The Last Hurrah of the Girl Scouts

Hey folks.

As you know, Kris has been an active Girl Scout troop leader since Abby first joined up while in Kindergarten, back in 2015.  Her and Courtney have co-led Abby and Ella's troop for over five years, and in that time - as you've seen repeatedly through dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of blog posts over the years - they've taken their troop out for all kinds of crap.  Nature walks, camps, community service projects, pinewood derbies, volunteering, cookie selling, you name it.

Well, all good things must come to an end, and with Abby and Ella graduating from 5th grade and Chestnut Hill Elementary this year, and neither having any interest in continuing with scouts into Middle School, Kris and Courtney decided to throw in the towel.  The Troop's bank account, however, still had quite a lot of money left in it, so they brainstormed ways for them to use up the remaining funds in a legit manner.

Welcome to scuz-ass Mount Pleasant. . .

And that's how we ended up at the Soaring Eagle Waterpark this weekend.

The Girl Scout troop fund paid for five hotel rooms, waterpark admission for the troop's five families that chose to go on this last hurrah (the waterpark itself is located on the first floor of a hotel), and a huge pizza dinner for all those in attendance.  For Kris and Courtney, it was probably bittersweet, but - for Yours Truly - it was cause for celebration:  I, personally, have never been a huge fan of scouts and all the crap we had to juggle around while the girls were involved with it.  This chapter of our lives coming to a close was welcome news, indeed.

So here you go, folks:  the water-soaked death rattle of the Girl Scouts.

Behold. . .

Gonna start things off with the obligatory hotel room shots.  These are mandatory, folks.

These rooms were actually kinda gross.  Stains on the carpeting, walls, etc. - but at least the beds were clean (I hope.)

I rolled in later, having driven over separately with Erik (Courtney's husband) once we got out of work - Kris, Courtney and the girls drove over around lunchtime, and were in the water park by the time we checked in to our rooms.

Golf course view from our room window.

One of the big attractions at this indoor waterpark is the Flow Rider.  More or less a surfing/body-boarding simulator.  The girls - especially Abby and Ella - spent a ridiculous amount of time on it.

Ella and Abby talk shop.

Abby, back at it once again. . .

After watching the girls surf for a bit, Erik and I had to make a run back up to the rooms to grab a few things.  Along the way, we spotted this fricking thing:  this place even had an animatronic in the hotel lobby that, during certain times of the day, would start telling Native American folk tales to anyone who cared to stop and listen.  You know, stories with like animals and shit in them.  You'll see the old broad in action farther on down in this blog post, we'll come back to this in a sec.

Back down in the waterpark. . .

The girls basically spent a few hours exclusively on this part of the waterpark.  Whatever floats their boat.

Twelve pizzas vanquished.  As soon as the food came in (we placed the order through the hotel restaurant), we hunted down the other troop families and everyone fell to eating as quickly as possible in order to get back in the water.  What was awesome was this place served beer and mixed drinks as well (reasonably priced, if you can believe that), so Erik and I basically bounced back and forth between our group's established headquarters (shown here), the Flow Rider, and the bar all evening. 

The Soaring Eagle Waterpark, from the vantage of our group's table cluster.

Following dinner and a couple drinks, Kris, Alayna and I hit up the joint's gigantic hot tub (Abby being still occupied with surfing.)

This place is like the Walmart of water parks.  The clientele was exactly what you would expect to find in a trashy Walmart.

Had to snap a picture of Erik's swimming trunks to text to the rest of the dads in our social group.  I knew they'd appreciate it.

Courtney and Kris grab a couple of fruity, foo-foo drinks from the bar.

Girl Scouts, waiting patiently for their turn - once again - for some surfing.

Sounds pretty safe to me. . .

Oh, it's as easy as that?

Needless to say, this wasn't a skill that came naturally to the Cannonball. . .

She still had fun with it, though.

Aaaaaaaand Abby had yet another turn.  Couldn't tear herself away from this thing.

Watching a movie and having a nightcap at the end of the night.  Once the womenfolk were back up from the waterpark, we retired to our own rooms and crashed around 11pm.

The next morning, Erik and I set out for some decent coffee (the hotel didn't have any good coffee in the rooms, nor in the continental breakfast setup.)  We made a brief run to a gas station up the road and were able to find something halfway palatable.

Here you go, folks.  This creepy-ass Chippewa chick, talkin' about animals again.

The waterpark didn't open back up again until noon, so in the meantime Kris, Courtney and the girls hit up a small auxiliary pool on the first floor of the hotel to kill some time.  Unfortunately, every other patron of the hotel had the exact same idea, so the small pool area was packed.  Erik and I were not having any part of this, so we told our families that we were gonna head out for a bit. . . and so we ended up at General Jim's, in my hometown of Clare.

This place hasn't changed much at all.  Definitely Trump Country.

After browsing around military surplus for a bit, we decided to stop off at the ol' Doherty for some Bloody Marys. . .

Not the best Bloody Mary I've ever had, but it was decent.

After wrapping up at the Doherty, we headed back to Mount Pleasant.  Before returning to the Soaring Eagle, however, we decided to duck into the Green Spot for a beer (by now it was after noon so we deemed it okay to do so.)  Coincidentally, my old high school friend, Jessica, is a server at this place, so I got to catch up with her a bit while she was going back and forth between tables.  Small world, indeed.

After a random sorta-visit with Jessica (and a couple beers), we finally returned to the waterpark, where everything was basically just as it had been the day before.  Wives sitting around the table gossiping, girls off surfing on the Flow Rider.  Same ol', same ol'.

The girls had gone down the park's waterslides a couple times the previous day, but it couldn't compare to the surfing, I guess.  As we started to wind down the second day of splashing about this place, the kids decided to hit up these slides a few more times.

(I apologize for the lack of our kids for the first bit of this video - I had to guess when our kids were coming down, as I couldn't see the beginning of the slide, and consequently couldn't tell when they started.)

All in all, not a bad waterpark. . . for mid-Michigan.  A bit on the trashy side, but maybe I'm just a snob when it comes to this kinda thing, having been well-versed in real waterparks down in Florida (Aquatica, Typhoon Lagoon, etc.)  I doubt I'll ever come back to this place, but at least the kids had fun.

Thanks, Chippewas.  Thanks a lot.

- Brian