Sholem Aquatic Center

June 24, 2010 by limako

We arrived in Champaign as a heat wave swept in and gripped the city. We had planned to visit a water park for two days, but thunderstorms prevented us until Wednesday. In the morning, we worked in the library until the water park opened at 12:30. Around noon, some dark clouds swept in and we worried that we'd have to wait yet another day, but a quick check of the radar showed that they were just passing clouds, and we changed clothes, put on our swim suits, and headed for Centennial Park.

Daniel, as usual, was wearing his swim-trunks, black crocs, and an orange and silver swim shirt with his swim goggles around his neck. Philip was wearing a loose, light-blue mesh shirt over his swimsuit and had his fedora. Jackie wore a large straw hat. Lucy hadn't changed into swim wear, intending to find a quiet spot in the shade to read while we went swimming.

The Sholem Aquatic Center lies in the middle of a green park surrounded by subdivisions and adjacent to a middle school. We got the last parking place and walked along the black chain-link fence to the entrance in a low, cement building with a blue metal roof. As we approached, the woman in the ticket office slid open the window and took our money. A man sitting at the entrance marked the receipt with a blue highliter and let us pass. We walked through a dark hallway, past the changing rooms and other doors, emerging into the busy pool area with the bright sunlight reflecting off the cement deck.

The place was packed. People of all ages, sizes, shapes, and colors were running this way and that, splashing and playing and shouting. There were small children, young women wearing bikinis, skinny boys, parents, grand parents and everything else. Life guards, wearing red swimsuits, were positioned strategically around the pools and would occasionally whistle to redirect children not following the rules.

The aquatic center is divided into regions each with a catchy name: the Puddle is a small pool for toddlers, the Oasis is a large, irregularly-shaped pool with regions for all ages, and, at the other side of the center, are the Plunge, with water slides, and the Lazy River. We took Lucy to the Meadow, a grassy area near the pools, and found her a shady place to read, then slathered on a copious amounts of sun screen before setting out. Philip and Jackie headed directly to the Lazy River while Daniel and I went to the Oasis.

The Oasis has a shallow end, like a beach, with water lapping at the shore. Jets of water spray up in one area. Another place has a post with branches, like a tree, each with a bucket that periodically fills and dumps water. In another spot, a mushoom-shaped structure produces a circular sheet of water that children can duck under and splash in. Little children were running and splashing here with their parents

At the deeper end, older children would hang on the walls, climb out, and jump in, in a never ending cycle of laughter and splashing. Most of the people in the deep end were in small groups of two or three, sorted by gender. Young women, talking constantly, and young men swimming, yelling, jumping, and rough-housing. Floats sectioned off a few lanes where a handful of people, mostly grownups, were swimming laps. Daniel and I floated in the cool water for a while before going to join Phil and Jackie in the Lazy River.

The Lazy River is a water-filled channel 10 to 15 feet wide formed into a irregularly circular loop with underwater jets creating a current that carries swimmers, using inflatable rings, around and around. One of the water slides, an open slide, enters the Lazy River near the middle. Two entrances to the Lazy River open on either side of the Waterfalls -- a region where jets of water soak anyone floating through on their inflatable rings. Jackie particularly liked the waterfalls and would exit on one side and run back to the other to float through the waterfalls again and again like a little kid.

After an hour in the sun, I was ready to just sit in the shade. Little by little, everyone trickled back and joined Lucy in the Meadow, except for Daniel who is indefatiguable when it comes to aquatic sports. Finally, we dragged him out, dried him off, and headed for the car.