Our Mini-Vacation

And for those of you wondering, this is why I’ll never publish that novel I keep saying I should write… because I never find time to practice the craft.  The thought of making time everyday to write is incredible… I’d enjoy it, but it’s just a little out of my reach these days.

Last Thursday, March 5, 2009, before heading to bed, Melodia and I were both up chatting.  One of her friends had posted pictures on Facebook of her and her family going to an indoor waterpark in Canada, Great Wolf Lodge, one of 11 locations it has in the states and Canada. The Canada location is in Niagara Falls, Canada, not far from where we live in Buffalo.  The beauty of it is that it’s a hotel, with an indoor waterpark attached.  And when you live somewhere that sees as much snow as we do in Buffalo, and temps in the 20s and 30s for 4 months… an indoor water-anything sounds really nice.

A similar thing exists about 2 hours southwest of us in Erie, PA.  It’s called Splash Lagoon.  I’d driven by it numerous times during the club volleyball season, as we play in several tournaments in Ohio, and one has to travel through Erie to get to Ohio, on the 90 thruway.

Well, we chatted about the waterpark idea that night, and about how much our kids love water, and (the kicker) that our Federal Tax refund had just deposited in our account earlier in the week.  A small thank you to Izzabelly here, because she, in part, helped us double our tax refund from last year.  Good job baby, earn us back some of that money you’re costing us. Now, I won’t stop and think too long on this one, or I might realize that whatever she “made” us was really “lost” to us within two months of her birth.

Nonetheless, we made the late night decision on Thursday to book a room at the waterpark in Erie or Niagara Falls depending on availability and price.  On Friday morning, while I was in class, Melodia was making the arrangements and packing.  Erie had a better deal, so we decided to head there.  In addition, our friend Danelle was coming up to pick up a visiting friend of hers at the airport, and graciously volunteered to take Izzy for the night so that we could make the trip with just Wil and McKinley.

I arrived home about 3:00 and we were in the car at 3:01.  Well, not quite, but close.

Two hours later, we were checked into the hotel and donning our bathing suits.  The fun the kids had was worth the price.  They spent the next two hours in the wading pool, and sliding down the wading pool slides, and riding on the lazy river with papi and mami. When time allowed, I let Melodia sneak away and she tried out four of the rides for herself… loved every second of it.  She offered to return the favor, but really, I was just having fun with our kids. 

The wading pool, except for the slides, was not unlike the pool we have right here 2 minutes from our apartment in West Seneca, NY.  We’ve posted pics of it before and they’re on our flickr account for sure, but a wading pool is worth it’s wait.  And in the summers, ours is free of charge… so it’s definitely worth the cost.

After pruning up really good at the splash lagoon pools, we returned to our apartment0-stye room.  It should be mentioned that the hotel is connected to the water park, and that it was like 200 feet from the elevator to the water park.  Good stuff.

The room was at the Residence Inn… I really love those setups, a total mini-apartment… kitchenette, L shaped couch, fireplace, queen bed, and ours had the spa tub.  We found that to be somewhat ironic, given the waterpark, but liked it nonetheless… I mean, how can one not like a spa tub?

The kids slept good Friday night.  We hit breakfast around 8am, as the water park opens at 9am, and we were back in the water as one of the first few people there. Day two was similar to day one, except, we had brought the kids’ lifejackets, and McKinley wanted to wear hers for a while.  So she did.

The highlight of day two came with Wil asking to ride one of the big water slides (the big orange one in the background of the picture of Mami and McKinley below). Mami took him up there, nervously wondering how he’d do. The park has several smaller slides that kids of any size are allowed to ride, and several rides that have a height requirement.  There are also tube rides and body only rides.  And on all body rides, there’s no doubling up — that means that Wil would have to go alone, he couldn’t ride with Mami.

I was nervous below, as Wil waited in line.  See, Wil’s spent a lot of time in water, but he doesn’t have that hold his breath thing down.  When they did the water slides on the wading pool, I played catcher.  Wil’s first trip down the wading pool slide, we let him land himself… well, he missed sticking his feet on bottom, went under and came up coughing, fearing drowning.  I snagged him out of the water quickly, but I know how scary that near-drowning feeling is.  So I spent the rest of the time “catching” him at the bottom, teaching him to land with his feet, but making sure he wouldn’t slip and go under again.

Now, here he was wanting to try a big slide.  These slides all end in a straight half-tube filled about 6 inches deep, that cause a splash and sometimes send water up into one’s face, etc. So it wasn’t the going down part I worried about, but the arriving at the end.

I moved as close as I could to the landing “zone” stepping over some artificial plants so I could snatch him quick when he hit the deeper part.

And finally, Wil’s turn was up.  Mami waved down and I gave her the thumbs up.  What followed was about 20 seconds of waiting and wondering.  Was he still in a sitting position? If he’d slipped back into a lying position, water might be spraying his face the whole way down, and he’d feel like he was drowning. Was he having the fun he thought he’d have, or scared and wanting it to be over? Curly Q after curly Q, turn after turn, he was coming down.

Finally, I her the whoosh of him around the last turn above my head. A few seconds later, he appeared in the landing shoot, still sitting up and smiling.  He hit the 6-inch deep section and, light as he is, caused barely a splash.

I grabbed him up, relieved that my son had survived this water right of passage.  He smiled at me and said what I expect every kid who’s just accomplished such a feat, “Papi, can I do it again?”

“Of course, good job, son.” Mark this as one of those proud moments of mami and papi, their son’s first big waterslide run.

After two hours at the park, we checked out of the hotel (1130am checkout time, or we might have stayed longer).   We hit target for a toy run… every other week or so, we’ll take the kids to the toy store and let them pick something out — this being our vacation, albeit overnight, we wanted them to have what is always a treat to them… a new toy.

So we shopped at Target and they each selected something to play with.  After that, we hit lunch at the Old Country Buffet. The kids brought their new toys in with them, a matchbox dinosaur for Wil and a sport little people car for McKinley.  We loaded up on the good eats and then headed for our next stop on the journey, the Erie Zoo.

Now, I’ve probably mentioned this before, but to bring you up to speed, Melodia and I annually purchase a family membership at our local (Buffalo) zoo.  It costs $100, and we’ve done it every year that we’ve lived here.  We used to live 5 minutes from it, though we’re now 22 minutes away. But we see the zoo as an expense that worth it, and we don’t mind supporting the zoo with our money.

One of the benefits of zoo membership is that there are reciprocal agreements with about 100 zoos; many allow you to use your zoo membership to get in free at their zoo, and some offer a discounted rate.  The Erie Zoo is free under this agreement.  Melodia and I make every opportunity to hit a new zoo when we can, and we hadn’t yet been to the Erie Zoo.

(As an aside, we’re thinking that one of these summers, we will do a road trip, and schedule as many zoos as we can — some people go to stadiums, some to historical sites or national parks, and while we might do those on another summer, we’ll certainly do the zoo’s one summer).

It was raining off and on all day, but the air temp was in the 50s, so it made for an uncrowded Saturday at the zoo. It only took about 10 minutes inside the Erie Zoo for Melodia to exclaim something we’ve both uttered before, “Why is every zoo better than ours?” lol. I hate to knock our Buffalo Zoo – we’ve spent many wonderful days there… but look, call it like it is… that’s what I’ve always done.

Buff zoo’s biggest problem — look, make it easy to get places.  I hate it when a zoo acts like an amusement park and causes patrons to walk long, winding paths in wide out of the way circles to get to the next viewpoint. I mean seriously, straight lines, connect it all, let the customer decide which way they want to go.

The zoo’s other problem (and most zoos have it, too), contour.  Yeah, I’m a hiker, I like up and downs, give us some of that.  Flat is flat.

Third issue, no water.  Look, I wish every zookeeper in America would read this paragraph… put water for kids in your zoo.  It’s simple, and it adds value.  Add a wading pool (the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester has one, and though smaller than the Buffalo Zoo, you guessed it, we consider it better, too).  Add some spouts that shoot water up in the air for the kids to stand in or run through (Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa has it).  Just add water.

The Erie Zoo has quite an elevation gain to it, and it makes for a wonderful viewing experience, and some enjoyable walking.

In addition, it has a river flowing through it… again, it’s that water thing.  It’s not just the hiker in me or some weird spiritual axiom like “water connects us all.”  It just is what it is. Water soothes the soul.  Ok, there’s your axiom.  The sound relaxes us.  The site soothes us.  Our worries are snatched up and carried downstream for the moment, and we’re left there without them, to enjoy the rippling of the water.

The kids had a blast at this zoo, and so did we.  And as we often do when we visit zoos, part of our support the zoo philosophy above, we stopped in at the gift shop at the end.  Even at our zoo, beyond our membership, we don’t mind stopping occasionally in the gift shop to purchase some overpriced toy for the kids.

We’re happy to give the zoo that money.  Our patronage, especially at away zoos (most of which are free to us on our zoo pass) is like our tip.  And the Erie Park Zoo definitely earned our tip on this one.  They’ve put together quite the displays of animals, and made this zoo a place where kids can really enjoy themselves.  Ours sure did.

We were also excited to see Red Pandas there. Our little zoo in Chattanooga, TN (when we lived there), formerly called the Warner Park Zoo, had as its premier exibit, Red Pandas.  So we were excited to see them again, and it brought back nostalgic rememberings of that small zoo tucked away in the city of Chattanooga – also worth a visit.

So we hit the gift shop. The kids selected a couple of stuffed monkeys with valcro hands, and with their purchase, we headed out.

We drove to Danelle’s house, 45 minutes from Erie to Jamestown, NY, picked up Izzabelle from her overnight at the Padd’s, and headed home happy.

It was a wonderful one-day vacation, we packed it full, enjoyed ourselves to the max, and were completely exhausted when we arrived home.  So much so that it took all of Sunday for us to recuperate. But you know, this was one of those days that you cannot put a price on – time with family, whether in a zoo or in your backyard, is priceless, and we thanked God in the car on the way home for the privilege of that day, and of enjoying  time together.