Eastern Adventure

CATCHING UP: Apologies for the tardiness, but the last couple of days have involved hundreds of miles and many sights.

Sunday and Monday were filled with an Idaho field trip for us. 

We left Seattle at 5 a.m. and drove along Interstate 90 for over 5 hours. We only stopped briefly for a couple of minutes, including one break to behold the viewpoint hear the Wild Horses monument in George, Washington.

Formally titled "Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies," the 200-foot line of life-size charging horse symbolically re-creates the Great Spirit turning loose a herd of wild horses above the Columbia River's Wanapum Lake. They are the creation of David Govedare of Chewelah, Washington, 

The horses are up on a hill, overlooking the Columbia River basin. Annabelle checked out the view there, too (that's the photo at the top of this post).

Then, it was on to our destination, the Silverwood Theme Park just north of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

We arrived at about 10:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before the gates opened at 11. Perfect timing! For the next seven-plus hours we walked all over the sprawling amusement and water park.

The very first thing CJ and Chistian did was hop on a big rollercoaster.

I'll let CJ tell you a bit more about our visit. ... 

Recently, my family went to the Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho, near the city of Coeur d'Alene. According to Wikipedia, Silverwood is the largest theme and water park in the American Northwest on 413-acre (1,670,000 m2) and boasting more than 65 rides, slides, shows and attractions.

During our visit to Silverwood, we went on many of those rides, some of which I will talk about here:

If I am remembering the first ride I went on was the Corkscrew. the Corkscrew's look was very distinctive, with a black-and-red color scheme in contrast to most of the rest of the park. According to Silverwood's website, originally opening at Knott's Berry Farm in 1975, the Corkscrew was the first modern inverting coaster. Riders on the Corkscrew would be turned upside down 2 times, which was apparently mandatory while building the Corkscrew.

One ride I really enjoyed at Silverwood was the Log Flume ride, where you could ride in a fake log across an artificial lake. One special part of the ride was that somebody outside the ride could place a quarter in a machine, and if they pressed a button on the machine after doing so, water would shoot out at certain parts of the ride. We ended up getting soaked this way.

A ride called Panic Plunge also comes to mind any time I think about Silverwood. Panic Plunge is a typical plummet ride where the ride raises you for a while, and then drops you very quickly. I noticed that while plummeting on Panic Plunge, I felt like I lost control over my body. I ended up regretting my decision to go on Panic Plunge, mostly because I became disoriented after riding it.

Overall, I enjoyed my experience at Silverwood. I look forward to visiting Silverwood again, and I would recommend a visit.

There was big fun to be had on the Bumper Boats ...

And there were multiple rollercoasters, including a mammoth wood-framed one.

We only played one midway game. Of course, it involved shooting clowns.

We spent about three hours in the amusement park side of the park, and three more hours on the water park side.

I'll let Annabelle share some about her visit. ...

Silverwood theme park is located in northern Idaho.  It’s a very fun park and it even has a large water park! The first thing we went to was the Country Carnival area. I didn’t go on any roller coasters, since the tame one I saw didn’t have any riders. I did watch CJ go on the Corkscrew though, and that roller coaster went in 2 loops! I did go on the scrambler, though. It was one of the fastest scramblers I’ve ever been on! After that we headed towards Roller Coaster Alley. There were rides there like the Aftershock, which dad went on. He said it was really scary! After riding roller coasters and having some snacks, we headed to the water park!

The first thing you see in the water park is Polliwog Park, which is a huge structure with lots of slides and water guns! You can run around in the shallow part or even get dunked by the huge bucket of water! They also had a wave pool with giant waves! My favorite part was the big tubing slide called Avalanche Mountain. The rafts were big enough for all 3 for us to go and it was fast! I also went on things like Velocity Peak, where you can go as fast as 55 miles an hour in only your swimsuit, and the new Riptide Racer, where you have a blue foam “toboggan” and you are timed as you zip down the slide! It was really fun going to Silverwood and I can’t wait to go again!

 Polliwog Park is pictured above.

Below are the big wading pools. The north one was closed when we were there, bummer ...

 but the south one was lots of fun. The waves were pretty impressive (often twice the size shown here).

In the middle of the water park, there was a "Lazy River" for floating down.

Much less sedate was this wild slide, Velocity Peak.Here's CJ smiling, happy to be alive afterward. 

Annabelle went down the dark blue, enclosed slide. Christian chose the same one as CJ.

At the north end of the water park were a pair of rides groups of people ride inflatables down. Christian and the kids went on Avalanche Mountain. It was about a half hour wait for a minute of fun, but they enjoyed it.

The forecast for the Sunday we visited was for 76 degrees or so. It would up being in the high 80s. It was a long, hot day, but loads of fun.

HOLY MOSES: We began heading back toward Washington at about 9 a.m. on Monday. I mentioned to the family that Id' heard there was a neat-o municipal water park in Moses Lake, Washington, and suggested we check it out.

Boy, were they glad we did!  Surf 'n Slide is big fun - and super inexpensive! The Moses Lake park was just $10 for adults, and free, $8 or $9 for kids, depending on their age. By contrast, general admission for Silverwood was $48. Sure, Surf 'n Slide isn't anywhere near as big and fantastic as Silverwood, but it's super affordable and definitely worth a visit!

The biggest draw there was the surf area, where water rapidly rushed up an incline, allowing for some fun knee and surf board action.

Annabelle looked downright graceful at times.

 Other times, not so much, ha ha.

The video tells the story best. 

But CJ, Annabelle and Christian all got the hang of it pretty quickly.