An Amusement park job and modern America

Beer, burgers & pizza in the park

We are workcamping at an amusement park in Iowa, we get a spot for our RV (with utilities) and we are paid minimum wage for the hours we work. Not a bad deal as far as I'm concerned. The work is not hard, the people I work with are great and dealing with the 'public' in this setting is a lot of fun.
I'm scheduled for 4-6 hours, six days a week. Tuesday is my scheduled day off and during the week we get free access to the park.

Last Tuesday we did 'exciting' rides but it wasn't really warm out so we skipped the 'water' rides. Today we went to do the 'water' rides, local schools are not out yet so the crowds are down, it was good fun and it was educational.

Educational? The first roller coaster tossed my neck around a whole lot more than was comfortable, that was the only roller coaster.  Next we went on a ride that goes around and around really really fast, good fun for the first 30 seconds... I tried the 'Space Shot', it shoots you up 200 ft in 3 seconds then drops you. Air pressure powers it, it's quiet, sudden & very surprising.  My body was not as happy with the thrills as it was 30 years ago.

Today we rode all the regular rides that use the water, it's not raining and was well on the way into the 80's, good weather for water rides.  I'd worked at two of them and I was waiting for my chance to try them, we did & it was good fun. Not great just good, I must be getting older...
Then we went to the water park side of the amusement park & gave everything a try. That was good fun too.

We got wet & the sun felt good. As I was sitting there in the sun thinking about my day I had two thoughts. The first was how good the sun felt and the second was how tired I was after walking up all the different stairs so I could slide down the other side.  That second thought led to another thought, maybe we should have taken up workcamping when I was younger, like when I was 30?
When I was younger having an amusement park at my disposal for the summer would have been unbelievable, having a water park as part of it was something I would never have dreamed of.  An amusement park that sells beer, has a swim up full bar and I can just go to anytime when I'm not working would have been a fun job.

It was maybe 5 minutes later when I realized one of the realities of modern American life. If I'd done that I wouldn't have the medical coverage I have today. Medical insurance is important if something goes wrong. My last job had several people working there who were older than I am & were set up much better financially, they hung in with that job just for the medical coverage, 65 years old and Medicare was the goal.

A swim up bar with more than just beer

Not just any old beer either....

This bucket fills & as it gets closer to full water starts running out a pipe and over a small water wheel, that causes a bell to ring as the wheel turns, when it gets enough water in it the bucket tips over, hits a roof and slashed to the ground! Then it starts all over. The water is cold....

There is a merry-go-round, it's like you remember it.

This part of the RV park is all workcampers but it's a big RV park

The Big Wheel & The Space Shot as seen from the RV park

There be dragons!

The kids water slide & play area

Lazy River, it's heated & has a slow current, those are cabanas for those hot days

The log ride

The roller coaster, hard on my neck.

Still fun but ...

Notice those legs sticking straight up in the air? An older gentleman told me this was the best ride in the park. I'm still thinking about it. 

A water slide, with the water splashing over me I couldn't see but it was fast!

This one uses a float

This is 4 different water slides, it was good. Pitch dark in the middle & fast

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