Over the 4th of July weekend, my family had a reunion out on the ranch. And let’s be honest, what better place is there?! We shot guns, had a massive water fight, visited the ranch animals (and some milked a cow for this first time!) and enjoyed Malad’s 4th of July parade and firework show.
But the most fun we had was at the water slide… park… thing. This isn’t your typical water slide. No twisting slides splashing you into the pool. No slides that dump you straight down and give you an atomic wedgy. Oh no, these are much cooler!
When you drive up there you might be a little unimpressed. In the midst of the hay fields is a nice size hill with two; massive tarps running the length of the hill. At the top of each tarp is a small hose running water down. Something so simple couldn’t be that amazing, right? Man, this is the most fantastic thing ever! You can go down the slide on your knee/bum/tummy or these have a plethora of inner tubes (my personal favorite!). You start sliding down the hill, pick up some speed, and get spinning along the way.
About half way through we had the bright idea to do a train everybody holding onto each other’s tubes so that we all went down together. We must have had 5 or 6 tubes loaded up with kids, parents and even grandpa! The first time we went down was the most memorable. My brother and I were the caboose to our little train. We grabbed onto the tube in front of us. Actually to be more specific, we grabbed onto riders of the tube in front of us- my other brother and my 7 year old niece. In retrospect, my niece wasn’t the best to hold on to. Grandpa was at the front, the steam engine you could say. Once he started down, the rest of the train followed… except us. The tube in front of us took off and instead of my niece pulling us along, we just pulled her off! It was just like in the movies where the tube was ripped right out from under her and she was left sitting! We laughed and laughed as we jumped on to follow the train.
Never doubt a farmer and his ingenious ideas. You might think that a simple tarp down a few hills in the middle of a few fields is lame… and you would be wrong!
