Fun In The...Clouds (Day 5)

Four days of bright sun and heat come to a close in the traditional way for me: with a cool, cloudy day. The forecast was partly cloudy in the 80s. I'm not so sure it got out of the 70s. What a perfect day to head for something billed as "New York's #1 Family Water Park". That's quite a promise. New York is a pretty big state and according to about.com, there are 14 water parks available to people visiting the Empire State. So the one we'll be visiting must be pretty sweet. Or the other 13 must totally suck.

Zoom Flume is in the Catskills. Imagine driving down a country lane in the middle of nowhere. You pass a couple of houses. Then there's a water park. Then some more houses. I pictured it as much bigger. But we came all this way and the kids were looking forward to it so we plunked down something around $80 and found some chairs.

The obesity epidemic was in full display, at least amongst the adults. There were some portly kids as well but overall, I felt better about my rapidly-expanding gut. The boy loved the slides. The girl was afraid of them, even when we took her on something called "Lazy River" which was basically just sitting in a tube and floating. Every few minutes, something that sounded like the voice of a subway conductor emanated from a plastic totem pole. The challenge was figuring out how to get our money's worth. After only a couple of hours, the boy was getting bored and his lips were blue and chattering. Maybe some lunch will recharge him.

It had been some time since the garbage had been attended to so now we had to find somewhere to sit that wasn't infested by bees. Fortunately, a couple of park employees tried swatting them with wet rags. So we found place where the bees weren't as angry and ate our overpriced water park food. After another couple of rides, the boy managed to stop his teeth from chattering long enough to tell us he wanted to leave.

The truly pathetic thing is that I actually pulled a muscle on one of these things. When I used to go to the gym, I discovered I had muscles in my chest. According to some research, they're called "pectorals". Anyway, while trying to keep from falling off of some overused gym mat, I pulled something. You never know how you use some of your muscles until you pull one of them. And a few days later, it hurts to take a deep breath, carry something heavy, lie on my back. I can still whine, though.

The minivan has been packed and we're heading south. I survived the vacation relatively unscathed. But in a strange way, I'm actually looking forward to mowing the lawn tomorrow morning.