It tastes like... freedom.

October is the month of birthdays. This year we took Andrew and a few friends to the "Hydroslide" at Tahunanui beach. We had never been before and here is a pic that caputures the bumper boats and most of the slide works.Those final turns get you to whipping around quite fast and then you shoot out into a pool in the glass house off to the right.

As we queued at the ticket booth, I must confess to thoughts of, How quaint, only 1 slide. How long will this keep our interest? Quite a while, as it turns out. I found myself doing comparison/contrast with Splashtown, a giant water park in Houston now owned I believe by Six Flags. At Splashtown, where we have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, by the way, you operate in a tightly controlled corporate environment. You don't realize it so much at the time, but you stand in line to get to the start of the ride, there are height requirements, riding rules like face forward, can't lie down, that kind of thing. The whole is watched over by a team of lifeguard/monitors. They tell you when and how to go, they watch you all the way down, and then wait till you come out the bottom and swim to the side, all before releasing the next person. No wonder there are long lines!

I can now tell you that there is another way. And this is it, at the Tahunanui Hydroslide, no one minds over you at all. The whole thing operates self service. You run up the stairs, you decide whether you want to use a rubber mat or ride down bareskinned. You decide when and how to launch, and you decide how you want to come down. Face first on your stomach? OK! Lying back with your eyes closed? If you dare! A chain of eight years olds? Go for it. And even though there is only one slide, there is plenty of variety to keep you occupied.

What I came to realize in watching this operation is that people, even very young ones, do have an innate capacity to figure out how to make things work (and for self preservation). When you shoot out into the pool, for example, it's probably a good idea to get out of the way because in a few seconds someone else is likely to come out right behind you. It works. Or maybe sometimes it doesn't. One kid in our party came out rubbing his head. "I took a bump," he said. He rubbed
the top of his head for a bit and then took off back up the stairs. Whatever he did, he probably won't try it next time. I saw another kid come out and check his teeth, as though making sure they were all still there. I am imagining he did a face plant into one of the turns. He sat for a bit to recover, and then back in for another go. From the look of things this slide has been there for 20 years, and I'll be they haven't had a lawsuit yet.

The proprietors are an older couple who simultaneously sell tickets, operate the snack bar, get you started in the boats, handle the mini golf, and generally run interference wherever necessary. I had gone to the park dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt because I wasn't in fun mode, I was in I'm-watching-six-kids mode. Alas I soon realized that the kids didn't need much watching. When the guy walked over for a look at the pool area, he stood next to me for a minute and I commented, I wish I'd brought my swim togs.

Oh, he says, I'll let you borrow some. Really? (Brain quickly parsing if he is serious or is this the kind of offer one politely declines) Sure, I tell him, that would be fabulous. He pulls down a few pairs of shorts off a shelf and I pick out a pair of black togs with green trim and velcro fasteners, in case I've got the sizing wrong. He also gives me a towel.

You know, Splashtown probably wouldn't work as a free-for-all. I'm not sure exactly why that is, but it's probably about scale. A model that works with small numbers tends to break down when you throw thousands of people at it. In part it's the old, One bad apple WILL spoil the whole bunch, girl. One person who is really bent on messing up the system (blocking the top of the tube? Smashing over the little kids like tenpins?) ruins it for the rest of us. And as the numbers go up, the chance of finding that person in the park with you go up, too. And so you wind up with all these rules and big brother-ness that are not so much directed at the bulk of the riders, but that all of us wind up having to conform to.

The next time I'm at Splashtown, operating under the watchful eye of the red-suited staff, I'll be thinking maybe there's some middle ground.