With the end in sight to this "unfortunate period of unemployment", I have told myself, and My Fella, that I feel at ease now to use this time before I begin work to take short trips. If I don't, I'll regret it later. Five months of unemployement, I went nowhere because, well, I was unemployed.
So in the spirit of doing something before this time runs out and the job begins, he took today off and we rode over to Point Mallard in Decatur, Alabama. My Fella said that according to the website, it is city owned. Well, that's a pretty nice city then.
I'll give you the the tiny disclaimer first - I've been to bigger water parks. I've been to water parks with more slides and rides, etc. etc. So if you're looking for the really big kazoo, this isn't it. but, if you happen to be within an hour and a half of Decatur, and you like the water, it's well worth the time.
They have discount days during the week. We paid five bucks apiece. Five bucks. You can't even get a McDonald's meal for five bucks, much less all day entrance into a water park. Oh, yes, you can get all day entrance into a water park. It was clean, with employees steadily sweeping. The bathrooms were clean. There were plenty of life guards at each pool, and we just had a real nice time.
Jamie had a blast. He loves to bathe and loves to go places, so we knew he'd enjoy it, and he did. The wave pool took him by surprise, but like everything else I've seen him encounter, once he processed in his mind what it was, and what it was doing, he had a blast with it.
My Fella paid me no mind yesterday when I said, more than once, that I needed to run to the store and get a swimming suit, so today we're looking for one in Decatur. So that was a wee bit bothersome to me. But in the end, we ended up spending about 3 1/2 hours there and enjoyed every minute.
The plus to this place? They give you an arm band on your way in so you can back out to your car. If you've got a cooler full of lunch and such, they have picnic tables outside the water park proper, and you're welcome to have your lunch out there. Not many, mind you, but I saw families spread their lunch on a blanket. It looked like there were a couple of large pavillions to rent outside the water park too.
So Mr. I've Been Sunburned Before, I pick up some of that SP 50 stuff, and I spray Jamie down real good. I mean, how do you take home a 40something man with a mental handicap to his parents with a sunburn? Then I spread it out real good on myself and My Fella. About halfway through our visit, we went to potty and I re applied. . . . . . . guess who is sunburned? Go ahead, guess. That would be ME. The one who said, "Oh no, that SP 30 isn't near strong enough, I'm getting some 50." Yeah, I'm burned. So on the advice of my "G", I have soaked bath clothes and paper towels in apple cider vinegar (not white, apple cider) and am sitting here at the laptop looking like the most bizarre version of Karate Kid with paper towel tiaras and neck scarves, with bath clothes and hand towels laid across my shoulders and back. 30 minutes, she says.
But funny? Yeah, I'll tell you. I'm sitting on a stool at My Fella's house, and he's behind me applying some type of lotion to me. Jamie comes in, plops down on the couch, sticks his foot up on my lap and says, "Rub my feet."
Please understand, Jamie's . . . . . vocal skills . . . . aren't always real clear. His handicap has given him an enlarged tongue, and he has no teeth. So you have to listen real close. All I can ever really make out are very short things like, "Coke" "Damn" and "Paul." Paul, by the way, is not my name, but he insists on calling me Paul because one of his neices at some time in the past dated somebody named Paul. So I don't get my own name, I just get Paul's name. But you can understand "yea" and "no" and "stop it." He's as white as he was when we left this morning, I am getting more and more red and feeling the heat in my skin, and he plops down and says clear as a bell, "Rub my feet."
I wanted to hit him.
So in the spirit of doing something before this time runs out and the job begins, he took today off and we rode over to Point Mallard in Decatur, Alabama. My Fella said that according to the website, it is city owned. Well, that's a pretty nice city then.
I'll give you the the tiny disclaimer first - I've been to bigger water parks. I've been to water parks with more slides and rides, etc. etc. So if you're looking for the really big kazoo, this isn't it. but, if you happen to be within an hour and a half of Decatur, and you like the water, it's well worth the time.
They have discount days during the week. We paid five bucks apiece. Five bucks. You can't even get a McDonald's meal for five bucks, much less all day entrance into a water park. Oh, yes, you can get all day entrance into a water park. It was clean, with employees steadily sweeping. The bathrooms were clean. There were plenty of life guards at each pool, and we just had a real nice time.
Jamie had a blast. He loves to bathe and loves to go places, so we knew he'd enjoy it, and he did. The wave pool took him by surprise, but like everything else I've seen him encounter, once he processed in his mind what it was, and what it was doing, he had a blast with it.
My Fella paid me no mind yesterday when I said, more than once, that I needed to run to the store and get a swimming suit, so today we're looking for one in Decatur. So that was a wee bit bothersome to me. But in the end, we ended up spending about 3 1/2 hours there and enjoyed every minute.
The plus to this place? They give you an arm band on your way in so you can back out to your car. If you've got a cooler full of lunch and such, they have picnic tables outside the water park proper, and you're welcome to have your lunch out there. Not many, mind you, but I saw families spread their lunch on a blanket. It looked like there were a couple of large pavillions to rent outside the water park too.
So Mr. I've Been Sunburned Before, I pick up some of that SP 50 stuff, and I spray Jamie down real good. I mean, how do you take home a 40something man with a mental handicap to his parents with a sunburn? Then I spread it out real good on myself and My Fella. About halfway through our visit, we went to potty and I re applied. . . . . . . guess who is sunburned? Go ahead, guess. That would be ME. The one who said, "Oh no, that SP 30 isn't near strong enough, I'm getting some 50." Yeah, I'm burned. So on the advice of my "G", I have soaked bath clothes and paper towels in apple cider vinegar (not white, apple cider) and am sitting here at the laptop looking like the most bizarre version of Karate Kid with paper towel tiaras and neck scarves, with bath clothes and hand towels laid across my shoulders and back. 30 minutes, she says.
But funny? Yeah, I'll tell you. I'm sitting on a stool at My Fella's house, and he's behind me applying some type of lotion to me. Jamie comes in, plops down on the couch, sticks his foot up on my lap and says, "Rub my feet."
Please understand, Jamie's . . . . . vocal skills . . . . aren't always real clear. His handicap has given him an enlarged tongue, and he has no teeth. So you have to listen real close. All I can ever really make out are very short things like, "Coke" "Damn" and "Paul." Paul, by the way, is not my name, but he insists on calling me Paul because one of his neices at some time in the past dated somebody named Paul. So I don't get my own name, I just get Paul's name. But you can understand "yea" and "no" and "stop it." He's as white as he was when we left this morning, I am getting more and more red and feeling the heat in my skin, and he plops down and says clear as a bell, "Rub my feet."
I wanted to hit him.
Photo: Just a phone snapshot taken, I was trying to get the large "Mallard Point" in the back of the wave pool, but it looks more like I wanted a picture of the backs of two kids in front of me. Sorry about that.
1 comment:
And did that apple cider vinegar work? I'll bet it did. You didn't complain when we had lunch.
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