I just have a half-day of class today. Judy was kind enough this morning to be today’s racquetball victim. After that, I went to my class session. I got out at 2pm, so we lathered up with sunscreen and spent the afternoon in the water park. The water park is great. Grass, lounge chairs, chair-side service, streams, bridges, fountains, waterfalls, water jets, palm trees, cabanas, waves, bubbles, and slides. There is a lazy river. It winds its way through the water park at a leisurely pace while you float along on a tube. Judy and I selected a double tube and circled the endless loop together for an hour. What a nice thing to do. We laid in the sun, drifted down the river, bobbed about in the wave pool, and went down the water slide. The water slide. This is a serious water slide. A speed slide. This water slide is 60 feet high. Six stories.
Going down the speed slide is easy, really. You just climb to the top of the tower and sit down on the ledge at the top. Looking down to the bottom, you can see the bottom of the slide, but nothing in between the top and the bottom. You just let go, slip over the edge, and trust that the middle part of the slide truly is there, and it’s not all just a terrible. Awful. Sick. Trick.
You keep your legs extended straight out and crossed at the ankles. Fold your arms across your chest. Then hold that position as you fall out of the sky, accelerating to about 40 mph, your body keeping touch with the slide every now and then on the way down.
Now you might think that sliding down the slide is about letting go to start, and the thrill of the slide down, and you would be right. But there is more. There is re-entry. Somehow all that falling energy has to be converted back to earth molecules as we know them. This is accomplished amid a great roar and spectacular spray on the run-out at the end. The run-out starts with about an inch of standing water, and gets progressively deeper until it is several inches deep. This is the reason for keeping your legs crossed at the ankles. It is very important to keep your legs crossed at the ankles. We don’t want to lose any parts along the way. But there is something else that is important to do that they don’t tell you about at the top. When you hit the standing water at the end, focus. Shift your mind from, “Oh Shit! I’m going to die. I can’t breathe. Who’ll take care of the children?” to “Keep your feet down. Hit the water with your feet.” Something has to absorb the energy of this progressive impact. I know from personal experience that if your feet don’t absorb it, the next body part in line will. I can also tell you that all the little fat particles in your butt vibrating at supersonic speed can leave you a little sore the next day.
After going down the slide once, I wasn’t sure I actually remembered all of it, so I felt I needed to do it a few more times, to be sure I had absorbed the entire experience. I’m now certain that I’ve absorbed enough. I never did feel I completely mastered the part about keeping your feet down at the end, though.
