Abandoned Waterpark

As a kid, I made a lot of trips between my home in LA and my Grandparent's houses in Northern Utah. Sometime in my youth, this waterpark appeared in the middle of the desert between Barstow and Baker. I remember asking my parents to take me there every time we drove past it. They never did. 

When we were headed back to Utah after my mom's funeral, my kids asked me the same question that I asked my own parents as a kid, "Can we stop there?" Although, 30 years later the waterpark looks a bit different. I didn't stop for them when they asked, probably for the same reason my parents never stopped for me. It is a long road between California and Utah and the more stops we make the longer it takes. 

Well, I finally fulfilled my childhood dreams and the requests of my children when we were on our way back from California in June. The kids had told me that they saw people in the parking lot when they were driving past in March, so I didn't think it would be a problem. I'm pretty sure we were trespassing because we had to jump a short fence to get in and then walk across the huge dirt parking lot, in the 109-degree temperatures!!! I was slightly terrified that we were going to have a cop pull up and fine us for trespassing. I am not much of a rule breaker, so I couldn't get through this pit stop fast enough. Plus, I felt like I was melting in the desert sun. I think the kids were also not that impressed once we got closer. The buildings all looked kind of like this. 

The waterslide hill did not look much different up closely then it looks from the distance. All of the slides have disintegrated from years in the sun. but some of the stands are still there.

The lazy river looked like this, completely covered in graffiti and all of the drains were these gaping holes in the ground that I warned them all to stay far away from.

Camden climbed the stairs up the slide hill but came back down before too long probably because it was so HOT!

The Mario Bros pictures were fun.

We stayed about 30 minutes in total. We were happy to get back to our car, get some water, and turn the air conditioning on again. It was pretty sketchy and there is a reason it is fenced off, mostly because of the huge holes in the ground.