There used to be a water park in my hometown that had a bunch of slides and a wave pool. I used to go there all the time as a kid, and even went there as a senior on a trip. I went to birthday parties there, sometimes.

It closed in 2020 and never reopened because they had apparently been avoiding paying bills for years. It wasn’t just the pandemic. It was visible from the freeway, so I watched it slowly being demolished over the next couple years any time I passed by.

I haven’t found a water park that really compared to it yet. Most are either too small or part of a larger theme park, which is fine. It just seemed like the fact that it exclusively was a water park allowed it to focus more on the atmosphere and types of slides it had.

  • BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social
    13·
    1 year ago

    You can’t step in the same river twice. ~ Heraclitus.

    I’m just glad I realized this early as I did. I made sure to cherish each place, knowing full well it would eventually disappear.

    • Hanhula@kbin.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      I feel that. Went back home for a visit last year and so much has changed. It’s bizarre, feeling disconnected from where I live and yet like home has moved on without me.

  • Yewb@kbin.social
    11·
    1 year ago

    The Texas from my childhood, most Texans dont give a shit about identity politics, you would think there are a bunch of brown hating cowboys - that was not the case Texas was incredibly tolerant.

  • Tigbitties@kbin.social
    7·
    1 year ago

    There was a forest we use to play in behind my friends house . It had a few giant trees. They must have been hundreds of years old. One was 3-4 meters in diameter. We used to climb them using the coarse bark up to the branches and see how high we could go. You could see the whole neighborhood. Wonderful memories.

    That whole area is filled with Mcmansions now.

    • brownpaperbag@kbin.social
      4·
      1 year ago

      We had an incredible ravine that got destroyed for a highway that I’ve driven many times as an adult. It’s a rare trip that I don’t think back to the beautiful place where I spent countless hours of summer breaks being wild and free.

    • irinotecan@kbin.social
      3·
      1 year ago

      This happened on a much smaller scale to me. My grandparent’s home was demolished to make way for a McMansion after they sold it. They were the only people to ever live in that beautiful house.

    • laivindil@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Same where I grew up, worst part was the developer bought it like two decades ago, sat on it for five ish years (logged a single dirt road), then put in paved roads/utilities and a demo house for another five with empty lots cut, and the last ten or so have built maybe four more. So it’s not even utilized, they cut down huge swaths of forest and it’s just sat most of the time.

    • limelight79@lemm.ee
      1·
      1 year ago

      There are some woods in our neighborhood, which aren’t owned by anyone in the neighborhood. The risk is obvious. I would like us to buy those woods so we control them, but every time I say it, they start screeching, “I don’t want an HOA!” Neither do I, I have two RVs sitting in my driveway. But I would like some limited partnership simply for owning those woods…

  • Turkey_Titty_city@kbin.social
    4·
    1 year ago

    being able to go out alone in the woods at the age of 8-12 or just go down to your friends house. or have any unsupervised time alone time.

  • metaStatic@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    I graduated high school in 2000. we where the last free range generation, the next year high spiked security fences started going up around schools.

    I couldn’t imagine going to school behind a locked gate, man fuck that shit.

  • Rainbows@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    Those wooden playgrounds. There was one I went to all the time as a kid. It was so much fun and had all kinds of rooms and nooks and crannies to play in. It got replaced with a generic plastic playground at some point, I think for safety reasons.

  • jaredwhite@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    This may be a weird answer, but I played Celtic music with the family band as a teenager and our favorite place to play was Santa Rosa Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, CA. Great vibe, good food—I of course was too young to partake of the brew 😉—but it was a lot of fun and we had a crowd of regulars who’d come to see us perform every time. When they eventually closed down, it felt like the end of an era…

  • AttackBunny@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’m in San Diego, and grew up here. Open space. Yeah, we are really good about keeping some open spaces (typically national/state parks) but just random open space is all filled with urban sprawl now.

    When I was a kid, there was an area of San Diego county that was a GIANT piece of private property. There was one dirt road that ran through it (likely an easement/eminent domain thing), connecting the east and west part of the county.

    Decades ago, when I was in high school, we used to party, and do all kinds of dumb shit out there. It had been the same for so long that my parents also partied back there too many, many decades before. I know there were at least 2 cars buried out there. I had gotten a car stuck in the mud once myself (had to dig it out in the dark. that was super fun) It’s all but gone now.

    • DoucheAsaurus@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Where was this? We always used to go out to Proctor Valley to drink and “look for the Proctor Valley Monster” lol.

      • AttackBunny@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        Black Mountain/Black Mountain Road. All of that shit along the 56, and west to where Carmel Valley used to end on the east side, up to the backside/south side of fairbanks, and down to mira mesa used to be open space/rolling hills.

        this is a little before my time, but this is what I remember it looking like int he 80s/90s <- this was what black mountain rd used to look like, if it hadn’t rained in like a month. If there was any rain it was a rutted out mess.

        what it looks like now

        • DoucheAsaurus@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Ah yes, definitely familiar with that area. The sprawl that sprouted up in San Diego just over the last 20 years is crazy, not to mention the last 30-40. I’ve legit heard my older family members say “I remember when this was all orange groves” hahaha

          • AttackBunny@kbin.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            My childhood home was built before the 5 freeway. My mother remembers playing in the trench they dug. The road to that house was dirt until well after I learned to drive. I’m old, but not THAT old. At least it doesn’t feel that way.

            And yeah it was all groves, open space, and horse farms. I remember when Carmel valley didn’t really exist.

  • Sassygumsquatch@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    There was a roller skating rink called “Sweet Feet” that I had two birthday parties in but it collapsed sometime in middle school and was never rebuilt.