Adventure in Summer
I don’t know what year we started, but when I was growing up it was rare that a summer passed without a trip to Adventure Island.
We’d get up in the morning, put on our bathing suits and clothes over them, grab towels and sunscreen, and drive the hour to Tampa. We went with cousins, of course, and that made it all the more fun.
That car ride always made me nervous, though. I watched the clouds carefully, in the hope that they wouldn’t turn black and the day rainy and we’d have to turn back.
That never happened, though. Sometimes a thunderstorm would come through later, and we’d have to temporarily get out of the water, but totally rainy days in Florida are really rare.
And we loved that park. It’s not the biggest place, or the most exciting, but it was small enough that it wasn’t overwhelming, and we got very familiar with it by the time all was said and done.
There was the ride with hard plastic mat that you rode down the slide and skimmed across the surface of the water. All the water slides that you rode down in inner tubes with your family, and then the enclosed tube slides that you went down by yourself, holding yourself inside the tube so that your friends behind you could catch up, and you could all go down together in a big tangle.
There were the small, downhill slides that we rode endlessly because the lines were short. Eventually we had every one of those small slides memorized, the twists and turns and drops, and which ones were the best. We went sitting down, and lying down, turning over on our bellies and lying on our backs. There was the wave pool, where the six foot waves would start up and practically drown you, and where my dad would try really hard to turn strangers on inner tubes over with his shoulder when they weren’t looking.
The scariest ride of all was the Tampa Typhoon, a seven-story nearly-vertical waterslide, because when you went down, your BACK DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH IT. No part of your body was touching the slide! Only the little side slide walls kept you from plunging to your death.
(I went and looked at the Adventure Island website today, and the Tampa Typhoon isn’t even there anymore. Was it too dangerous? Did someone die?)
Anyway, at the end of our day at AI, we would clean up and get changed and get soft-serve ice cream cones. And then drive home, tired and waterlogged and slightly sunburned.
I haven’t been to AI since I was sixteen or seventeen, but I remember that place well. I miss being free for a whole summer and just doing stuff like that.
We’d get up in the morning, put on our bathing suits and clothes over them, grab towels and sunscreen, and drive the hour to Tampa. We went with cousins, of course, and that made it all the more fun.
That car ride always made me nervous, though. I watched the clouds carefully, in the hope that they wouldn’t turn black and the day rainy and we’d have to turn back.
That never happened, though. Sometimes a thunderstorm would come through later, and we’d have to temporarily get out of the water, but totally rainy days in Florida are really rare.
And we loved that park. It’s not the biggest place, or the most exciting, but it was small enough that it wasn’t overwhelming, and we got very familiar with it by the time all was said and done.
There was the ride with hard plastic mat that you rode down the slide and skimmed across the surface of the water. All the water slides that you rode down in inner tubes with your family, and then the enclosed tube slides that you went down by yourself, holding yourself inside the tube so that your friends behind you could catch up, and you could all go down together in a big tangle.
There were the small, downhill slides that we rode endlessly because the lines were short. Eventually we had every one of those small slides memorized, the twists and turns and drops, and which ones were the best. We went sitting down, and lying down, turning over on our bellies and lying on our backs. There was the wave pool, where the six foot waves would start up and practically drown you, and where my dad would try really hard to turn strangers on inner tubes over with his shoulder when they weren’t looking.
The scariest ride of all was the Tampa Typhoon, a seven-story nearly-vertical waterslide, because when you went down, your BACK DIDN’T EVEN TOUCH IT. No part of your body was touching the slide! Only the little side slide walls kept you from plunging to your death.
(I went and looked at the Adventure Island website today, and the Tampa Typhoon isn’t even there anymore. Was it too dangerous? Did someone die?)
Anyway, at the end of our day at AI, we would clean up and get changed and get soft-serve ice cream cones. And then drive home, tired and waterlogged and slightly sunburned.
I haven’t been to AI since I was sixteen or seventeen, but I remember that place well. I miss being free for a whole summer and just doing stuff like that.
posted by Melanie at 8:15 PM
