July 4th @ Adventureland

On July 4th, we went to Adventureland with the Griffith clan, and Aunts Doris and Molly. 

It was hot, but really not all that bad. The pools were obviously cool and you get a good breeze on any of the rides. The only time it seemed really stinkin' hot was some of the lines waiting for rides. 

Robby has been there a handful of times in the past but it was going to be Caleb's maiden voyage.  Not sure how he was going to receive any of this but there's no better time than the present to find out. 

This was his first ride. The boys shared a dragon with Robby at the controls. This was one of the first rotations so they were still low. Robby had their dragon as high as it would go within 3 full turns and Caleb seemed to like it.

This was his second ride.  Aunt Dianne took Robby, Caleb and her son, Jonah on it.  This shot was on their way up the hill...

This shot is when they're nearly at the top...

And this is after they made it safely down the twistly yellow water slide with much spinning.  Dianne is trying to convince Jonah that he is still alive while Robby's indifferent and Caleb is looking back at what he just survived.  Dianne said poor Jonah's heart was thumping pretty good by the time they got to the bottom!  :-)

Our lil' critters with their life vests on and the wave pool directly behind them.  We spent a LOT of time in the wave pool as Robby could hardly get enough of it.  By three o'clock in the afternoon, this pool was a mass of humanity slamming into each other when the waves hit.

That's the main hill on the log ride.  All four of us went together in one "log" so there was no one to take our photo as we plunged but Caleb had a pretty good adrenalin rush when we got off the ride. Robby and Mom were soaked!

This is us on the ferris wheel.  Caleb was pretty enamored with looking out over the horizon from up here and you can see the water tower that's about 2 miles from our house easily from the top.

This is looking NW from our Cabana (thanks Griffiths!!).

Looking NE from the same vantage point as above.  There's a circus that performs 3 times a day and you can see at least two of the roller coasters from here as well as a pile of water slides.

This is the kiddie pool.  The little pirate ship thing has a couple of different sized slides on it as well as some other things for the kids to play with.  It took some doin', but ol' Dad finally convinced Caleb to try the small slide on the ship. He did it.  Then did it some more... and some more.  Finally, I got him to do the bigger slide as well!  That was some MAJOR progress for the little dude!

Rob bored as he waits for some refreshments.

Additional water park features.  The pool in foreground has a swim up bar in it. Directly behind this pool (and where we were standing when I took this photo) is a lazy river.  That mound of slides in the middle of the photo is basically a giant erector set for kids (adults too, for that matter) with various slides, things squirting water at you and that giant bucket on top occasionally dumping about 1000 gallons of water on the people below.

The boys on the Chuck Wagon, a kids sized ferris wheel-like thingy-ma-bob.  Caleb appears to be a taddy bit more excited than Robby to be on said ride.

I took a photo of this ride only because it's immediately beside the Chuck Wagon. At 42 years old, I cannot imagine a scenario in life in which it would seem a good idea to place ones body on such an apparatus.  It swings each direction, slightly higher than what is pictured, while spinning around constantly.  I get ill standing beside it and merely watching...

That's Caleb in the six-wheeled yellow vehicle. He appears to think that he's driving it, which is awesome.

That's both boys in the little airplanes.  This is exactly the same ride as the dragons that you saw earlier, only that they're airplanes, of course.  Robby wanted to be directly behind Caleb because he was going to "shoot the Red Baron down".

I have no idea who this dude is and he's obviously not all that impressed with me for taking his photo, but I didn't care. His "sense" of fashion, or lack there-of, needed to be documented, so I did.  What you can't really tell by the photo is that his shorts and shirt are soaking/dripping wet, yet his socks and cowboy boots are not!  Golden.  Truth be told, I salute any fella that has the guts to walk around like this. It can't be easy!