The Water Park of America

My first trip down a water park tube slide as an adult made for a harrowing experience. I made it halfway down the enclosed and darkly lit slide before totally losing it and convincing myself that my tube was surely going to flip, that there was the real possibility that I was going to get hurt, maybe even drown, and at the very least that I was not cut out for water park entertainment.

But somehow I made it out, miraculously still intact, although covered in water and winded from screaming for what seemed to be more than an entire minute. As I contemplated packing in up and heading home right then and there, a seven-year-old little girl splashed out of the same tube, rapidly paddling past me to get back in line to go down the slide again.

I realized that if that little girl could stand the adrenaline rush, surely I could too. So I gave the tube slide another try. And then another. And then another and another, and it turned out to be amazing fun. Since the six hours I spent on the water slides that day, I've become a big fan of water parks. And that's why with great anticipation I ventured out to Twin Cities suburbs for the Water Park of America in the Grand Lodge hotel.

The hotel is, as you can probably guess from the water park's name, just around the corner from the monstrous Mall of America, the largest shopping complex in the United States. And what a great pairing. More people visit MOA in a year than do Disneyland, Graceland, and the Grand Canyon — combined. There's even a giant two-level IKEA store with a cafeteria right across the street from the shopping mall Mecca to sweeten the deal for consumer culture's visiting pilgrims. What could go better with a vacation of suburban shopping grandeur than a hotel with the largest indoor waterpark in the state?

Water Park of America fits into this hyper-American mix perfectly. Almost everyone's skin is a pastey white, and the majority of park goers who are out of adolesence are either overweight or impossibly slim and impossibly tan. Although being splashed in the face with water all day, young girls sport eye makeup. The jockish high school lifeguards who have yet to trade their all day workouts and after school athletics schedules for full time jobs sitting in cubes all have chisled bodies and short, styled hair. And everyone under five years old splashes around with a perma-smiles and wide-eyed glee.

But because water parks can be so fun, it's easy to set aside the offensiveness of suburbia and focus on the rides. Most people think water parks are just for kids, but that's not entirely true. Water parks aren't just for kids — they're just built for kids. Think about the physics for a second: if an 85 pound suburban youth gets dropped four stories down a frictionless slide, he or she eventually builds up a modest speed. Now drop the nearly 200 pounds of me down the same tube, and "modest" increases to "pretty exciting". Now add another adult onto a tube built for two and the equation ends in screams and flipping over when we hit the water at the end of the ride. (And here's a tip: if you lean back to distribute your downward weight and decrease your drag in the tube, you're golden.)

And slides aren't the Water Park of America's only attraction. There's the lazy river that courses around the park and cuts through the wave pool, there's the interestingly labeled "18+ ONLY" hot tubs for relaxing (and from the strange signage, whatever else the 18+ crowd might want to do in a hot tub seems fair game), and of course there's the bar down the hall where one can grab a bucket of plastic bottles of beer to take back to the water park.

There's also the boogie board ride, which recreates an inbound wave with several feet of highpowered water jets shooting up a halfpipe. I waited almost a half hour in line for the ride, and after sliding down the wave for exactly one second, the board shot out from under me and I was flung by the jets back up the halfpipe, my loose fitting trunks barely staying on. Undeterred, I tried again — and this time lasted for all of three seconds. Now slightly deterred, I gave it one last try, skimming down the wave and finally figuring out how to maneuver the board (here's another tip: stay all the way on the board and drag your feet to pull yourself up the pipe).

I road that mighty wave (OK, mighty simulated wave) for about two minutes before getting cocky and wiping out. But was that minute worth the wait and embarrassment? Absolutely. The Water Park of America is after all just like every other theme park you'd want to visit, so waiting in lines with self-conscious park goers comprises a big part of the trip.

But not as big a part as excitedly running — um, I mean walking — to the next ride.

— Taylor Carik (taylor dot carik at gmail dot com)