![]() Roughly four decades after the slide officially closed, it continues to draw visitors seeking cheap thrills (albeit illegal ones, since they’re breaking trespassing laws). Patoski noted that “water-slides loom as the biggest man-made summertime activity since miniature golf.” The fad only lasted a few years, with all three slides closing by the early 1980s larger parks like Schlitterbahn soon replaced them.Īqua Thrill Way was and is still loved. “It is a sport most Austinites have never heard of, much less tried,” wrote Joe Nick Patoski in an Austin American-Statesman story heralding the opening of Aqua Thrill Way and its two competitors: Wet Willie, off Ben White Boulevard, and Flowmotion, on South Congress. Named Aqua Thrill Way, this slide opened in 1978 as part of a national chain with two other Texas locations, in Galveston and Corpus Christi. In the late 1970s, small, single-slide water parks like this one were novel, popping up across the country. The path patrons trudged back up for another ride has long since returned to the woods, enveloped by a thicket of weeds and branches. The pool at the bottom into which they splashed is now filled with soft silt, and the old pump house has been reduced to rubble. Leaves and other debris-shoes, broken beer bottles, soggy pieces of carpet-intermittently cake the chutes that kids once swooshed down on foam pads. This steep bend occasionally left swimmers with concussions, and it’s still risky for the skateboarders and BMX bikers who sneak in to catch rides. ![]() A little longer than a football field-relatively short, compared to the structures of today’s water parks-the slide’s two parallel, concrete runs circle softly to the right, then veer more sharply left in a notorious turn. ![]() Draped across a hill above Boggy Creek, eight miles south of downtown Austin, the slide is covered in a tapestry of spray paint. The old waterslide is hidden among a thicket of cedars off the access road of Interstate 35. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |