splash park

one of the great ways to beat the heat in denver while simultaneously getting tapped into the community's latest in communicable disease is the local splash park. free of fare, the kids can spend the day wading in pools of runoff from other children's un-immunized and germ ridden bodies, ingesting large quantities of chlorinated water laced with all manner of bodily excrement. this particular locale has the added advantage of sitting right under the approach corridor at buckley air force base, so the festivities are always intermingled with eli's calling out of whatever esoteric military aircraft types happen to be flying in. in fact, when we were talking about splash parks, i once told eli about the crown fountain- an artistically designed waterfall and fountain structure located at millennium park in chicago. so intrigued was he to the point that he temporarily lost all interest in our local splash park, desiring to do all his splash parking in chicago. realizing what i had done, i explained to eli how far away it was, how onerous it was to get there. he persisted. i told him it would likely be a long time before we were able to make it to chicago. he was not deterred. finally, i mentioned to him that there was no airport next to millennium park. without stopping to consider the matter, he immediately responded, "dad, let's not go there. dad, let's never go there, okay?"