I ran for 33 minutes, and I figure I did 3.5 miles. It turned out to be a hilly route and one with a few distractions that took me off the path to check out the scene. It was while on my run that I decided where we'd eat dinner later that day -- this Mexican joint with seating on the lake... or maybe it was a river... with a dam in the near distance. I knew Mommy and Daddy would enjoy some margaritas, figured Cal might enjoy the wonder of the dam and Ella, well, I just didn't know.
My run finished, we got ready to head to the water park for Day 3. It was just after 10am. Day 3 at the water park was very similar to Day 2, except better in terms of logistics. We picked a more central place to put our towels and brought the sunscreen with us (instead of leaving it in the room) so reapplying wouldn't require a walk back to our room... with my slow-walking, "my legs hurt" BFF, Ella... and I really don't want to re-cap how that walk was.
Cal was great again, tackling water slide after water slide and sneaking a couple of wave pool experiences in between. He even tried this crazy two-person slide (Lost City of Atlantis, I believe) which involved a drop and slide up a wide base and then a subsequent "free fall" back down. Dan said they almost reached the end of the wide base before the free fall... whoa. I may try this with Cal today - surely we won't go THAT high.
Dan and I also took turns on the mat slides on Day 3. Holy crap were those fast and twisty... and, consequently, scary. There were four of them, and Dan and I each took a ride on each one. We had to. After my first trip down on the slide to the far left, my brain was telling me to head back to Lighting and Thunder to watch Cal - I think it thought my life was in danger. But my legs didn't get that message and took me right back up for slides 2 and 3 on my mat and slide 4 without it. The speed on the mat was great, but fearing for my life as I zipped around what I believed to be the top edge of a curve and quickly headed into a tube was not so great. I later learned that Dan thought he was airborne heading into a tube. I wonder if I would have tried it had I known that before making the trip up? I wonder if anyone has actually gotten hurt on these things? As uncool as putting my life in danger was, the trip down without the mat (the body slide) was even more uncool - I almost came to a stop halfway down the slide. I guess I was alive, so I shouldn't complain.
Ella was less excited about the water park on Day 3 but did fall back into her comfort with the kiddie play area (the one with the duck, pirate ship, pelican and dolphin... doh, whale slides). This time, she only spent chunks of time on any one slide and moved on to another. Her favorite had to be that pirate slide - I'd say most of her time was spent there and mostly on her buns (and not the signature belly down, feet first slide she was doing Day 2). Most slides involved a hair flip at the bottom and every once in awhile (maybe when she was hot?) she'd lay back down in the pool, lay her head back to wet her hair, close her eyes and smile and then pop up to slide again. I called this her "Bo Derek" move. Diva. Really.
The cool thing about Ella's play area is that it required little work from me. I could sit in a low beach chair in the water myself and just watch and observe and throw in an occasional "I did!" in response to Ella's, "Did you see me, Mommy?" That is, until I observed another mom grab her squirming child off of a slide and telling him, "I just want to see if that blood is coming from you." Doh. I knew that was my kid's blood - we had to treat her bloody big toes the day before, so I was certain they had broken open again then. So I grabbed her, confirmed my suspicions and took her over to our chairs to treat her. I, having applied my learnings from Day 1, had our first aid kit with us.
Ella's not the best patient. Really, she might almost be the worst. Blood was pouring out of her big toes, and she insisted she didn't need Band-Aids. I find this infuriating. Many times, I've been on the receiving end of her insisting she needs a Band-Aid for a non-cut on her foot... or leg... or finger; and when she really does need Band-Aids, she battles us to get them on.
It was probably sometime around 3:30pm or 4pm when this happened, so we were getting close to leaving for the day. Cal got a few more runs down Lightning and Thunder in while Ella and Dan watched. I took a ride on the lazy river at the same time. By 4:30pm we were walking to check out the other side of the park and buy something at the shops over there; and by 5pm, we were heading back to the room to shower and get read for dinner at the Mexican joint on the lake... or river, whatever it was. That dinner went exactly as we expected it - Dan and I had margaritas, and the kids didn't eat their dinners. Ella almost fell over the back of her chair. Cal asked a lot of questions about how the people got off the boats at the base of the restaurant. And I managed to get this picture, a frame-worthy one, of the kids:
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