Splash Lagoon

We took a short trip to Splash Lagoon in Erie this weekend.  It's an indoor water park, which was especially enjoyable considering how cold and snowy it's been. 

We played laser tag, which Jerry and I enjoyed as much as Will did!

Of course, Will loved the racing game in the arcade.

 

One section of Splash Lagoon.

Will rode every water slide (multiple times) and wasn't afraid the first time!
I can't believe what a dare devil he is, because a couple of the body slides
were too much for me!

Will practiced swimming in the pool, and was able to tread water by
himself for a few seconds.  He'll be swimming soon!

You can tell by his smile that he was only doing this to humor me, but I
really wanted a picture of all the snow outside while we were swimming.
It snowed the whole time we were there.

The wave pool was huge and Will really had fun swimming into the waves.
You can see a little of the snow falling through the windows here.

 

 

Before we drove home we also visited Presque Isle park, a peninsula on Lake Erie. I went with hopes of seeing ice dunes along the shore. This is one of the few places they form outside of the Arctic.  They result from layers of snow, ice and wave spray building up along the shore from wind and waves.  They look like huge snow drifts on the shore but many are actually hollow (making them dangerous to walk on).  With the cold weather we've had I was hopeful we would see some.  Unfortunately it looked like too much water along the shore had frozen, preventing the wave action that is necessary to build the ice dunes.  

Will catching a ride on Daddy's shoulders.  I forgot to bring his snow boots!

It looked to me like this was the beginning of a small ice dune, and illustrates
nicely how they can be hollow.

Seeing the frozen shore was amazing to me.  Before moving up here I knew
open water could freeze but it doesn't seem possible until you see it.

A lighthouse on the beach.

The line of  "hills" here are actually ice dunes.  You can see the snow covered erosion control rock piles in the background.  For perspective look at the summer photo I found online showing how far from shore the rock piles are.  These were small dunes.  They say they can get 12 - 15 feet tall!

This is the beach in the summer (courtesy of the Presque Isle State Park website).  You can see how far off shore the rocks are to give an idea of where the ice dunes formed.

Now I want to go back in the summer to fully appreciate the drastic changes!