(You know, I think 'Demolition Man' was one of the most prophetic movies I have ever seen.)
Anyways...
Another Thursday, another bat in the living room.
I was thinking about swimming last night. I have not been swimming in a while, excluding my tub or my parents pool. I have not been to the springs in a while. There is nothing more refreshing than a spring swim. It's no wonder the Spanish came here looking for the fountain of youth. After a two-year boat ride coming out of a spring all clean and refreshed I am sure they felt rejuvenated.
My favorite springs in the area are Rock Springs, followed by weikava springs and then blue springs. The problem with all of them is that they get horrible crowded this time of year. I have been to rock springs a few times during the cooler months in the middle of the week, early in the morning. It's great. The place is deserted. You float around in paradise for an hour or so until you are interrupted by shrieking and pounding feet as the bus from the state school for the mentally retarded dumps off its human load. Suddenly paradise is turned into a squirming mass of human bodies.
Same problem lies at Weikava. Weikava actually gets shut down several times a year because the sheer number of little kids peeing in the water raises the bacteria level to unsafe levels. They then have to close the park and wait for the springs to 'flush' it out again. Blue springs is a little better because the landscape is a little more 'wild'. To get to the source of the springs you have to crawl upstream across sea grass, old logs, and the occasional manatee. Thus only the sturdier segment of the population makes the trek... the little kids are left behind splashing around the dock, except for the occasional parent who puts a toddler in a little raft and drags them upstream.
When I was at I-drive last week, I passed by wet and wild. I used to love wet and wild. When I was in middle school my mom would drop me and a couple friends off for their 'summer nights' event, where you could run around and ride the rides at night. Slide down tubes on soggy tattered mats and jaunt down giant wedgie-producing slices. These days I simply could not imagine putting a toe into that water. Particularly horrifying to me is the 'lazy river'; which is jam-packed with third world refugees. (What? Why do I need to shower? I be going to wet n wild!) Also, whenever you see a child under five screeching in the water, he is going to pee. That is just a fact. I don't blame the kid. I don't blame the parents. However I have come to the decision that no matter how much chlorine you dump into pee-water, it's still pee water. The idea of squeezing myself between two fat Brazilian guys and looking at their hair and gold chains as I float around in a circle of pee-water simply does not appeal to me any more.
So, I think I'll squeeze in some spring-time this weekend. I have a disposable underwater camera I never got around to using. I think I'll take a few pics.
2026 Update
I set the time machine to July 2006, where Ed rates springs by their pee-to-child ratio. Splendid entertainment.
Ah, 2006: when the great fear wasn't 'does this spring have Wi-Fi' but 'has the bus from the state school arrived.' You carried a disposable underwater camera like a pilgrim, and the hardest decision was whether to crawl over sea grass and one manatee to escape the little kids. Two decades later, that same trip requires a reservation app, a QR code for a water-safety waiver, and a waterproof phone pouch, because that little camera is now your entire personality. The springs are just as crowded, but the bus has been replaced by rental scooters and influencer photo crews. Water parks have dynamic pricing and timed slides; you cannot even enter the lazy river without a wristband that checks your heart rate. Chlorine has not improved. Children have not stopped peeing. But instead of one soggy mat, you get a six-dollar souvenir mat with a QR code on it. Ed wanted to fit in a swim. I would like to fit some sense into 2006.
“2006 Ed, what happened to that disposable underwater camera? Did it remain at the bottom of Rock Springs with the sea grass and manatees, or did it become twenty developed photos of blurry water and nothing else?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well Beelzebubba, you hit the nail on the head, I took that thing to Rock Springs the very next weekend, all set to capture the majesty of the springs and maybe a manatee if I got lucky. I got about six shots of what I thought was crystal-clear underwater wonder, then I bumped my hand on a log, the camera slipped, and I damn near joined it in the muck. Ended up with twenty-four photos of blurry green water, one accidental thumb, and a close-up of my own foot. The sea grass and manatees remain immortalized only in my memory. So the camera survived, but the photos, they were a soggy tribute to my own clumsiness. I figure that's about right. Take that, photography.
