The day started with a funny from Cal. It was one of those where he didn't even know he was being funny, which I think is the best kind of funny with these Leatherkids. We were waiting for 10am to come around to head to the water park for the day. During that wait, we were naturally conversing as we Leathermans normally do. I think we were talking about the various slides at the water park and whether or not they were scary, and that's when the funny happened:
Dan: "I'm not afraid."
Cal: "Yeah, because you have kids."
Bahahahahaha! It was so subtle, random and unplanned. Okay, so this is funny because we have a magnet on our fridge at home that reads, "You can't scare me, I have children" (or something like that). Clearly, Cal has seen the magnet.
So Day 2 at the Dells started with laughter, a good foundation for a good day.
Cal spent the better part of Day 2 riding Lightning and Thunder, two medium-sized water slides that he could do on his own. Requiring no inflated tube or mat and a little nerve, Lightning and Thunder each had a couple of tight turns intermingled amongst the two slides and spit their riders out into two parallel tracks filled with a foot of two of water at their bases. Thunder was an open slide; Lightning was enclosed -- the whole way down -- and was much faster than its sister slide.
One thing I've learned about water parks is to recognize and distinguish the tube slides from the open slides. It wasn't until I rode the MRI tube that they called Lightning all the way down that I thought of this. Had it not been significantly faster than Thunder, my first ride down it would have been my last. Cal selected Lightning at least twice as many times as Thunder, so I clearly did not pass the claustrophobic gene down to him.
Cal also did the Tidal Wave (wave pool) and Anaconda (the bigger of the two indoor slides) with Dan and tried another outdoor two-person inflated tube slide with me. He also got a lot of enjoyment out of the larger of the two kiddie slides next to Ella's play area, riding it countless times.
Ella's play area had water in its base that may have reached a foot deep in its center. This area had two duck slides that were probably as long as two Ellas, a pirate ship slide that was maybe three Ellas, a pelican slide that was also three Ellas but that had a sharp slope down and then a whale slide that we sometimes confused as the dolphin slide. This one had two curvy slides coming out of two whales at the top, and I would guess they were at least five Ellas (maybe more) in length. Each slide ended in the water enough that the children going down them would get splashed but not splashed too much. Ella worked her way up to the dolphin... doh, I mean whale slide and eventually had enough nerve to slide down it on her belly and feet first. This became her signature move, which she carried back to the other slides she had already tackled to mix things up in the end.
Ella OWNED that play area and poo-pooed any suggestion that she branch out a bit and try the water slide that Cal was doing or float on a tube down the lazy river with me. Most of her time was spent on the whale slide following the same pattern each time she did the slide - slide down, splash at the bottom, stand up, do a hair flip, scurry to the steps, go up, go down again. It was fun to watch, really -- she loved every moment she was there.
Dan and I managed to squeeze in a couple of slides on our own, Dan doing the "Demon's Drop" and me doing the "Dragon's Tail" while the Leatherkids watched. As if the speed and, in Dan's case, the drop wasn't challenge to overcome enough, both slides required a serious climb up some wooden stairs giving us, well, me (I can't speak for Dan) a lot of time to reconsider the foolishness. When I was at the top of the slides (they shared a platform and were side by side), I had a hiccup in my sanity and almost went to sit at the top of "Demon's Drop" (the air was thin up there) but then realized what I'd be facing the moment my buns hit the top of that slide -- NOTHING. At least with "Dragon Tail" there was a gradual slope down at the start before the big drop.
We ended the day with a visit to a souvenir shop, the kind that Dan and I both remember going to as kids with the cheap, cheesey t-shirts and trinkets. Cal picked a "Wisconsin Dells" ceramic bank and an owl key chain; Ella picked a pink and green cord necklace and matching bracelet and a pink heart keychain with "Wisconsin Dells" written on it. From there, we headed back to our hotel room where we ordered some pizza and where Dan and I actually ate that pizza.
As the kids slept next to us, again, virtually as soon as their heads hit their pillows, Dan and I relaxed in the bed beside them and recapped our day to each other. We were both really pleasantly surprised by Cal's willingness to try new things and not approach them with tentativeness and trepidation. While they were waiting to go down Anaconda together, Cal thanked Dan for taking him on this vacation -- he's having a great time. For that reason alone, we are, too.
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