Splashdown

The fourth and final day of our San Antonio vacation was spent at the Schlitterbahn water park in New Braunfels. Boasting an "award-winning" water slide (from whoever gives out such awards) and numerous other attractions across several acres and two separate park areas, it seemed like a fun place to beat the Texas heat.

Of course, Denver has the acclaimed (and immortalized in an episode of South Park) Water World, which did make for some comparisons. But while my boyfriend has been there within the past couple of years (for a summer day out with the nieces), I hadn't been in ages -- making this something a bit more out of the ordinary.

Since we had to leave our phones and cameras safely dry in a locker, I don't have any pictures. But I'll quickly bounce through the day. The "award-winning" slide actually wasn't really a highlight. We went over to the park that had those biggest slides to cross them off the list first: the Master Blaster and the Wolfpack. They each required long (long) waits in line, which took a fair amount of the fun out of eventually getting to ride them. They just weren't worth that long a wait.

The Black Knight -- a ride through a satisfyingly long, black tunnel lit only by sunlight sneaking in at the seams -- was better. Surprisingly, so were their two versions of a "Lazy River." (Their web site indignantly claims that they don't have a Lazy River, which I suppose is true in as much as each had a couple of very minor "rapids" areas. But we all know what we're talking about here.) One of the rivers took you on a trip up a conveyer belt as it circled one of the two park areas; the other took you all the way down the length of the other park in a not-always-just-floating trip of 15-20 minutes.

We spent whole day slowly walking back from the end of the park and trying everything we came to. There were tons of tube chutes (many lasting over 5 minutes), a cheesy-but-fair Congo themed ride that evokes a Disney's Jungle Cruise vibe, and several body slides. The best rides were the Hillside Tube Chute (a very long tube ride that even wove inside another building as it twisted around the park) and the Double Loop Body Slides (where we finally called it a day).

We weren't quite diligent enough with reapplying sunblock to avoid a mild sunburn, but we did alright. We then capped the night with a nice dinner at a local seafood restaurant, and in the morning returned to our Denver routines. (Well, for a few days, anyway. That Rugged Maniac race was definitely not routine.)