Fun in the Summer Sun!

Being on break, we finally had the time the other day to do something we had wanted to do for a while -- spend the day at an amusement/water park not far from here. It was my son's first experience with a real amusement park, and since we're in the middle of the hot season, being drenched with water sounded like a great idea.

For around $4 for my son and around $16 each for my husband and me, we had access to the entire place for as long as we wanted. We got there as it opened around mid-morning, so we practically had the place to ourselves until around noon. There were no lines or crowds to fight, and we leisurely wandered around and had the rides to ourselves. We did all the non-water rides first, before the temperature turned scorchingly hot, and went on the water rides and in the pools later so we could stay "cool." There were some rides that my son couldn't go on because of his height, but there was still enough for him to do. It turned out to be a really fun, but still relaxing, day!

The entrance.

Just two pigs walking around...

A two-story carousel.

Entrance to the kid-friendly rides.

???

Random, yet normal.

Area with kiddie rides.

We took a Jeep ride through this area, where mechanical dinosaurs roared to life and cavemen greeted us as we went by.

This mechanical elephant squirted water at us.

Another dinosaur area with mechanical dinosaurs.

Only here would a sign be required to tell visitors that no dogs are allowed.

An African adventure on a boat, with more mechanical animals and a few not-quite-accurate depictions of Africans. The last scene of Africans burning a hunter at the stake was a bit surprising.

My son's first flume ride. So thrilling! A body dryer for after the ride, not that it was necessary with the burning heat.

The water park area, with a huge swimming pool, kid-sized and adult-sized water slides, and the world's biggest wave pool. Unfortunately, the water wasn't as cold as we wanted because of the heat, but this was still our favorite area.

People here LOVE taking selfies. This woman spent about 20 minutes trying different poses.

We actually saw lots of people wearing rented swimsuits! It's like renting underwear! Yuck!

This scary-looking ride was actually advertised as a "family" ride.

We were able to go up this tower in the circular thingy and get a nice view of the area and the amusement park.