Slip 'n slide but without the plastic burn

Growing up in Texas, summers were really hot and gross. We sort of never went outside (though, let's be honest, that was just normal for me. How do you play Spider Solitaire on a computer...outside? At the time, the only laptop my family had was the FIRST LAPTOP EVER INVENTED because my dad, who was a computer programmer, won it in some sort of computer programming contest. It was the size of a suitcase, and didn't have Windows or games on it, and pretty much all you could do is type things and not print them. Before that, we had a Commodore 64 that took a full half-hour to power up and was not much better than the laptop. Also, you couldn't really put it on your lap, as it would probably burn a hole right through it, or at the very least, cause thigh cancer.)

Every summer, to cool off, my family and I would make the drive to Schlitterbahn, the greatest water park in the entire country. Nay, the entire world. And if you think water parks are all the same, and wonder how this one could possibly be any better than another one, and who cares, it's just a water park, pretty much I will punch you in the face. Basically, Schlitterbahn is about ten billion miles of water rides. It's located in New Braunfels, Texas, a German city near San Antonio. Why is there a random German town smack dab in the middle of Texas? I have no idea. Probably, it's just a giant fake city, because I somehow doubt that like, former Nazis were fleeing Germany, and got to NY and were like, ehhhh let's keep going, let's find somewhere down South, but not the deep south, that's too rich in culture, somewhere in the middle of a state that has no remarkable bits of nature, somewhere surrounded by Mexicans, preferably really humid, with nothing to do. And there, we will build the greatest water park in all the land.

The awesome thing specifically about Schlitterbahn are the UPHILL WATERCOASTERS. Yeah, UPHILL. Basically, imagine a rollercoaster, but instead of a track, it's tubes, and instead of those gears, it's WATER, and instead of a car, you're in an innertube. The force of the water is so strong it shoots you UPWARDS and it is crazy and amazing. There's also a fake wave thing where you can SURF. Surfing in Texas!! Seriously guys, there is very little to do there.

One year, we were at Schlitterbahn and my sister and mom were floating around the Lazy River. Yeah, it's just a giant fake river that goes in a circle and you sit in a tube and float around. So on one side of the river were these possibly drunk lifeguards tossing left over inner tubes to the other side. Well, one of them HIT MY MOM'S HEAD really hard and hurt her neck. So then they had all these doctors rush to her side, and she met with the head of Schlitterbahn (who, contrary to popular assumption, was not sporting a twirly mustache and lederhosen), and it was all official and corporate-like. She ended up being okay, I think. I was little, I don't know. I was busy in the kiddie pool at that point. Recently, I asked my dad about what ever happened with that. Did we get some sort of Schlitterbahn settlement? My dad somehow totally forgot about the gross corporate negligence. I guess we all did, as we contined to return to Schlitterbahn the very next summer.