessful at getting Ian to play in the smaller children’s play area, Paddles PlayZone (in his defense, the water there was icy… I wouldn’t have gone in…) and also discovering that the second lazy river, BAYOU River Ride, was frigid; we decided to break (again) for lunch.
I went out to the van and gathered our “picnic”, we got dry and a little bit warmer, and then we headed back out into the park to hit the Body & Tube Slides. I went down the tube slide with Caleb, and Seth and Grace went down together, as well. Then Caleb and Grace went twice more, and I think Grace went alone another time or two. Although I enjoy waterslides of all kinds, body slides tend to be my least favorite, because I always suck water up my nose and end up coughing it out for quite some time. However, it occurred to me, as I was sitting there watching Grace slide over and over again, that neither Seth nor Grace had ever experienced a body slide, and for this reason, I have not allowed them to ride some of the bigger slides when we have been at larger parks. Looking at the Deep River body slide, I decided that it appeared to be rather calm and that they should probably try it if they ever want to get on anything more intense. Seth did not want to try, but Grace did, so the two of us climbed up, and I went down first, showing her how to do it. It was a little rougher and faster than I expected, and per normal I ended up with a nose full of water to choke out. The lifeguard let me stay in the pool when I told him Grace was coming down, but it actually turned out to be quite unnecessary, as the child hit the water and swam for the side on auto pilot… No worries about Grace on body slides, I guess… She loved it!
After this, we decided to go check out, The STORM Tube Ride, which actually turned out to be 3 distinctly different tube slides: Vortex, Abyss, and Cyclone. They were black, enclosed tubes, so Grace and I rode double. We chose Cyclone first, and it was definitely a good ride. Upon exiting, I dropped Grace with Phil, Seth, Ian, and Miah and picked up Caleb for Abyss. It also was a good ride, but extremely short. Grace’s turn again, for Vortex this time… and at this point I realized that there was no way my legs were going to make it up the stairs three more times so that each of them could experience each slide with me! I looked at Grace and said, “just grab a single tube,” to which she replied, “are you serious?” Caleb and I took a trip down Vortex, and well… there’s nothing like sending your nine year old fearless daughter, alone, into a pitch black hole called Abyss…
We had to call it a day after this, because it mercifully started raining. This made it possible for me to escape with my dignity, because the truth is, I couldn’t have climbed another flight of stairs if I tried…
All in all, it was a really fun day. We did lose one water shoe, but with our family; that’s to be expected…
Some shopping ensued after this. Grace is now the proud owner of two new pairs of flip flops, and it wasn’t even her water shoe we lost… hers just finally broke after years of wear…
We went to Cracker Barrel for dinner, using a gift card that we got for Christmas, and we had enough left on it after our meal that everyone was able to choose some candy from the Cracker barrel store for dessert.
A cherry Pepsi and a couple of hours on the road, and we were home…
What a day!
Here are a few pics:
Lisa
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