Well, gravity will be on our side!

My good friend Matty H came into town for the weekend, and in order to spend more time with him I took Friday off work. We were talking on Thursday about things we wanted to do for the weekend, and my big suggestion was a trip to Wild Waves, the local water park. I've been wanting to go all summer, but was always hesitant to go on a nice weekend day, since the crowds can be a bit oppressive. But here was an opportunity to go on a weekday, when it wouldn't be as crowded.

If you've never been to Wild Waves it's an interesting place. First of all, it took someone some guts to build a water part near Seattle (there's also a small amusement park there too, but the two are sort of considered separate destinations.) The place is pretty much only open from Memorial Day to Labor Day and has plenty of not so good days in between to contend with. We woke up and found that Friday was one of those not so good days. It was raining (hard too!) and kind of cold. Matt was a little skeptic, but my enthusiasm kept him going. I just gave him some of my cold water rafting gear, and we set off. It was a bit cold, but not too bad. The cool thing is the place was empty, I think we waited for one ride once, for about two minutes...

It's also got a distinctly local feel to it. It's not like the big amusement/theme parks, where everything is polished and over the top. It's basic, there are no themes, just rides. It's not the kind of place you see tourists at, tourists don't really even know it exists (and even if they did there are plenty of places to go to offer more vacation fun around here.)

But that's part of the charm. And in the end, the rides are pretty fun. They're not crazy fun, but certainly do offer a good experience. We hit my old time favorite, a ride with a succession of pools and drops you ride an tube down, plus the classic green water slides, the quick cannon ball slides, and the truly scary big drop speed slides.

But we had the most fun at a new ride they opened two years ago. It's a set of water slides that don't look like they'll be all that cool from the outside, but ended up being a blast. The key is you ride tubes down them, so they're super fast. And they have two person tubes to ride. As we were walking over to get a tube (you have to carry your own to the top) we were talking about taking a double, but unsure if that would be ok. See, we're both big guys, and wondered if there was some kind of rule about that. But there were no signs talking about it (the only rule was exactly two people had to ride in a two person tube.) And just as we were talking about it a couple came out in a two person tube and they were each bigger then we were, so we figured we were good to go.

And wow was it fun. We *flew* down that slide, coming close to flipping over several times. It was so fun we did it four times in a row. We came back at the end of the day to do it one last time. At the top of the ride the lifeguard on duty looked like he was about 16 plus two days, and we had the best conversation of the day:

Lifeguard: Just so you guys know, there's a weight limit.
Matt: This is our fifth time.
Lifeguard: Well, I don't want to get in trouble.
Me: Ok, what's the weight limit?
Lifeguard: 300 pounds.
Matt: Well, I don't weigh 300 pounds.
Me: I don't weight 300 pounds.
Matt: There go you, see ya!

And we took off for a great last ride. It was a fun day, and I'm now spoiled for the next time I go, when I'll presumably have to actually wait in line.

Note: Matt and my combined weight is 465 pounds...

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