I have to resurrect a story from a previous trip. A couple years ago, Judy
and I went to a conference in Phoenix and stayed at a resort called Pointe
South Mountain Resort. It is a very nice resort. We mentioned it to Matt
before we left. It turns out he and Kari had been there just a couple weeks
before. He told us it had a water park.
It had a water park. It had a water slide. The water slide impressed me.
It impressed me enough to write this report in June 2003.
I just have a half-day of class today, so Judy was kind
enough this morning to be today's racquetball victim. After that, I went to
my class session. I got out of my session 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 on
tubes 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 eight
stories high. Eight 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.
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
starting and sliding, 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, though.
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.
Why do I dredge this up? Because of a later conversation with Matt. When
he read this report he couldn't believe it. He had just been to this
resort, and the water slide was nothing like I described. It was more like
a kid's toy. He couldn't believe that his dad was embellishing the story
like this. "Keep you legs crossed at the ankles"? "Fold you arms across
your chest"? "I can't breathe"? It just got worse and worse. His dad was
such a liar!
Well, then he looked at the pictures. Know what? There is another resort
in Phoenix that is named something like Pointe South Mountain Resort, but
not exactly. He had stayed at a different resort. One with a water slide
and a kiddie pool. His dad was not such a liar after all.
